They Call It Food

I've talked alot about the meal loaf here, but I don't think I've ever really gone into depth about the regular food they serve here.

The picture on the left here is somewhat representative, but doesn't do it any real justice.

Our meals, for example, are all placed on one tray, without any separate little bowls to keep things cold or hot. And we never get anything even closely resembling fresh fruit or vegetables.

Everything that does not come in huge packages, like the salads, or in 55 gallon drums, like the fruit, is made at a facility at another prison in something called the "Cook/Chill". There they prepare and pre-cook everything coming to us, pour it into large plastic bags and freeze it before it gets shipped to us. In our kitchen they fill large vats with boiling water and dump the plastic bags in and let them get warm again. Kind of like those "Boilin' Bag Meals" that got popular a few years ago.

Once the stuff is nominally hot, then it gets divvied up and sent to the two regular chow halls, with a smaller portion of it coming down to the Adseg unit.

Some things are actually made on site. Occasionally we will get fresh (fresh???) brownies or some sort of cake made by our own cooks. But that's not the norm. Alot of times the dessert is pre-packaged cookies made in Honduras.

I won't eat those. I've been to Honduras.

Yuck.

For a meat entree, we get alot of chicken patties. These are delightful. Little brownish pucks about three inches across with the consistancy of cardboard but without that wonderful cardboard flavor. If they were a little saltier, I would suspect they were made of Play-Doh. As it is, I suspect a large percentage of recycled paper.

And the wonderful Dinner Sausages. Ah, yes. Fat dense hot dogs. Remember the post on "Recycling"? 'Nuff said!

On the rare evening we are treated to chicken quarters. Those are a rare treat. A leg and thigh burnt black on the outside but still nice and red on the inside. Just the way chicken should be served, am I right?

And of course, beans. Lots and lots of beans. Black beans, red beans, lima beans.......

No wonder the place smells so bad all the time.

I'm glad I take the time to pack a lunch.