{"id":229,"date":"2013-11-05T20:16:19","date_gmt":"2013-11-05T19:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hilarymoriarty.com\/blog\/?p=229"},"modified":"2013-11-05T20:16:19","modified_gmt":"2013-11-05T19:16:19","slug":"making-a-meal-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/j-moriarty.co.uk\/hilarymoriarty\/?p=229","title":{"rendered":"Making a meal of it"},"content":{"rendered":"

School food has changed beyond recognition. And that\u2019s something which benefits everyone.
\n
\nYou don\u2019t have to be Einstein to know the value of food. It is, as you might say, elementary. It is particularly elementary in confined spaces, such as hospitals and perhaps cruise ships, where meals are a welcome and interesting diversion in days which can be rigorously similar to each other and the speculation about what is to come on the next plate to appear can be an entertainment in itself.
\nThe diversion of the meal can be a perk of a long-haul flight, but is often a disappointment and even cause for grump. On a recent Premium Economy return from Hong Kong, I commented that the menu coming back to England was exactly the same as the one going out two days previously. The steward smiled and said, \u201cOh no, we don\u2019t do that.\u201d Pause for internal debate over wisdom of drawing him down by his lapels and saying, \u201cI was on the flight, Sunshine, and I do not think you were. So when I say it was the same meal, does it not occur to you that I might have personal experience of this menu, and you do not, and even if it was not supposed to be the same menu, it was, and the right answer when I remarked upon it was, \u2018I\u2019m so sorry madam, I am sure the typhoon affected our schedules \u2013 but can I get you anything else instead?\u2019 Does that not occur to you, hmm?\u201d
\nYou\u2019d be surprised how fast the rant can run through your head while you decide, on balance, to smile through gritted teeth and eat the fish, which may have been as much travelled as I was.
\nFew spaces are as confined and monotonous, and therefore crying out for great food, or perhaps even champagne, as planes when the flight hours are in double figures. But there are no doubt some students who would say schools are just as bad for creating a captive audience who will really look forward to mealtimes, particularly boarding schools. In a day school, you only have to deal with school lunch, and can escape to home cooking at the end of the day. But in a boarding school, you are at the mercy of the chef and his team seven days a week, three times a day. Food had better be good. Ideally, and today likely to be demanded by students, parents and the Head, it had better be great.
\nMost boarding schools are a step up from where they were 10 years ago simply because they have a chef at all. The days of \u2018Cook\u2019, with few professional qualifications and perhaps a background in catering for the Forces in various field kitchens under gunfire in distant parts of the globe, seem to be long gone. Jamie Oliver, of course, had a lot to do with banging on the kitchen doors of day schools up and down the land and demanding better of those who toiled in them and those who paid them to do it. You could hardly call it cooking if you opened a packet and bunged something battered, frozen and unidentifiable in the oven or heated up whatever was in a tin and called it veg. Jamie\u2019s programmes were a revelation to the TV-viewing world, which was surprising given that most of the population would have suffered such meals in their own school days and really thought little of it.
\nIn my own day, school food was horrible. Simply horrible. I think the experience of it reduced my appetite for ever, and I have never weighed more than eight and a half stone. Bringing sandwiches to school was forbidden because of the mess the renegade non-school-dinner people would pile up in the precious classrooms. So there was no choice, short of moving house. Dreadful dinners it was. Then a girl called Eirlys arrived \u2013 big, brassy and wholly unafraid of anyone in authority. She announced that she was bringing sandwiches, and there would not be a problem in the classroom, OK? Authority bowed to the natural force of this large young woman\u2019s appetite and intentions, and by Christmas half the class was having a jolly lunchtime in the classroom. Not so much a school dinner, more a bit of a party. Suddenly it was cool to be one of \u2018us\u2019, instead of one of \u2018them\u2019.
\nIt has been reported that when the Lib Dems suggested free school meals for all children in the first three years of primary school, avoiding an \u2018us and them\u2019 culture was one of their aims. Press reports speak of their wanting \u201ca one-school culture where all teachers and children eat together\u201d. A second newspaper was quick to predict small children having to queue for longer and eat in shifts \u2013 bad news \u2013 and whatever was said about a nutritious hot meal being the passport to better school performance and a healthy ever after life, there were deep suspicions about political parties horse-trading lollipops during the conference season.
\nIn fact the statistics for packed lunches are pretty horrendous, with (allegedly) only 1% of them meeting the nutritional requirements which apply to all school dinners. Deep personal experience plus the sight of some of Jamie\u2019s early school dinners leaves me pleased that there are nutritional requirements. The pilot studies from 2009 to 2011 giving free school lunches to primary children in Durham and in Newham, East London and then assessing how health and academic performance were affected are quite convincing. Hungry children cannot concentrate, fall behind in lessons, may become disruptive. Removing the stigma of free school meals by giving everyone a meal causes a welcome social levelling in the dining room, so maybe they do become hubs of community living, in which conversation and table manners also thrive.
\nWhat I can say is that in the boarding schools I visit, the food is always amazingly good: big, light dining rooms, often carpeted so you are not deafened by the scrape of chairs as well as the buzz of conversation. Culinary choices to bewilder the newcomer and prevent anyone muttering on Friday, \u201cFish and chips again …\u201d Actually, there will almost certainly be fish for Friday, but it will come with tartare sauce and chips in dinky baskets (when I was at school I used to take a bottle of vinegar to school every Friday \u2013 the chips were inedible without it, and no, they did not supply vinegar). But there will always, now, be a vegetarian option, and a salad bar, and fresh bread or rolls, and soup if you want it, and a range of desserts, including fresh fruit. And notice is taken of dietary requirements, and food with nuts is labelled and \u2013 well, school dining rooms have begun to feel like Aladdin\u2019s cave, full of wondrous things to tempt the palate and feed the soul as well as the frame.
\nArmies may march on their stomachs, but pupils thrive and grow on theirs. And so do schools. Once parents have checked out the exam results, they will certainly ask about the food, and may even ask to try it for themselves. A great lunch can clinch the choice of school. In fact, it\u2019s not just a meal; it\u2019s marketing.
\nHilary Moriarty is National Director of the Boarding Schools\u2019 Association.\u00a0 This post originally appeared at http:\/\/ie-today.co.uk\/News\/making_a_meal_of_it<\/a>
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