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The Triumph of Jamie Oliver’s “Nemesis”
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114 The Triumph of Jamie Oliver’s “Nemesis” Jane Black It was all I could do not to scarf the entire stromboli, neatly packaged for me in a Styrofoam clamshell, while in the car. The dough was soft. The balance of ham and mozzarella, just right. And so, only about half was left when I parked on Third Avenue, the main drag in Huntington, West Virginia, and offered a bite to some friends. “Wow. That’s great,” said one. “Yeah, where’d you get that?” asked another. “You’ll never believe it,” I told them. “This is school lunch.” Times have changed since celebrity chef Jamie Oliver broadcast startling and deliberately inflammatory—this was reality TV, after all—images of kids here dumping trays of fresh food untouched into the trash. For those of you who missed Oliver’s prime-time program, Food Revolution, the British chef arrived in Huntington in 2009 after it was named the most unhealthy metropolitan area in America and went to work ousting greasy burgers and pizza in favor of from-scratch meals made with fresh ingredients. Two years later, on the first week of school, which began in mid-August, students in Cabell County sat down to meals of from-scratch chicken quesadillas and brown rice and, on the day I visited, creamy chicken and noodles served with freshly made coleslaw, steamed broccoli with parmesan, an orange, and hot rolls, the smell of which floated enticingly through the halls. And that stromboli? Well, it’s not one of the meals that the school district is most proud of. The dough is made from scratch, of course. But school cooks would be happier if they actually made the ham or cheese. As I said, times have changed. School officials repeatedly point out that the county’s food already was 115 the triumph of jamie oliver’s“nemesis” 50 percent made from scratch before Oliver rolled into town. And you can’t blame them for wanting a little credit. The culinary crusader may have focused the national klieg lights on this otherwise quiet Appalachian city, but it’s local officials who have done the real work of overhauling school food. Over the last two years, Rhonda McCoy—the school food service director who was portrayed on the show as an aloof bureaucrat more concerned with budgets and caloric counts than kids’ health—has redeveloped recipes, held after-hours taste tests, sourced fresh and unprocessed ingredients at affordable prices, bought new equipment, and trained school cooks. She also endured an unprecedented four regulatory audits to ensure that the new meals met federal nutritional and caloric standards. She passed. McCoy hasn’t stopped there. This year, she introduced free meals for all low-income students and free meals for all students at one county elementary school. She also plans to introduce lower-sugar flavored milk, and to buy a projected twelve thousand pounds of sweet potatoes for the district, grown by a county high school’s vocational agriculture students. Now, deservedly, McCoy’s county is a model in the state. Last spring, Dr. Jorea Marple, the state schools superintendent, visited Cabell County and decided that other districts need to follow its path. As a result, eight counties—most of which are in the poor southern coal fields—this fall will introduce 100 percent from-scratch meals at breakfast and lunch—and provide them to all students, regardless of their family’s income, free of charge. It’s easy to imagine how this kind of warp-speed transition might be painful for those eight lucky counties. My husband and I spent six months in Huntington researching a book about how and if the town can change its food culture, and in meeting after meeting, McCoy told me that she never objected to the changes that Oliver suggested, just the way and speed at which she was forced to implement them. But this new set of cooks won’t be starting from scratch. McCoy provided a binder full of USDA-approved recipes and order forms with all the ingredients they need to purchase. She also organized a two-day training where the now-experienced Cabell County cooks demonstrated recipes: rotisserie chicken, roasted potatoes, sugar snap peas, pizza sauce, and homemade salad dressings and croutons, among others. They also imparted tips and techniques for, say, quickly chopping dozens of heads of romaine lettuce or cabbage for coleslaw rather than just opening a bag. Alice Gue, the school cook whom Food Revolution...