Yo waiter, table for 2,700.
We all probably remember something about school lunches. Perhaps it was decadently sticky cinnamon rolls or limp, blanched broccoli.
Whether you thought school lunches were sumptuous or sadistic, you may not have understood the complex machine behind feeding nutritious meals for 2,700 hungry mouths every day on less than what most people spend on their morning coffee.
In Newton, this grand task falls to Newton schools director of food service Mandy Zinn, who happens to be an alumna of Newton High School.
Zinn’s job starts with a little science. Health regulations require students eating school lunches receive meals that meet daily nutrition guidelines.
To create meals that meet these requirements, Zinn uses a computer program.
If the meals she has entered don’t satisfy nutrition requirements for the week, the program will not let her finish the menu.
She usually creates menus a month at a time.
Zinn said she visits school occasionally to get feedback from the kids about what they like.
“We keep track of what are our biggest sellers and what kids like, and we try to put that on the menu as much as possible,” she said.
Some of those include pizza, hamburgers, chicken nuggets, and mac and cheese.
And most students eat those lunches.
The high school, which has open lunch for all students except freshmen, serves lunches daily to about 700 to 800 of the 950 students at the high school.
Mammoth
proportions
As you enter Newton food service’s main kitchen at Newton High School, you walk into a picture that is part factory and part grandma’s kitchen. You can smell the aroma of fresh baking bread, hear the clanking of pots and pans, and sense the sizzle of grilled cheese on the braiser.
If you thought doubling a recipe made your mind swirl, how about adjusting that 2,000 times. Cooks at the kitchen use charts to determine the amount of ingredients for each recipe.
On this particular day, the school’s bakery department was making 26 pans of rolls. Each pan holds 96 rolls for a grand total of 2,496 rolls.
The bakery also makes its own French bread — about 50 loaves — and cinnamon rolls.
To make these mammoth proportions about 100 pounds of flour is required.
Supersized recipes call for supersized equipment. The kitchen’s mixer, which is about the size of a wash machine, holds about half the batch — 50 pounds of flour at a time. Pop them in the oven for two hours at 140 degrees. Viola, lunch for an army.
Similarly gigantic broilers, cook pots, as well as nine ovens, are the workhorses of the kitchen.
You would need a pretty large pot if you were going to cook 16 gallons of green beans — 40 gallons of veggies in total every day.
Let us not forget those mashed potatoes. There is a mixer for them, too.
Unlike those old Army films, there is not a cook in the back room peeling piles of potatoes with a hand peeler.
The school uses canned potatoes — 17 cans, containing three gallons each.
Are you hunger yet?
How about tacos? The kitchen staff cook the meat in three large braisers. Imagine a gigantic skillet. Each braiser holds about 23 gallons.
It takes five braisers full of ground hamburger to feed Newton’s school kids.
For spaghetti, it takes about the same amount of meat plus about six gallons of sauce.
Does the kitchen every burn something? Well, yes, Zinn said, but only in small batches, as not all the food is cooked at once, Zinn said.
The lunch ladies
The district employees 55 people — 16 of them at the main kitchen at the high school.
The kitchen staff also are not what you might expect — not blue-haired ladies in hair nets.
Many are mothers with children in school who like the school kitchen hours, which allow them to be at home for their children when they get out of school in the afternoon.
The typical day starts at 6:15 a.m. and ends at 1:15 p.m.
Monica Schale, baker, said some days are challenging, but the rewards and time with her kids are worth it. She has four children, ages 19, 17, 14 and 11. She has been working at the school since last year.
“The job is very flexible,” she said. “It is conducive to being a mom. I have always cooked as a mom and for church, and I had a day care for 10 years. I baked for the day-care kids.”
Schale said the children seem appreciative of the kitchen staff’s work. The high school students recently made a banner for the staff in recognition of Food Service Week.
Kandy Fischer, 44, said she finds feeding the kids a fulfilling career. This is her 12th year at the district.
“I love making food,” she said. “I love seeing the kids eat.”
Dollars and cents
Zinn said she likes the flexibility in her job and loves working with children.
But she has challenges.
“The regulations are constantly changing,” Zinn said. “We have to be open to new guidelines, such as bringing in more whole grain and increasing fiber. Our guidelines increase often.”
Doing the math might be one of the most difficult parts of Zinn’s job. She must deliver the school meals for $2.95 for adults, $2.30 for high-school students, $2.25 for middle-school students and $2.15 for elementary students.
Zinn uses a pie cart to determine how much she has to spend on each meal.
A recommendation might be for 50 cents for a meat portion or 10 cents for a bread serving.
Try to do that at your local grocery store.
The district saves some by buying bulk from food wholesaler Ben E. Keith of Oklahoma City or Sysco. A semi-truck full of food pulls up at the school about 5 or 6 a.m. to unload the day’s order.
From the beginning of the day to the end of the day, you can’t forget the dishes.
The school district uses plastic silverware because the metal silverware kept getting thrown away.
The district buys dish soap by the five-gallon bucket, and it is fed through an automated dishwasher system that is 15-feet long and the size of some classrooms at NHS.
