No Recipes
August 23rd 2009 00:48
Category: No Category
Good Flavors - Herbs and Spices
Here's the thing, for some reason the cooks in a hospital kitchen seem to think that any seasonings, whether salt, spices or herbs are a sin. Sure they have to be careful with salt for those on salt restricted diets, but if the salt the dish there is more control than allowing the patient to salt their own. Spices, sure some people are allergic to some, but the number is relatively small in the general population, the same with herbs.
There are so many ways to make food flavorful and tasty, it would be simple. Something like adding diced tomatoes to their meatloaf, along with the onions, even a little green pepper, or, ketchup and Italian spiced bread crumbs. Any of these would have make it better, while passable it was not great. They did add ketchup to the top, but not much. This was always served with mashed potatoes and some over cooked vegetables. It was usually served on Mondays I think.
On Sundays we were served fried chicken, dry, over cooked and again flavorless. Again mashed potatoes and overcooked veggies. Oh, this did come with chocolate cream pie with meringue. The meringue was lovely, the chocolate cream was grainy, and over cooked. It was sad, it could have been good.
Most meals were like that, something over cooked, other things were flavorless, and even more were so bland that even salt didn't help.
Each tray always had two seasonings, salt and pepper, oh yeah, two packets of sugar. The salt was just salt, plain old salt. The pepper was old, stale, and yes, you've got it, flavorless. Here at home, I grind my pepper fresh, about once a week, and store it in a sealed plastic container. That way my pepper is fresh and full of that wonderful pepper flavor, discovering how bland pepper could be was a shock, I was horrified, no flavor pepper, wow, I didn't know something like that could exist.
But of all the meals that were not good, the worst was breakfast. For the first few days I always got the same thing. Eggs, scrambled, two pieces of salty bacon, one biscuit, oatmeal, decaf coffee, milk and juice. So for the first week or so I would salt my eggs, it helped some. I would butter my biscuit, not eat my oatmeal, because it was gooey and disgusting.
After talking to someone from the kitchen I explained my food preferences, and my food needs. I need to have a certain amount of fresh fruit and fresh vegetables every day, high protein, low carbohydrate, and a need to have three regular meals and two or three small snacks a day, because of stomach surgery several years ago. Oh, I also told her I didn't like scrambled eggs or salty bacon, could I have two pieces of toast and two sausage patties, I knew they had both, she said sure. And no oatmeal.
The next day I got exactly what I didn't ask for I got eggs, one sausage patty, and one piece of toast, no oatmeal, but cereal, which was an improvement but not what I'd asked for, ok, it was better, but not quite what I wanted.
The next day, I got one piece of toast, one sausage patty and cold cereal. Oh, the coffee continued to be very bad decaf, weak and the flavor was something like I'd imagine old dish water would taste like, though I've never tried it.
The moral of this story, hospitals can't cook, they don't listen, and worst yet, they can't make good coffee which is in my personal opinion a crime.
I've volunteered to show their cooks how to make something have flavor without making it unhealthy or even anything that most people couldn't eat, but something that everyone but a few with specialized food allergies, but it seems that they don't feel the need for my help or anyone else's, you see they have a dietitian, that means they have well balanced and healthy meals even when they are borderline inedible.
| 62 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
They have started boiling veggies in Australia to the point where you can see through them, I also imagine most public hospital kitchen staff would have such a mundane boring life and job that their minds are always elsewhere and everything is cooked in GIANT cookers. But this is no excuse - even the army manages to cook largescale decent food.
I remember when I was a 16yr old scout I cooked for 200 other scouts and as a teenager I still managed to make a decent meal.
In regards to hospitals maybe it is a ploy to get you out of the hospital - maybe they want to make the food so horrible that all patients start thinking "I am going to die here eating this crap unless I get home and eat proper food" - hence the mental battle to improve and get out of the hospital
Comment by FoodMage
You may have a very good point at the end. The others also might be true...
I know my grandmother boiled fresh green beans with fat back (bacon) and onions for hours, cooking out all the vitamins and unfortunately flavor. I still think if she'd put some rice in the water we might have had something that had good stuff in it and with a little butter and a little salt would have been more than edible.
Thanks for coming back, I hope to have more things written soon.
Janice