California schools stir up some new favorites

Food and Nutrition, Fall-Winter, 1989 by Dee Amaden

California Schools Stir Up Some New Favorites

Tacos, pizza, spaghetti, burritos--school lunch menus are a melting pot of the various cooking styles that are fast becoming part of American cuisine. Now, Asian foods are being added to the stew.

Maggie Gin, a Chinese chef and entrepreneur in the San Francisco Bay Area, has visited 12 California school districts over the past year to help school lunch staff add a variety of Asian flavors to their menus.

"These days in school lunch, you want to represent your constituents," says Gin. "On the West Coast especially, the Asian population is getting bigger and bigger." By serving Asian foods, she explains, you're affirming that this culture is accepted. "Food and culture bind people together," says Gin.

Sharon Childers, cook manager at Cedar Lane Elementary School in Marysville, California, can confirm this. Her rural school, in the foothills of the Sierras, has a population that is about 65 percent Hmong, an ethnic group from Southeast Asia.

Childers attended Gin's workshop at a California School Food Service Association conference in March to learn how to prepare meals that would please kids from both cultures.

"When the Hmong kindergarten kids come in, it's their first exposure to American food and culture. They're used to hot, spicy food," says Childers. "For the other kids, it's often their first exposure to Asian foods."

A healthy

way to eat

Gin says that Asian foods are the perfect addition to a school lunch menu no matter where a school district is. "Kids are used to eating out more these days," she explains. "They're used to different tastes, and they're liking vegetables more.

"Plus, it's such a healthy way to eat," she adds. Gin uses fresh foods as much as possible, along with sauces that have no monosodium glutamate (MSG) or cholesterol, and are lower in salt than traditional soy-based sauces.

Gin says the district supervisors and directors have been very interested in seeing how they can add Asian recipes to their menus. She shows food service staff how to stir-fry recipes, demonstrating how quick and easy it is to prepare foods with an Asian flair.

"We've gone into the schools, and regardless of what kind of equipment they have, we can to it," says Gin. For basic stir-frying, she recommends using the tilt-top equipment.

"Stir-fry is the most versatile hot food you can serve," says Gin, "because you can take any kind of meat and any kind of vegetable, combine it with a sauce, and have a new recipe."

For schools looking for good ways to use USDA-donated foods, stir-frying is a natural because many foods can be used interchangeably. For example, a stir-fry recipe might use turkey, chicken, canned pork or beef, or even salmon or tuna, with equally good results.

Recipes use

variety of foods

Gin has developed a number of quantity recipes using a variety of USDA commodities, including raisins, rice, peanut granules and peanut butter, mixed vegetables, and ground pork.

"She's very imaginative, and she knows food," says Prudence Dorn, a San Francisco food editor who works with Gin. "She came up with some recipes for meals that even the school lunch directors couldn't believe--they tasted so good."

Eastside Union High School has a large percentage of Asian students and was one of the first to work with Gin. "We serve Asian food about once a week," says Eleanor McKenzie, manager of one of the district's 10 lunch programs.

She especially liked the ideas Gin had for appetizing ways to use canned beef and pork. "We'll sometimes use stir-fry recipes to stuff pita bread, giving the kids a tasty, hand-held 'Asian Sandwich.'"

To help schools in other ways, Gin has also created recipes using American classics, giving them an Asian flavor. For example, she recommends baking chicken using an Asian marinade, and topping it with USDA-donated pineapple chunks and sweet-and-sour sauce.

She has also made very American "Confetti Macaroni" with the flavor of the Orient by mixing cooked elbow macaroni, USDA-donated mixed frozen vegetables, some chopped onions, and USDA-donated ground meat browned in the oven with an Asian sauce.

Stir-fry combined

with other methods

Gin uses oil sparingly for stir-frying and combines stir-fry methods with other methods to keep use of oils down. She tells school staff that meat can be oven-browned first, and fresh vegetables parboiled or steamed before being added to other recipes.

Gin recommends undercooking the vegetables so they retain their flavor, color, and nutrients while being held in ovens or warming trays. She says many of the recipes, such as stir-fried rice and egg rolls, keep well in the warming ovens.

Gin developed her own line of sauces for use in a restaurant she opened in Napa Valley, California, because she couldn't find any local Asian staff to cook. "I know there's a lot of intimidation about cooking Asian foods because of the method," says Gin. Many schools she's visited are using her sauces to make preparing the Asian foods "almost fool-proof."