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

[Laura L]

> 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
>
>
That sounds about like my experience! Well, we went from a *super* local
catering company at school to some hotel catering company that imported most
of its folks from "up north" somewhere. My first meal back at college with
this catering company was: hot dogs, no buns, navy beans cooked to mush with
very little salt, baked potatoes, no butter or sour cream for them, and
rolls that were moldy on the bottom.

I and several of my friends were up in arms about this (I was a sophomore,
they were juniors and seniors). By the end of the following week, they had
made yummy grilled portabella mushroom sandwiches, mustard rosemary pork
loin, banana's Foster, fresh bread, and all kinds of other yummy stuff. At
dinner we *always* had 1 *good* vegetarian dish, a roasted or grilled meat,
lots of veggies, cooked appropriately,  a "special" desert (cobbler, bread
pudding, etc), cake or pies, cookies, and ice cream. Breakfast and lunch
were good, too... lunch was various hot sandwiches, and make your own deli
sandwiches, and an excellent salad bar at lunch and dinner.

this was also a small, private woman's college in Virginia where we paid as
much for room and board as for tuition.

I didn't eat school food in grade school or high school... it was always
nasty and cost more than I was willing to pay for nasty food. I packed my
lunch from 3rd grade on, and my mom packed it for me before that.

--Irmgart