The Best of the Bad: Institutional Food "Highlights"

[Chris Amirault]

I run a school, and we have our school meals catered by a good company. Still and all, it's institutional food, not the sort of thing I'd make for myself at home at night.

But I have a favorite, and it's on for today: meatball sandwich. The bread is just ok, and I wish the meatballs were a bit more tender, but the sauce has that over-reduced tomato-i-ness that I really like.

I can doll up just about anything with sriracha or homemade habañero sauce, and you probably can too. So what's your favorite, unadorned institutional meal at work or school?

[HungryChris]

There was a time when we had no cafeteria here at work and we were visited by a catering truck at breakfast and lunch. He had the usual items, but occasionally had an item he called 'Spicy Ranch Chicken'. It was a breaded chicken breast fillet in a crisp bun with a soft interior sauced with ranch dressing that had been spiced up with some kind of hot sauce. He built them to order. The combination was truly wonderful. I have twice attempted to duplicate it at home with mixed success.

[Chris Amirault]

At home you can't duplicate the "any port in a storm" mentality that institutional food creates: the tastiest condiment you'll ever have.

[HungryC]

The best institutional food item all over Louisiana: Monday's red beans & rice. Traditional slow cooked red beans still appear in school, workplace, & hospital cafeterias, and RB&R are reliably better than edible. It helps that beans are cheap, lend themselves to unattended cooking & a speck of smoked pork can flavor an entire pot of beans. All you need is a little hot sauce, and even school cafeterias usually have a couple kinds of hot sauce hanging around. A few drops of Crystal, and voila...

[kalypso]

Okay, I'll have to confess, I'm the Director of Food Service for a very large community college district (combined enrollment 100,000+). I operate 7 operations scattered over 3 campuses, not counting vending.

We do a pretty good job on a lot of things and some things we probably just shouldn't sell. The guilty pleasures in my operations are

Carne Asada Fries - seasoned twister fries (a guilty pleasure by all alone ) topped with canned cheese sauce, shredded cheese, carne asada, salsa quemada, pico de gallo, guacamole and sour cream.

Loaded Fries - fries, sour cream, shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, chopped green onions

House made rice krispie treats

House made hummus & pita

Oh...and bacon. We cook off cases and cases of bacon. I have unlimited access to bacon...not a good thing for me. I am so addicted to our rice krispie treats and bacon my production employees are trying to create a bacon rice krispie treat for me

My largest operation is also home to a San Diego City Schools high school. Their school lunches are delivered daily to our kitchen in a heated Cres-Cor for distribution later to their students. Problem is their students don't want the lunches (and some of them are pretty bleak). My employees often scavange the leftovers. Their favorits is, hands down, the spaghetti & meat sauce. I've tried it and it's probably the best thing they do. If you grew up eating school lunch in the 50s and 60s you'll recognize City Schools spaghetti & meat sauce.

[LizD518]

I confess, I also work for one of those huge, institutional food companies. Although I now work in an upscale museum account, I've done my time in corporate cafes was well.

We made some pretty good food in our cafes too. The deli and grill stations offered made to order items, including a menu of sandwiches and burger recipes that are similar to items found on a lot of quick service and casual restaurant chain menus. Soups were all homemade and entrees were made fresh daily, from real food, using institutional recipes usually. Our chef was CIA trained and turned out some good food, although his main job was really running the kitchen and seeing to the administrative duties, rather than actively cooking.

One of the things we had almost every day for breakfast was cheesy hash browns. For one hotel pan: a bag of frozen shredded potatoes (5#?), an equal amount of shredded cheddar, a quart of milk, some cayenne and salt & pepper. Toss together and top with some more cheddar, then bake until bubbly and browned. Sooo, so good. When I had to work the opening shift, this was often breakfast, along with some scrambled eggs from the grill station.

[Foodietopo]

I've been working in Japan for the last two years and I share the school lunch with my students on a daily basis.

I work in 5 schools, the central lunch center delivers lunch for 3 of them and the other 2 have their own kitchen on site.

Most of the food is made with local products. I was shocked by the high quality of the food.

The two schools with their own kitchen are preparing amazing food. There is only 50 students in each school, but the food is simply delicious.

My favorite is curry and rice, it's also the kids favorite.

My worse nightmare is natto and shishamon which is small whole fishes.

It's so different from anything I ever ate in Canada when I was an high school student.

[Rico]

I used to love the cafeteria pizza in elementary school. My mom would pack these fantastic fresh sandwiches, and I'd envy the kid who got tomato paste and fake cheese on white bread. Though from Chris's original post, it sounds like things have improved pretty significantly.

[Lilija]

When I lived on Guam, I'd go to the Navy base to do my shopping, and at the caf there, they served really outstanding food. Half of it seemed institutional, the usual cafeteria offerings like some sort of generic pasta or protein in gravy thing. But there was always some Filipino cuisine on hand, and I think the old ladies that ran the place made it from scratch. It was one of the best places around to get a huge takeout box of pancit or a giant plate of adobo. Even the lumpia were hand rolled. From a cafeteria!

[Special K]

I am so addicted to our rice krispie treats and bacon my production employees are trying to create a bacon rice krispie treat for me

Here you go: http://ridiculousfoodsociety.blogspot.com/2008/11/bacon-rice-krispies-treats.html

Enjoy!

[heidih]

When I was working at UCLA Medical Center in the late 80's I was addicted to their collard greens - pure comfort with some rice.

[kalypso]

I am so addicted to our rice krispie treats and bacon my production employees are trying to create a bacon rice krispie treat for me

Here you go: http://ridiculousfoodsociety.blogspot.com/2008/11/bacon-rice-krispies-treats.html

Enjoy!

Okay, you are now officially my hero SpecialK

[MaxH]

Thoughtful cooks make all the difference. We had a great one in silicon valley who knocked off outstanding comfort foods. When I asked if he used -----'s frozen meatballs like everyone else in local "foodservice," he was aghast. "Those things sit around on the truck all day and are often mushy when I see them -- then they get refrozen and sold to someone else."

Anecdote on effects of free choice: Long ago I worked on an air base while attending a large university. Both had similar, catered cafeterias. Both had disgruntled customers complaining about quality. Resident students were finding other ways to eat than the school cafeteria.

The two institutions responded very differently. The base fired its contractor and hired another, which was anxious to please and the food quality went way up. The school, in contrast, made its meal plans mandatory for many students, so they had to pay whether they ate there or not. You can guess for yourself whether quality improved.

[emilyr]

My dorm in college had pretty standard food, nothing too impressive, but on weekend mornings they set up a made-to-order omelet station. It was good enough to make college kids get up early enough on a Saturday or Sunday morning to stand in line and wait for eggs (the cute guy making them didn't hurt in the all girls' dorm ).

In high school, most students avoided the main lunch line, choosing the salad bar or french fries from the a la cart line, except on Chicken Patty Day. Yes, it was capitalized, and the morning announcements those days usually started out "Welcome to another day at MHS. It's Chicken Patty Day!" Frozen and preformed chicken patties, mashed potatoes (I think they were actually real potatoes, not from a box!), and bright yellow chicken gravy! I shudder a bit now thinking of it, but even the green beans they served with it were SO good. Probably enough salt in that meal to fill your daily recommended levels for a week, though.

[David A. Goldfarb]

When my wife was in the maternity ward to give birth to our son, we had a long, indeterminable wait before we could get a bed, and then after that we knew it might be a long time before she could eat again, so I went down to the cafeteria to find something substantial for her and there was this very large serving of oxtail stew probably made by the Filipino kitchen staff (and my wife is Filipina), and it was just the right thing.

[percival]

Hands down, elementary school fried chicken. Extra greasy, with a bread crumb crust designed purely to soak in as much of the oil as possible. Junior high was unmemorable. High school, I think they served the same fried chicken. And work? Fortune 500 company with no cafeteria. Everyone eats at the nearby Safeway. =/

(And the absolute worst? School pizza with that soggy, almost Play-Do like texture, with the purple tomato sauce, cheese closer to couch vinyl, and "pepperoni" bits... /shudder)