“What do you smell in our kitchen today?”
“Flavor,” said chef consultant Sally Ayotte, answering her own question as she addressed school district kitchen managers who roasted vegetables during a training Monday.
For many, the phase “school cafeteria food” conjures up visions of boxed mashed potatoes and questionable-looking meat.
But the Montezuma-Cortez School district has been working to change that for several years, and the tempting scent of garlic on sweet potatoes, cauliflower and broccoli coming from the Cortez Middle School kitchen spoke to their efforts.
Four years ago, a local kitchen director attended one of the first trainings on cooking with fresh foods, and now about 75 percent of the food in the district is from scratch, said Sandi Vanhoutean, food services director of Montezuma-Cortez School District.
She said it does cost a little more than cooking with pre-prepared foods, but the cost is offset by using USDA foods, formerly called commodities. To bring in more local food the district is working with five local producers and the district has used about 11,000 pounds of local food so far this year.
The goal is for about 90 percent of the food to be cooked on-site, she said.
To help achieve this, the LiveWell Colorado chef consultants held trainings in several schools this week. The trainings were paid for by LiveWell Colorado.
The chefs started the week at Cortez Middle school teaching about kitchen safety and spent the morning holding a workshop.
During the week, the chefs also visited Mesa, Manaugh and Kemper elementary schools, working on cooking techniques and helping to market fresh foods to students.
It just takes one “Mr. Yuck” to turn a whole group of students against a new dish, said Chef Consultant Fernando Ocampo. So the chefs worked to help cafeteria staff to market fresh vegetables and get students interested in trying foods they may not eat at home and may have never seen before.
Ocampo said people may need to taste a food 15 to 20 times before deciding that they like it, so the exposure to new foods is important for students eating at school.
“When they go through that (lunch) line, they don’t stop learning,” he said.