School Food (was Re: [Sca-cooks] OOP request: Jellied salad???) still OOP

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

>
> On a related note, I have found in my many school/college/other
> experiences that no matter the quality or nutritional value of
> 'institutional food', it will be railed and lambasted as evil and the
> cause of the Kennedy Assassination and the decline of men's hats since
> the 60's.  Food Service is a favored target regardless of it's quality .
> . . not everyone, but many.  There are most definitely horror stories,
> to be sure, but they cannot be the norm, or else they would not be so
> fun to tell.
>
> pacem et bonum,
> niccolo difrancesco

Not true, not true. The people who were the food services director and the
dining hall manager when I started college were both replaced by the end
of my second year--the cook caught the dh mgr taking a flat of eggs from
the cooler on Hallowe'en night without having paid for them first, and
since the cook loathed and despised said mgr, this was a perfect
opportunity to get him fired. Anyway. That was the era of pizza soup
(which is exactly what you think it is, cut up pizza in broth),
"Calico Skillet", and several meals each week where the options were
hamburgers, hot dogs, or macaroni and cheese. And the "potato-cheese soup"
which was the leftover baked potatoes from the night before, cut up into
the leftover cheese sauce from the night before, undiluted.

The new regime actually really cared about their work--the food services
manager held a Q&A session with us about what we liked and didn't like,
what we wanted to see, etc. We asked for dolphin-safe tuna on the salad
bar, voila! We had PC tuna on the salad bar. We asked for more non-meat
protein options, bam! Hardboiled eggs, soy cheese, regular cheese, and
tofu appeared on the salad bar, and the vegetarian entrees started to look
and taste like actual food, rather than sculpting medium. We loved Steve,
the fs mgr. We loved the dh mgr too, but I don't remember his name. We ate
very well my last two years of college. Far too well--I'm still trying to
lose those added pounds.

Margaret