The French serve up one helluva school lunch

[marmar]

from Grist:


The French serve up one helluva school lunch

by Tom Laskawy
20 Oct 2010 5:00 AM


As an antidote to the American hostility toward school lunch Ed Bruske recently ran across in the Washington Post's comment section, here's a wonderful CBS News report about the French school lunch program.

Watch: http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-10-19-the-french-serve-up-one-helluva-school-lunch/


What's notable about it isn't the high-tech food safety practices (they keep samples of all food for two months in case of outbreaks!) or the menus themselves (five-course meals every day!) or the secret to getting kids to eat their veggies (deep fry them!), but rather the fact that the program is entirely uncontroversial. It makes you realize that the fight over school lunch in this country isn't so much about feeding kids as it is about the proper role of government, attitudes toward race and class, and the studied indifference Americans seem to have about food.

The French program is also "universal": virtually all students eat the school-provided lunch, and families pay "what they can afford." I would argue that it's the universal nature of the benefit that keeps the quality high, since everyone has a stake in the program: it's not perceived as just serving the poor or -- even worse it seems, if Post comments are representative -- minorities.

Something in the French segment that stood out for me was the bit on Dominique Valadier, the former restaurant-chef-turned-school-lunch-cook, who works for a school system in the south of France, and serves what is, by any standard, gourmet food. Watching the person in charge of feeding school kids shopping the wholesale markets looking for the best ingredients, going on about using local products and making everything by hand is nothing short of amazing. And unlike the Paris schools that spend a much-quoted $5 per meal, Valadier works his magic for about $2.50 per meal -- not so far off what's spent per meal in the U.S. Michelle Obama has been pushing restaurant chefs here in the US to get involved in school lunch -- but this takes it to a whole other level.

While France clearly represents the gold standard for school lunch programs, it's unclear whether we can manage even the mildest reforms here at home. Yet it's still worth watching this report if only to remember that there is nothing "natural," "rational," or "inevitable" about our school lunch program. We made it the way it is. And just as the French school lunch program says something important about the French national character, so too does our failing system say something important about ours.

http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-10-19-the-french-serve-up-one-helluva-school-lunch/

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Darn, you made me hungry with that picture.

[HopeHoops]

2. What, no Freedom Fries? WTF is up with that? I don't even see any ketchup (Reagan's vegetable).

Where's the pizza? Where's the greasy burnt burger on a soggy bun with individually wrapped Kraft American cheese food product singles? Where are the Freedom Fries and ketchup? Where's the six-days-worth-of-saturated-fat dessert? Where's the Coke can?

What the HELL kind of lunch is THAT? Oh, wait - I KNOW - A COMMIE SOCIALIST ANTI-AMERICAN LUNCH!!! AAAAARRRRGGHHH!!!!

Damn if I don't feel like running out and voting for a teabagger now.

[shraby]

3. When I was in school, the lunches were 25 cents per day,

and were made with government surplus. We got all kinds of meals, each with a main course, bread and butter, milk, a desert and seconds if you ate the first plate full and enough was prepared. The older boys who could eat a ton of food, usually got seconds, a several slices of bread and butter, any containers of milk that other kids who didn't like milk gave them..all for a quarter. Depending on who was doing the cooking that day, the meals were very good.
Some kids helped out in the kitchen and in return got free or reduced price meals for some, the 25 cents was a whole lot of money. What happened to the government surplus going to help provide school lunches anyway?

[frazzled]

4. What's even more important to remember about French school lunches

is the time they give kids to eat them. Lunch time, if I recall correctly, is at least a full hour. My kids were given, tops, 20 minutes to eat. In elementary school it was often less: they'd scuttle the kids out to the playground after 10 or 15 minutes.

Food has always been serious business in France. And lunch is typically a main meal of the day. So that's a cultural difference. We tend to grab a sandwich or eat a yoghurt at our desks. Besides making lunch more appealing and nutritious here, we also need to lengthen the time kids are given to eat it, and to encourage conversation, manners, digestion, rest. Tall order!

[marmar]

8. Yep. In high school, our lunch periods were 20 minutes......

I remember my first trip to Paris, and the adjustment to the fact that people take their time at lunch and the waiter was not going to come to the table with the bill after a half-hour or so.

[LiberalEsto]

5. I wonder what wines they serve. nt

[earth mom]

6. Wow, that's a lot of food, I expected something smaller. Go France!

:woohoo:

[1monster]

7. Wow! Those kids eat very well. You should see the crap! that school kids get

in this country every day.

Fried chicken nuggets, pizza, and fries are the norm. Even the "regular" school lunch is not much better nutritionally (sometimes it is the same as the a la carte). There used to be salads available in the lunch lines, not any more.

None of it looks in anyway appetizing.

I stopped having my son eat the school lunch when he left elementary school (where they seem to put a bit more effort in to lunch) and packed his lunch for him. And I never eat the school lunch.

[Dappleganger]

9. Thanks for making me hungry with that pic!

But seriously, how does a parent go about pushing for change in a school district for healthier meals (I would love to see less fried/cheesy foods on the menu)?

[Divernan]

10. Air France served up excellent menus in coach class.

This was back around 2006 - things may have changed. But back then, the evening meal was a choice of delicious entrees, with hot rolls and choice of wines. Breakfast was fruit juice, choice of hot dishes, fresh, hot croissants and a glass of champagne. And the travel attendants serving the meals were courteous and cheerful.

And when I was bicycling through France, I could stop anywhere - tiny auberge, roadside caravan, etc., and get fantastic food.

[asdjrocky]

11. We have been so lied to and fooled by our politicians and our media.

We are not exceptional. We're not even on par.

[Marengo]

12. The French military ration, the RCIR, is awesome too

I've had a few over the years. Restaurant quality food. Expensive and hard to obtain in the US though.

[MilesColtrane]

13. Over here the kids get, "More testicles means more iron."

[marmar]

14. LOL.....

Probably not far from the reality.

[ipaint]

15. Kids in France learn early on the importance of taking care of each other.

Unlike here where the lesson is survival of the fittest (wealthiest).