Published: October 16, 2009 02:55 pm      

Not your father’s cafeteria

School lunchrooms healthier, have greater variety

This is National Lunchroom Week, another opportunity for children to express their appreciation to the cooks and servers who provide them nutritious foodstuffs so they can grow up healthy, wealthy and wise.

Healthy, anyway.

These aren’t the school cafeterias of yesteryear, when the entree of the day might be thunderbird sandwiches — grilled plastic on white — or prunes over easy.

“School cafeteria food is better now,” said Cleburne High cafeteria manager Mary Lou Bingham. “You get more choices. Back then, there was no variety. Whatever they put on your plate, that’s what you ate. Now, kids can pick and choose.

“We have a lot of stations. We have a deli bar, Mexican bar, hot bar, burger bar, pizza bar and salad bar.”

Lunch at the high school is much like an assembly line.

“We start serving at 11 and finish at about 10 till 1. We serve about 800 full meals and a total of about 1,100 kids.”

It’s not as complicated as it sounds, Bingham said.

“They know what line they want to be in, and they know what they want to eat as soon as they get in line,” she said. “We never have to hurry them along. They have 30 minutes to eat. They’re in a hurry to get to the tables so they can talk to their friends.”

Misti Bingham, Mary Lou’s daughter, oversees the food court at TEAM school, where there are slightly fewer dining options.

“The lunch favorites are strombolli and spaghetti,” Misti Bingham said. “We use low-fat turkey ham and low-fat cheese. It tastes pretty good. You just have to follow the recipe to get the seasonings just right. The kids would love for me to have nachos every day. That’s one of the things they have to beg to get because of the fat content.”

High-fat content is a no-no with the federal food police, along with sodas and fried French fries.

“When we started baking the French fries at the beginning of the school year, we got complaints,” Mary Lou Bingham said. “The kids wanted to know what happened. I told them, ‘The government happened. That’s what happened.’ But they’ve gotten to where they eat the baked French fries, too.”

The favorite lunch entree at the high school is the old standby, chicken-fried steak.

“When we serve chicken-fried steak, I’ll have two lines for it,” Mary Lou Bingham said. “I’ve never run out of chicken-fried steak. I wouldn’t want to do that. I’ve run out of things like lasagna, but the kids have so many selections that no one ever goes hungry.”

The least favorite entree is fish, both Binghams said.

“I know it tastes good because I eat it,” Mary Lou Bingham said. “It could be that the kids haven’t developed a taste for it yet.”

“On fish day, I try to give them two choices,” Misti Bingham said. “I’ll also have grilled cheese sandwiches.”

The best way to judge the food? Ask the cooks. The taste tells.

“I tell the ladies, ‘If it’s not something you’d feed to your families, don’t feed it to these kids.’ I have a really good crew and a bunch of really good cooks,” Mary Lou Bingham said.

Misti Bingham said her favorite part of the job is dealing with the students.

“You learn a lot about behavior patterns from the kids,” she said. “It’s a respect thing. If you respect them, they’ll respect you. You learn what they like and don’t like. You learn their opinions, and some are very interesting.”

Misti Bingham is in her 16th year of CISD food service. Mary Lou Bingham has been cafeteria manager at CHS for 17 years.

Misti Bingham learned the ropes from her mom.

“I was in a work program when I was in high school, so I got out half a day,” she said. “If the cafeteria was shorthanded, guess who got volunteered to help? I liked it. When an opening came up at Irving Elementary a couple of years after I graduated, I went to work there. I’ve been at TEAM school two years.”

Mary Lou Bingham said she isn’t altogether sure what she taught her daughter.

“I think she learned more on her own,” she said with a grin. “I really don’t know. She may have taught me.”