Chef In The Cafeteria

School cafeteria food has always had a bad rap. The food was always borderline nutritional along with being questionable - mystery meat anyone? However one chef is changing that. Will there be healthy A worthy meals? Yes!

Amy Thomas, a well known food writer and author of Brooklyn In Love : A Delicious Memoir of Food Family, and Finding Yourself and Paris, My Sweet: A Year In The City of Light (and Dark Chocolate) interviewed Dan Giusti, the head chef of the internationally known and acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant Noma. Now his audience isn't the international glam crowd, but high school students in the Bronx. He felt a growing need to make an impact on people's lives rather than their palates. He started a company Brigaid which aims to overhaul school meals by putting professional chefs in cafeterias and replacing processed foods with wholesome cooking. Before landing in one of the city's busiest boroughs, Chef Giusti changed the way New London Connecticut students ate. He introduced them to kale Caesar salad and homemade hummus. Even though it was popular ,peanut butter and jelly was taken off the menu.This was done in order for the kids to try different dishes.It was added back on with sunflower seed butter instead.


Now he's cooking and expanding the palate of Bronx students. There have been small victories, namely in getting the kids to eat fresh fruit.The apples that were given out to meet the US Department of Agriculture were routinely tossed. Now the cafeteria staff dices up strawberries, watermelon and pineapples along with other fruits every morning. It may cost a little more to serve these but they're  worth it . Chef Giusto had to beg the federal government for the extra. Each lunch costs $3.44 where the fruit is an added cost. With the addition of staff and food, the prices is a little more than a dollar. There are streamlined models in which cafeteria staff can have a fifty-five day training program where schools are taught how to set up their own kitchens and handle food safely. They also are taught a repertoire of scratch recipes that have to pass muster with The National School Lunch Program. Chef Giusti hopes that the next generation of school chefs come from culinary schools and not just from the restaurant and food service industries.

Will this new wave in cafeteria food catch on? Hopefully it will. There 's a generation of kids who do want to try something new and something healthy. A school cafeteria might just provide them with those.