Local cooking experts star at statewide school nutrition conference
About 100 food and nutrition professionals from across the state gathered Thursday at UC Davis to learn how to make tastier, more nutritious school lunches. The key message? Use fresh, locally grown ingredients, tangy spices and ethnic recipes that reflect the diversity of California’s population.
The daylong session at the Cuarto Dining Commons featured lots of cooking and plenty of talking, covering strategies that can help schools encourage youngsters to try new foods. The conference that drew everyone together was titled “Rethinking School Lunch: Cooking With California Food in K-12 Schools.”
Among the central figures at the event were local cooks and authors Georgeanne Brennan of Winters and Ann M. Evans of Davis, whose just-published book “Cooking with California Food in K-12 Schools” was the primary text for the occasion. The women also are Davis Enterprise food columnists.
The cookbook draws on concepts that Brennan and Evans tested over three years through a hands-on cooking school for nutrition services staffers in Davis schools using family-sized recipes.
During that time, Davis school officials found ways to include more locally grown fruits and vegetables, as well as fresh spices grown just outside the doors of the district’s central kitchen, in lunches that students eat every day.
Guess what? Participation in school lunch programs grew, as many students saw what their friends were eating and decided to try it themselves.
Now, Brennan and Evans are taking their findings to the statewide level. Thursday’s event drew a delegation of food service professionals from the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District, as well as representatives from about 40 school districts up and down the state.
“We have people from Del Norte County (on the Oregon border) south to San Diego,” said Zenobia Barlow, executive director of the Berkeley-based Center for Ecoliteracy, which published Brennan and Evans’ school cookbook, and co-sponsored Thursday’s event.
And the impact could be huge.
“I would conservatively estimate that (the school districts participating in the conference) serve 200 million school meals a year,” Barlow said. “The total budget for school meals in California is $900 million a year.
“Just think about what would happen if more and more of those districts purchased more fresh ingredients for school meals from California agriculture (rather than processed foods from out of state). What an economic generator that would be, and it would have a positive impact on kids’ health.”
Laurel Goins, a food service supervisor from the Rio School District in Ventura County, said her district is “making a switch from all pre-made meals to cooking from scratch. … I am a chef by trade. Today at the conference, I heard about specialty produce block grants, which I am going to look into.”
Goins said her district serves lunch to about 4,500 students daily, and noted that the coastal plain in Ventura County produces lots of fresh vegetables and strawberries.
Also attending the conference was David Binkle, deputy director of the Newman Nutrition Center in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the state’s largest in terms of enrollment. That district serves more school meals than any other district — about 650,000 a day, Binkle said.
He said Thursday’s conference is potentially a watershed event.
“What’s really going on is a change in the image of school meals in California,” Binkle said. “Right now, a lot of food is brought in from out of state that could be bought close to home.
“We’ll try these recipes when we get home,” he added.
Brenda Padilla is nutrition services manager with the Sacramento City Unified School District, which has about 47,000 students. Padilla, a longtime Davis resident, said she came to Thursday’s conference “primarily to learn about ways to implement new grains” in school lunches — millet, bulgur, barley, amaranth, quinoa, rice, spelt, corn and cous cous, all of which were on display.
“I’m also looking for toppings for whole grain pizza — not only seasonal items, but cultural toppings. Pizza isn’t just pepperoni.”
Helping at the conference was Andy Burtis, a longtime Davis resident and executive chef with UCD Dining Services, which collaborated in presenting the event. Burtis had prepared Brennan and Evans’ recipe for albondigas, a traditional Mexican soup with meatballs.
“It’s one of the best recipes for albondigas that I’ve ever seen,” Burtis said, adding that the inclusion of a bit of fresh mint brought something special to the dish.
Burtis also was there to share his experience in cooking with grains.
“We have 18 different rice pilaf recipes that we prepare” at the dining commons, he said, to say nothing of salads based on grains, and other dishes.
Brennan described how she had developed the cookbook’s recipes and approach while working with Rafaelita Curva, the Davis school district’s director of student nutrition services, and the staff at the Davis district’s central kitchen.
“Many of the dishes we cooked in the Davis kitchen turned out to be a pilot program” for the cookbook, Brennan said. “Then we took the show on the road,” and tried many of the same recipes with school chefs in the Oakland Unified School District, which is “a very different student population, a whole different world.”
The cookbook focuses on a 6-5-4 formula, including:
* Six kinds of dishes: salads, soups, pastas, rice bowls, wraps and pizza toppings;
* Five flavor profiles: African, Asian, European-Mediterranean, Latin American and Middle Eastern-Indian;
* The four seasons, with different fruits and vegetables that are in season during spring, summer, fall and winter.
As a result, Brennan said the recipes in the cookbook “reflect the diversity of the state of California.”
Davis school board trustee Gina Daleiden said, “I’m so proud of the progress the Davis school district has made to become a statewide leader in farm-to-school programs, and we’re fortunate to be in Yolo County, a showcase for ag-school cooperation.
“We know that our students are better able to learn when their bodies are healthier — nutrition and fitness directly impact the learning in our classrooms.”
Daleiden added, “Ann Evans and Davis Farm to School, as well as our entire Davis community, are to thank for the passion, drive and creativity that have supported our program.
“Today I can talk to 40 school districts about Davis leading the way with support through a modest portion of our parcel tax, and I know that in this regard, we’re doing our best for our students.”
— Reach Jeff Hudson at jhudson@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8055.
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=69516
Posted by Jeff Hudson
on Aug 4 2011.
Last Login: Sat 19 May 2012 11:40:19 AM PDT
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It’s really a shame that you didn’t take the opportunity to link this article to all the great nutrition education happening in schools and with parents so that participation in, and enjoyment of school lunches and the lunch program is supported. UC FSNEP & David Ginsburg’s team are doing some great work not far from Tercero’s Dining Commons!
Check out the work of Davis Farm to School mentioned by Gina Daleiden. It is an outstanding and dedicated organization working with the Davis Joint Unified School District to support and celebrate our local school lunch program everyday! http://www.davisfarmtoschool.org