Regarding the June 17 article in the Harvard Press, “Schools seek nutrition director, chef to lead food service,” I am sympathetic to what the Harvard School Committee and administration have as a task before them: replacing Chef Paul Correnty.
For 22 years the Harvard schools have had a culinary experience that is unique in the public school systems: using fresh, often local foods; not only breaking even, but earning a profit that expanded the equipment and offerings of the food service. It was led by a trained chef who, because he was not constrained by the traditional “school lunch” model, was able to think and work “outside the box”: grilled, fresh, locally sourced fish, etc.
Local legend has it that the biggest problem Chef Paul faced in his first days creating the incredible foods he prepared for our children was a cash register that was too small to hold the amount of money reflecting what was sold!
My mother worked in the Harvard cafeteria for many years in the ’60s and ’70s. The food service was expected to be financially self-sustaining. They were expected to use meager state and federal food commodities; create meals regulated in size and “nutritional” balance; pay their workers; use the paltry physical space and equipment they were given; and purchase additional foods that would keep them within their budget. And we wondered why institutional food was, well, institutional.
I fear that dividing the job in two sections may not be the answer, the “chef/cook” always answering to a budget person and only working on a finite schedule. It screams “institutionalization.” Welcome back, frozen chicken nuggets and gloppy mac and cheese.
Then, Harvard schools’ food service of these 22 years will read, with an asterisk, in history, as just another social experiment—like the Shakers, the transcendentalists, Fiske-Warren’s single tax enclave …
Once upon a time . . .
Ruthann P. Bakun
Still River Road
