Anonymous wrote:Major problems with our school lunch program:
1) the ridiculous notion that the money for it needs to cover all the operating and staffing costs too vs just the food for kids getting free lunch.
2) the shift away from staffing so that all the food has to be microwaveable rather than actually cooked fresh. My grandma was a lunch lady and they used to actually cook the food in the kitchen way back when.
+1
When I was growing up (was in public elementary school in the 80s), we had lunch ladies and they actually cooked the food in the kitchen. Typical big batches of foods one would serve to a crowd and holds well (spaghetti and salad, ground beef tacos, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, casserole etc…sometimes whole turkeys etc with fixings). Some “kid favorites” (grilled cheese with tomato soup or that sheet pan style homemade pizza cut up in squares) also. Nearly everything was served hot/made as fresh as possible (that day) and was very much edible (even if it was not something I personally cared for).
My own kids would be so much happier with the above, and would choose to eat hot lunch most days. But at our school it is all premade microwaved “kid food” that tastes bad. Dried out burgers and chicken sandwiches with soggy French fries etc. The burgers are also weird (the kids claim the meat is something weird). Nachos with neon orange cheese and so on.
I don’t know why they got away from in house kitchens but it was not a good move at all.