Hugh Reilly: Dinner lady locked into winning recipe

IT IS fashionable to unflatteringly compare schools meals to the fare on offer in a prison canteen, though, as far as I am aware, no child has ever broken a tooth on a hacksaw hidden inside an apple crumble.

For detractors, “Can’t cook, won’t cook” sounds like the job remit for aspiring dinner ladies; indeed, to those with particularly vivid memories of school canteen fine dining, the notion of sitting down to a slap-up meal prepared by Doctor Crippen holds less apprehension.

Kids everywhere should raise their glasses of UHT milk and salute dinner wumman, Carol McMath, who has been shortlisted in the BBC Food and Farming Awards for cooking tasty and healthy food for the young residents of the secure unit at Kibble Education and Care Centre in Paisley. To be fair, serving meals in such an environment has its undoubted advantages. For one thing, Carol enjoys something of a monopoly in the provision of food. Unlike insecure school units, the target consumers are not at liberty to toddle off at lunchtime and buy junk food at Greggs. And bringing in a packed lunch presents an inherent difficulty.

Ms McMath works with the in-house nurse to ensure youngsters gorge on an adequate calorific and nutritional intake. In mainstream schools, as a counterweight to the calories piled on by herds of obese kids grazing on crisps, chocolate and fizzy drinks, weight balance could be maintained by giving the children peach flavoured water and a straw. The healthy eating champion also encourages them to eat food that does not exacerbate behavioural problems. I assume, therefore, that chips are off the menu, given the average teenager’s penchant for launching chips purely and simply to ascertain the aerodynamic properties of the humble sliced potato.

Carol McMath certainly has her eyes on the pies, sorry, prize, and, if successful, school dinners will receive the type of positive endorsement not seen since Oliver Twist stuck out his greedy tongue, licked the delft pattern off his bowl and asked for more.

As a school kid, I found the ambience of eating in the dinner hall somewhat diminished by children of large families hovering over one’s shoulder, the impoverished vultures ready to swoop should one carelessly pause the rapidity of one’s knife and fork movements. Going from table to table, these canteen camels ate as if it were their only meal of the day – with hindsight, it probably was. How they survived the six-week summer caused untold conjecture.

When I started teaching in 1980, I patronised the dinner hall, in no small part due to the fact that glorious food was heaped on Sir’s plate by comely dinner ladies. However, under competitive tendering, councils had to become more accountable and, for the first time, profit and loss entered the equation. I recall my first meal under the new austerity regime. An impassive woman doled out my fish and chips. The size and golden hue of the fish lent credence to my rapidly forming view that Glasgow city council had won this pelagic creature after scoring more than 60 on a carnival dartboard. “Is this fish dead?” I inquired. “Whit?” she responded. “It looks as if it has eaten all my chips!” I said. The kitchen operative articulated the revised distribution of foodstuffs policy: “Everybody gets wan scoop o’ chips.”

Glasgow’s in-house Catering Direct morphed into The Fuel Zone (or Foul Zone as its reputation grew). Aiming to capture children’s addiction to fast food, baseball cap-wearing workers sold burgers and chips to the masses. To be fair, there was a healthy option counter where a forlorn dinner lady stood as busy as a pork scratchings vendor at a Bar Mitzvah. Those behind the new enterprise had come up with a pioneering model of economics. The standard baguette was almost halved in size but, in a cunning move, the price was increased. If this thinking-outside-the-lunchbox was designed to shorten dinner queues, it was a huge success.

Carol McMath has proved it is possible to provide decent meals within budget to young people. I just hope the parents of some of the secure unit inmates are not passing stodgy food through the railings.