School Lunch Central

My daughter really likes the new black bean burger being pilot-tested for students in Montgomery County Public Schools.

"So she’s the one!" chuckled Marla Caplon, director of MCPS’s Division of Food and Nutrition Services, exchanging a knowing look with Mary Ann Gabriel, who develops and tests recipes for the county’s huge public school system.

Caplon, Gabriel and Tom Davey, Central Production Facility/Warehouse Specialist, sat down with me last week to share the ins and outs of feeding lunch—and oftentimes breakfast, dinner and snacks—to nearly 147,000 students.

Gabriel’s main mission is to develop a menu that simultaneously satisfies strict nutrition guidelines and the often-finicky tastes of our county’s youngsters. To that end, she gleans ideas from food service conventions, vendor presentations and "front-line feedback" (student preferences reported by school cafeteria managers).

Some of those ideas—shrimp poppers, cheese dippers—are a hit, and earn a permanent place in the menu rotation. Some, like the black bean burger, are tweaked in hopes that they will appeal to more kids. And others, alas, just aren’t meant to be, at least for now.

Coming soon to a secondary school near you: roasted turkey in chipotle sauce over brown rice. Time will tell.

"In my 16 years here, I have seen kids’ tastes change. They have become a little more open to trying new things,” Gabriel said.

Gabriel’s test kitchens have also been used to save old favorites whose nutrition profile put them in danger of lunch-line extinction. Case in point: She and her staff gave the beloved taco a sodium and fat makeover by replacing some of the ground beef with turkey and eschewing high-salt commercial spice blends in favor of an in-house recipe.

Davey, who will soon mark 30 years with DFNS, oversees the warehouse and central production facility on Crabbs Branch Way in Rockville. Every school day starts at 3 a.m., with 30,000 pre-packaged meals needing to get to 132 elementary schools. Fifteen trucks are loaded and leave for their ten-school circuit by 6:30 a.m.

After that come the inbound deliveries: the raw materials for central production and in-school cooking, as well as fresh fruit and bread products. (Milk goes straight from the producer to each school.)

Secondary schools have their own kitchens, and thus take on more of the food preparation—boiling pasta, steaming vegetables and assembling salads, sandwiches and tacos. But Crabbs Branch still prepares some secondary school-bound foods. For example, soups: They’re made in 200-gallon batches to ensure food safety and consistency then shipped to the schools to be heated and served.

Six school-based supervisors, each with an assistant, ensure that sanitation and safety regulations are adhered to, menu plans followed and allergies or other dietary restrictions accommodated.

The pride that DFNS staff takes in feeding our kids rings clear, and for good reason. It’s a massive undertaking, each and every day—Did you know DFNS serves 9,000 daily meals during summer vacation?—and though they serve an immense and diverse school community, they’re still able to customize meal plans, often down to individual students.

For my part, I still wish there were less reliance on processed foods—say, nuggets of any kind—and that milk could be served without extra sugar and flavorings. In a world of unlimited time and money, I think Marla Caplon and her staff would agree.

In a future column, I’ll explore what other school districts across the country are doing to put more whole, fresh foods on the lunchroom table. To appreciate the scale of Montgomery County’s operation, take a tour through the photo gallery.

And let me assure you: Those brownies smelled very, very good.