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All praise to the lunch ladies

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Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#151

Post by gishh »

scrps wrote: post #81
somerandomqaguy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly easy. The US military (hell just about every army on the planet) spends a lot of money and effort into developing field rations that are palatable enough for infantry sections on the move to eat in it's entirety. I can't imagine developing it for far more numerous school children is going to be any easier.

faint sound of fading laughter from a US SSBN If you want a successful lunch program (and rations if you have a to-go bag) look no further than the US Navy's sub program. Given the environment and danger (and having a bunch of humans in close proximity, deep under the ocean, with nowhere to go, hangry, is not going to inspire unit cohesion) they get really, really good food. Which is probably not a bad thing to give…

The sub nukies I know would disagree with this. The few weeks before they would get back to port they just eat whatever they can find.

Storage is a big deal on a sub.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#152

Post by mythrwy »

When I was in elementary school in the early 1970s I went to a very rural school in a remote community in the Western USA that had 2 rooms, 3 grades for each room. The whole school might have had 40 or 50 kids tops. The building was built in the 1800s and even had the bell at the top.

Anyway it was the best lunch program ever. Everything was made from scratch and there was an old lady soup Nazi that ran the kitchen.

One of the things that made it really special is the older kids did all the work under the supervision of old battle axe soup nazi. You would have assigned days to work the cafeteria and wash dishes etc. And let me tell you, that lady made sure things were done to food safety standards and this was before corporeal punishment and grabbing a kid by the ear was prohibited.

Working the cafeteria was actually one of the most educational things I got from that school. I learned how to really wash dishes properly and fast and that lesson has served me well over the years.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#153

Post by jandrewrogers »

collingreen wrote: post #146
dreamcompiler wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG I ate an olive off a tree once in Italy because I was stupid. Never, never do that.

I'm intrigued. Please share more details!

Natural olives contain a chemical called oleuropein[0] which has a strong nasty bitter taste that renders them inedible. Soaking olives in a strong brine removes the oleuropein from the olive, turning them into the edible olive people love.

Most people don't know this. It is a common prank to convince people that don't know better to eat the fruit off the tree. As the other poster said, don't do that.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleuropein

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#154

Post by wincy »

collingreen wrote: post #146
dreamcompiler wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OMG I ate an olive off a tree once in Italy because I was stupid. Never, never do that.

I'm intrigued. Please share more details!

Olives are extremely bitter until they’re brined. My wife still can’t handle the brined ones she says it tastes terribly bitter.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#155

Post by collingreen »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #153
collingreen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm intrigued. Please share more details!

Natural olives contain a chemical called oleuropein[0] which has a strong nasty bitter taste that renders them inedible. Soaking olives in a strong brine removes the oleuropein from the olive, turning them into the edible olive people love. Most people don't know this. It is a common prank to convince people that don't know better to eat the fruit off the tree. As the other poster said, don't do that. [0] https://en.…

I had no idea! Thank you!

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#156

Post by rkomorn »

wincy wrote: post #154
collingreen wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm intrigued. Please share more details!

Olives are extremely bitter until they’re brined. My wife still can’t handle the brined ones she says it tastes terribly bitter.

This reminds me of lupins which also need quite a bit of preparation before being consumable.

I'm always kind of bemused by the "necessity is the mother of invention" aspect that gave us various food preps and conservation methods.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#157

Post by chongli »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #143
chongli wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good food should taste great even if it's low on salt Said no chef ever. The first thing any chef will tell you is to season your food correctly. Salt activates our taste buds. Without it everything tastes bland. They used to pay soldiers in salt . That’s the origin of the word salary . Cities were founded near salt mines. Wars were fought over it. Salt is essential to the function of neurons and kidneys. Salt is lif…

> They used to pay soldiers in salt . That’s the origin of the word salary . Note that the amount of evidence supporting this claim is zero. There is a Roman source that makes the claim, based on the resemblance of the words, but at the time of writing, no one was paid in salt, and there is no record of anyone ever having been paid in salt.

That Roman source is Pliny the Elder, one of the earliest scientific historians and author of the world's oldest surviving encyclopedia. Much of what he wrote has been confirmed through archaeological evidence. The fact that we haven't been able to find physical evidence to back his claim about salt (which may simply have been common knowledge at the time) is no reason to doubt him as a historian.

It's also important to note that prior to the invention of refrigeration, salt was vital as a preservative for meats. Soldiers on the march were perfectly capable of hunting any game they came across but the meat would spoil if they had no salt to preserve it. Giving every soldier a regular salt ration (a form of payment) is an extremely easy way to help them feed themselves.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#158

Post by [deleted] »

chongli wrote: post #157
thaumasiotes wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They used to pay soldiers in salt . That’s the origin of the word salary . Note that the amount of evidence supporting this claim is zero. There is a Roman source that makes the claim, based on the resemblance of the words, but at the time of writing, no one was paid in salt, and there is no record of anyone ever having been paid in salt.

That Roman source is Pliny the Elder, one of the earliest scientific historians and author of the world's oldest surviving encyclopedia. Much of what he wrote has been confirmed through archaeological evidence. The fact that we haven't been able to find physical evidence to back his claim about salt (which may simply have been common knowledge at the time) is no reason to doubt him as a historian. It's also important…

[deleted]

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#159

Post by hollerith »

chongli wrote: post #157
thaumasiotes wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They used to pay soldiers in salt . That’s the origin of the word salary . Note that the amount of evidence supporting this claim is zero. There is a Roman source that makes the claim, based on the resemblance of the words, but at the time of writing, no one was paid in salt, and there is no record of anyone ever having been paid in salt.

That Roman source is Pliny the Elder, one of the earliest scientific historians and author of the world's oldest surviving encyclopedia. Much of what he wrote has been confirmed through archaeological evidence. The fact that we haven't been able to find physical evidence to back his claim about salt (which may simply have been common knowledge at the time) is no reason to doubt him as a historian. It's also important…

You are not making much of a case.

For one thing, I severely doubt wild game would have been plentiful enough to meet more than a very small fraction of the nutritional needs of a Roman army. There is not enough wild game in the US for example to feed more than a quite small fraction of the survivors of a nuclear war according to a calculation I saw -- and the survivors in that scenario have the luxury of remaining spread out over the countryside and of ranging around without incurring the risk of running into a superior number of enemy soldiers.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#160

Post by paradox460 »

When I was a kid in Los Alamos (relevant later), my school didn't have a de facto school lunch program. So we brought our own lunches. Eventually I learned of a local lady that would come in and make hot lunches, and told my parents about her. She was a local librarian, and charged something like $2 a day. Switched to her for lunch, and got a nice steady diet of things like baked potatoes, chili, lasagna, all homemade, all delicious.

A year after I discovered her, some bright soul in the school board decided to piggyback on the LANL concessions contact, and we started getting Aramark provided lunch. She was told by school she couldn't provide the homemade lunches. The quality of food dropped immediately, with the nadir being Lunchable cheese and crackers on Wednesday (the short day). So back to bag lunch, sandwiches and thermoses full of soup

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