by Jay HOLLEY

I have fond mem­o­ries of el­e­men­tary school hot lunch­es: flop­py rec­tan­gu­lar piz­zas that were noth­ing like Piz­za Hut’s fare but tasty in their own spe­cif­ic way, greasy taco sal­ad — Sal­is­bury steak, even — I liked them all. I re­mem­ber be­ing in fifth grade and rail­ing about the food’s qual­i­ty with my table­mates. Our ac­cu­sa­tions were emp­ty; every week­day we de­voured the feast. We sped through the fried chick­en or ‘ri­bette’ or kiel­basa, then slurped up mashed pota­toes or corn or li­ma beans, en­joy­ing every bite. When I de­cid­ed to re­view the cafe­te­ria at Hill­crest El­e­men­tary, my rec­ol­lec­tions of school lunch­es past were so over­whelm­ing­ly pos­i­tive I thought it wise to bring a pair of ob­jec­tive ex­perts to bal­ance my pos­si­ble adu­la­tion. I en­list­ed Ed, a de­greed Food Sci­en­tist, for nu­tri­tion­al analy­sis, and Bryant, a trained de­sign­er, for his thoughts on the cafe­te­ri­a’s décor.

I called the school’s of­fice to sched­ule our meal:

“To­mor­row’d be fine, or any day,” the of­fice ad­min­is­tra­tor told me, “you don’t have to call ahead — we al­ways or­der extra.”

“Oh, per­fect,” I replied — I was ex­pect­ing more Has­sle — “so ei­ther to­mor­row or Wednes­day would work?”

“We’ll have enough food any day of the week,” the ad­min­is­tra­tor in­formed me be­fore adding, “but if I may make a sug­ges­tion, I’d avoid Wednesday.”

“Wednes­day?” I quizzed.

“Uh huh. Wednes­day’s chili day.”

“Wednes­day’s no good — good to know. To­mor­row’s okay, though?”

I could hear the rustling of pa­per. She was dou­ble-check­ing the menu. “To­mor­row’s good, to­mor­row’s chick­en nuggets. They’re fine. And al­so you could have a cheese­burg­er or peanut but­ter and jel­ly sand­wich, and we have our sal­ad bar every day.”

“Nuggets sound great,” I told her, “we’ll see you to­mor­row, then.”

“Glad I could help.”

Dur­ing my for­ma­tive years at Tope­ka, Kansas’ now-de­mol­ished Potwin El­e­men­tary, sixth graders en­list­ed for two-week stints in the lunch­room gen­er­al in­fantry. It was an ex­cuse to skip Spelling lessons, earn a meal with an ex­tra desert on the state’s tab, and clean ta­bles with Lupé, the jan­i­tor, so every­one jumped at the of­fer; shov­el­ing green beans on­to class­mates’ plates beat I be­fore E hands-down. In ret­ro­spect the prac­tice of hir­ing 6^th grade lunch help at sub-min­i­mum wages does seem pe­cu­liar, but still I was sur­prised to find Hill­crest El­e­men­tary’s lunch line strict­ly Self-Ser­vice; even the en­trée choice was cus­tomer-man­aged. The cook sim­ply main­tained the end­less sup­ply of nugget bas­kets and added let­tuce to the sal­ad bar. Gone are the days when a hair-net­ted lunch la­dy dished every protest­ing child a la­dle of Brus­sel spouts, which in­vari­ably found their way to the trash bar­rel in a milk car­ton coffin.

Starch

The in­stant mashed pota­toes I’d ide­al­ized in mem­o­ry were, as they’d prob­a­bly al­ways been, bland and un­rec­og­niz­able as the pride of Ida­ho. The gravy I’d pumped on­to them from a plas­tic dis­penser did lit­tle to im­prove the fla­vor. I could­n’t tell what stock the gravy was de­signed to em­u­late, which was more troubling.

Veg­etable and Bread

The sal­ad — dress­ing-drenched ice­berg — was up to Mc­Don­ald’s stan­dard. I was un­able to de­ter­mine what fla­vor the dress­ing was; it was a white goo, dis­pensed from a pump that drew from a gal­lon jug. Most of the chil­dren skipped the sal­ad . The roll was bleached, re­fined, and fla­vor­less, but for $2.50 I was­n’t ex­pect­ing fine greens and oven-baked twelve-grain wheat. Pack­ets of bar­beque sauce were pro­vid­ed for the chick­en nuggets, but sad­ly the cafe­te­ria did­n’t stock a sup­ply of but­ter, bread­’s nat­ur­al complement.

En­trée

Food Sci­en­tist Ed tore in­to a nugget while I shook my choco­late milk. He pick­et at it for half a minute be­fore look­ing up, drop­ping his jaw for ef­fect, and stat­ing with sur­prise, “This is re­al chick­en. No ex­ten­ders at all.” He shook his head in disbelief.

Bryant beat me to the ques­tion: “What were you ex­pect­ing, Ed, plastic?”

Ed loves to talk about ar­ti­fi­cial in­gre­di­ents and elab­o­rate chem­i­cal process­es. He spent two years as a soy al­chemist, cre­at­ing soy sausage, soy chick­en, soy cars — soy every­thing. “You would­n’t be­lieve what they put in these things. They can blend in soy, tex­tured whey pro­tein, car­rageen, and oth­er con­coc­tions you don’t want to imagine.”

“But this re­al?” I con­firmed, nugget in hand.

“I don’t have a mi­cro­scope, but I’m fair­ly con­fi­dent of my pre­lim­i­nary analysis.”

I bit off half a nugget and chewed. It tast­ed like re­al poul­try, I’ll grant — much more chicken‑y than fast food bird — but it was bare­ly above room tem­per­a­ture. I tore open a pack­et of bar­be­cue sauce and squeezed a dab on­to a sec­ond nugget; I pre­ferred the taste, though it fur­ther low­ered the nugget’s per­ceived temperature.

Ameni­ties

The cut­lery, a plas­tic spork, was san­i­tary and ef­fec­tive, though slight­ly de­mean­ing: even kinder­garten­ers are ca­pa­ble of ma­nip­u­lat­ing a knife, fork and spoon. Could it be an an­ti-ter­ror­ism mea­sure? Doubt­ful, I think; like­ly it’s a cost-cut­ting measure.

I asked de­sign-con­sul­tant Bryant what he thought of the fa­cil­i­ties. There was­n’t much he could say. It’s a gym­na­si­um-cafe­te­ria hy­brid, not a Frank Gehry mu­se­um: functional.

Con­clu­sion

At $2.50, the Hill­crest El­e­men­tary School Cafe­te­ri­a’s price is right, but it’s hard to re­serve a ta­ble un­less you’re par­ent, teacher, or wav­ing press credentials.

Val­ue-seek­ers will find more for their mon­ey with the fried rice at Jade Gar­den, which comes with a crab ran­goon and is ac­com­pa­nied by tra­di­tion­al table­ware. Those seek­ing a close ap­prox­i­ma­tion of school lunch vit­tles, on­ly tasti­er, are ad­vised to sam­ple the week­ly Fri­day Fried Chick­en Buf­fet at the Pink Flamin­go Club. While the Flamin­go’s meal is high-val­ue and All-You-Can-Eat, it must be not­ed that it is sev­er­al dol­lars more cost­ly than the El­e­men­tary School al­ter­na­tive ($7 plus gra­tu­ity). The Flamin­go is less Fam­i­ly-Friend­ly (some par­ents will ob­ject to the dancers), but the staff does­n’t rush you to eat and urge you keep your voice low, so over­all it scores points on the cafe­te­ria hot lunch.

Un­less you’re a Hill­crest stu­dent, there’s lit­tle rea­son to choose the cafe­te­ria over oth­er low-cost lunch­es. Adults of large ap­petite would prob­a­bly find the el­e­men­tary school cafe­te­ri­a’s por­tions dis­ap­point­ing, while sev­er­al of the six­ty-pound waifs sit­ting at the next ta­ble seemed sat­is­fied with a lunch con­sist­ing on­ly of a small bas­ket of nuggets. The por­tions seem ap­pro­pri­ate for the tar­get mar­ket, while the gen­er­al pub­lic would be bet­ter served at Jade Gar­den or the Pink Flamingo.

En­joy your culi­nary ig­no­rance while you can, kids. One day you will miss it.

Food: */****

Ser­vice: n/a

Dé­cor: */****

Cost: $2.50 prix fixe, gra­tu­ity: n/a

Over­all val­ue: *1/2/****

Filed under Food on September 6th, 2004

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