Mojo pork, black beans and rice. Southern-style breakfast. Vegetarian pizza and V8 Splash. School cafeteria meals are getting tastier, healthier and more high-tech.
By EVE LEBERSON
Published May 4, 2003
[Times photo: Mike Pease]
Maritere Mayoral, right, gives students a hand as they make their way through the cafeteria line during lunch at McKitrick Elementary.
Chase Fox, left, Shania Little and Meredith Mack, right, make juice selections during a recent lunch at McKitrick Elementary.
Karla Gonzalez hurries through McKitrick's kitchen with a hot tray of hash browns for students' meals.
LUTZ - Renee Moye doesn't like to be rushed in the morning, not with 200 hungry mouths to feed.
But this particular morning is a Wednesday, which means Moye will be in the McKitrick Elementary school kitchen a bit earlier than her usual 6 a.m. to begin preparation for the week's busiest breakfast crowd.
Moye and her staff are serving sausage links, chicken patties, raisin bran, fresh fruit and chilled juice. But the one meal on today's menu no one can resist is the scrambled eggs, hot biscuits and creamy grits.
"It's the most popular breakfast for both adults and students," says Moye, the school's nutrition service manager. She serves more helpings of the "Southern-style breakfast" than any other morning meal. Even vice principal Margaret Eddings and her office staff order take out on Wednesday mornings, after the students are served.
The mad rush begins at 7:15 a.m. and doesn't stop until the last bus arrives just before 8 a.m. when classes begin. The 45 minutes in between are a race to provide a continuously stocked counter.
"Hot! Hot!" alerts Moye, carrying a fresh tray of biscuits from the kitchen to the service line. When the eggs are low, Moye comes with a fresh batch. The apple juice is nearly gone and Moye returns to reload the tray. "I make sure the food's being cooked and it's always hot and fresh," she says.
It's always a busy kitchen at McKitrick. And breakfast is pie for the seven cafeteria employees.
Later they face a 700-plus lunch crowd.
Those who haven't stepped inside a school in a decade are likely unaware of the new school cafeteria.
Convenience foods, such as frozen packaged eggs, have made cooking more efficient. Payment also has gone high-tech, with students pre-paying into accounts that can be accessed on a touch screen. Disposable cardboard plates and plastic "sporks" have taken the place of those old plastic trays and water-stained silverware. It's more sanitary and cost-effective that way, Moye says.
And, responding to concerns about the high fat and salt content in school food, the Hillsborough school district is creating a health food menu that will be available, a la carte, in the next school year.
It's a far cry from the "mystery meat" that so many adults remember from their school days. Even the employees line up at lunch. "I love school spaghetti," says Xiomara Riverol, a secretary in McKitrick's main office.
Fourth-grade teacher Laura Dunn likes the school food so much, she takes home leftovers of mojo pork, a Spanish pork served with black beans and rice. "They cook better than I do," she says.
The menu, which includes subsidized meals and alternative foods sold a la carte, makes Dominos pizza, Otis Spunkmeyer cookies, ice cream bars and sandwich wraps available to the children. Sometimes the biggest challenge is stopping the children from over-indulging.
"I won't let the kids just come up and keep buying junk after junk after junk," Moye says. "If I've seen them up there once or twice, then I'll say, "Honey, I don't think mom wants you to eat any more of this stuff.' And usually they'll accept that without any problems."
Computers are indispensable in that effort. The touch-screen cash register can alert staff, at a parent's request, to what foods their child may not purchase, such as pizza or pork.
School officials are looking forward to the coming year, when they plan to roll out the "healthy meal express." Offerings will include fresh fruit, mixed vegetables, vegetarian pizza and V8 Splash beverages. Some will be sold with the standard $1.50 lunch, others a la carte.
"It's going to be 100 percent healthy items," says Mary Kate Harrison, general manager of student nutrition services for Hillsborough County. Whether the kids will eat it is a different story. But the option is there "It's a challenge because we want to make (the food) nutritionally balanced but at the same time, we want kids to eat it," she says.
Next year also will bring new payment options. Parents will be able to pay for their children's meals online or by phone instead of cash or check.
"I think when we give the parents more choices, (they'll) be happier," Harrison says.
Still, there will be children who forget their money. But cafeteria workers will continue to feed them, Moye says. "We never refuse a child a meal."
