Institutional food.
These are words that can make almost anyone cringe, from the people who make it to the people who eat it.
These word can also conjure up some of the worst gastronomic memories from childhood, memories that come with names like turkey tetrazini, gravy train and salmon loaf.
By adulthood, most people have had enough institutional food in school, on airplane and, for a few, in prison, to think there is nothing good about cheeseburgers or pizza cooked in batches large enough to feed hundreds or thousands at a time. But in a number of publicly owned dining rooms in Island County, the reviews given to mass-produced breakfasts, lunches and dinners are better than most might think — good enough in some cases to make institutional food the preferred lunchtime meal. On top of that, it’s cheap, running anywhere between $1 and $5.
As for the dining experience, it all depends on where you eat.
Students getting what they want
Every day, thousands of islanders eat institutional food at least once a day. These people are dining at school, at Whidbey General Hospital, in the island’s senior citizen centers and even at the Island County Jail. While jail food doesn’t always get the best reviews — since the facility recently cut back on condiments and spices to cut costs — other public dining facilities have long since learned to keep customer satisfaction as much in mind as the bottom line.
Dee Dee Curtis, head cook for the South Whidbey school district, sums up her responsibility to her customers in one sentence.
“We give them what they want,” she said after a recent meal at South Whidbey High School.
A walk through the lunch lines at the school proves this to be true. Gone are the days when students grabbed fiberglass trays and walked through a line to have reconstituted mashed potatoes or beef stroganoff slapped into individual compartments. These days, students have a choice. On a given day, they can choose burritos, pizza, cheese and chicken burgers, salad bar, the soup of the day, or a trip through a la carte line. There are individual yogurt packages, pastries, cold sandwiches and fruit.
The setup, which gets mobbed during the school’s short lunch period, serves about 170 meals a day, according to Curtis. That’s not as many as she would like to see — more would help the school’s lunch program break even every day — but she’s happy to see the kids eating.
Out in the school’s commons area, hot lunches bring mixed reactions. Tasty beef, bean and cheese burritos served fresh in a big, red flour tortilla — among other offerings — attract some students to pay the $2 price for lunch. But for others, no school-made lunch is good enough.
“Eeew,” said South Whidbey student Sarah Jovich at a recent lunch as she considered the hot lunch program.
She is not alone. About half the students eating lunch at the school do so from brown bags.
At other schools, however, lunch sells better. At Langley Middle School, up to 285 students opt for the school lunch line daily. The variety in the schools cramped kitchen is somewhat less than at the high school, but that is not a deterrent. Even school Principal Greg Willis said he tries to make it to lunch about three times a week at LMS’s cafeteria.
His favorite? “Oh, you’ve got to try the double cheeseburger,” he said.
Hospital, senior center open to public
Elsewhere, institutional food seems even less institutional. Whidbey General Hospital’s West Wind Cafe actually draws a crowd most days. Offering both a daily special and a la carte service, the cafe is not just a place for hospital patients and their visitors to eat. It draws hospital employees, Island County employees, and a number of other people who live and work in Coupeville.
Unlike the school cafeterias, the West Wind Cafe is open to all members of the public. Operated by food service giant Sodex’ho, it serves about 400 meals a day between breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hospital food service director Diane Takasugi said she figures her staff is doing something right to draw numbers like this. The cafe menu is listed on the hospital’s Web site daily and staff members regularly get compliments on the food.
Meatloaf day at the cafe usually draws a big crowd. Takasugi said the mashed potatoes are real, as are the onions in the meatloaf — facts not lost on diners. And the dining room is nice, with big windows and small tables — just like any other restaurant.
But there is a bigger inducement to eat lunch at the hospital: Price.
“Where else can you get a meal for about $4?” said diner and hospital nurse Elaine Carty on a recent meatloaf day.
One other place, actually. At the Bayview Senior Center, a similarly enthusiastic crowd of diners show up every week day but Thursday for lunch, and pay a similar price. For those who can pay, the expected “donation” for lunch is $4, though some choose to pay less and others more.
In the center’s commercial kitchen, chicken — according to diners — is the specialty. But no one turns up their noses at a lunch of spaghetti, steamed mixed vegetables, berry jello salad with beet shavings and oranges, and pistachio pudding.
Open to all seniors of all economic backgrounds, the lunches serve up both food and stories. At a recent meal, 97-year-old Al Couch talked about being on the maiden voyage of the ferry Kalakala. Margaret Sehovic, the director of the Senior Center, said she wishes more seniors (meaning anyone over the age of 50) would give the lunches a try.
If there is any complaint at either the West Wind Cafe or the Senior Center, it is that the meals don’t have enough salt. That is by design, since nutritionists at both dining rooms are trying to be sensitive to health conditions. Diners are welcome to add salt on their own.
Jail offers free meals while inmates pay
There are only two ways to get a meal in the Island County Jail. A person can either be invited by Island County Sheriff Mike Hawley, or get arrested.
Serving 30 to 60 meals a day, depending on the number of inmates, the jail’s food service has a lot of expectations to meet. Recently contracted out to a private company at a $30,000-a-year savings, the jail’s food service is spartan. Inmates don’t get much more than 2,000 calories a day — the amount recommended by the government — and they don’t get much choice.
Meals are standardized and served to inmates in their cells. There is no catsup or mustard, and there’s definitely no coffee. Jane Warner, who runs the jail’s sparkling-clean kitchen along with the several inmates who work as cooks and dishwashers, said cost is as much a factor as nutrition.
Anyone invited to lunch by the sheriff should not be concerned about the price. Staff eat for $1.25 a meal. Hawley said he tries to get to the jail for lunch once a week.
But even after a meal of jail jambalaya, mixed veggies, cornbread, a cookie, and juice, he said he has to go out for a snack.
“I can’t imagine that they’re full,” he said of the inmates.
Still, the meals are excellent compared to the alternative. Hawley said prisoners who misbehave lose meal privileges and receive only “NutriLoaf,” a tasteless, vitamin-fortified concoction that will keep a person going, though unpleasantly. The only way to get it is to be a bad prisoner; Hawley refuses to serve it to his lunch guests, even if it is requested. That is even a bit too institutional for him.
