Dining Halls and Food

[eaglescout2004]

I had a few Dining Hall/Food service specific questions (as we all know that food can have a big impact on the overall experience).

 

What make or breaks a dining hall?

What unique things have you seen that made you say "hey that's really cool/nice/helpful"?

What ideas do you have that would make a dining hall the talk of the off season?

 

 

Most of you are much more experienced SMs and CMs and so I appreciate your wisdom and experience.

[scottteng]

The make or break for scout age boys is food to their taste and plenty of it you can forget gourmet especially on sides most of them won't eat the vegies but some of them like salad so a salad bar is good does not have to have lots of items simple prepack lettuce with a few add on's like tomatoes with selection of dressings. meat and potato or other starch serve a veggie but most will go uneaten. Spaghetti is a winner. Ny son raved over the food at one winter camp the cook smoked chicken for the parent meal it was delicious. They will very happily eat cereal for breakfast with fruit, pancakes other high carb breakfast foods. Sandwiches or burgers and dogs for lunch with salad bar. Got to remember these are teens in a growing mode not adults who are on a low carb diet. If you are looking to cut prep staff make dinner the only cooked meal it is summer camp they really don't require three hot meals per day just make sure there is plenty so you don't get boys raiding troop stashes or bugging leaders for a trip to the fast food joint.

[scoutldr]

We went to a newly opened camp last summer and the food service was contracted out to professionals. Best camp food we ever had. When scout camp staff is in charge, you tend to get prepackaged institutional food, like "mystery meat", corn dogs, etc...anything that comes in 20 lb frozen packages.

 

Salad bars and fresh fruit are always popular. Healthy choices for those of us "over the hill" scouters who shouldn't be eating a 5000 cal per day diet of sugar, salt and carbs.

 

One nice thing about this camp that we appreciated was that breakfast and lunch were "on your own"...just show up in the dining hall during the stated hours and get served. So whenever kids were in the area, they could just pop in and grab lunch.

[local1400]

As a teen I was a cook for two summers at my council camp. It is very hard to feed 200 to 300 people 3 square meals a day but it is possible. We made ham dinners, meatloaf, shepards pie, turkey dinners, chop suey, spaghetti, baked beans(real, soak all night, bake all day),pancakes, omelettes, oatmeal, french toast amd on and on. Bread was baked from scratch every day. Cakes and sheet pies were made, pudding or jello for lunch desserts. Of course with each meal was the appropriate sides.I dislike the cafeteria style of eating- reminds me of school too much. We had tables seating ten and ate family style. Family style is faster to serve and therefore leaves more time for other activities. Plus everyone starts and finishes together. As far as the building itself, it needs character. Artifacts from long ago adorning the walls, staff totems, visiting troop totems, Scout oath and law, plaques, pictures, and such. Are you building a dining hall Eagle2004?

[eaglescout2004]

I was recently hired for dining hall director for a camp here in NJ. I was previously involved in the program aspect of camp so the dining hall administration is entirely new to me. I thought I might pick all your brains as I begin to brainstorm ideas with the camp director and cook.

[Gold Winger]

God, that's a tough one. I remember that at one camp, the pizza was horrible and that's all the boys talked about. It was just frozen pizza heated in the oven but it was bad. At another camp, they served a better quality pizza and everyone was happy.

 

I'll have to think on this for a while.

 

Corn is good. Green beans are usually bad. Salads will make the adults happy.

 

Single serve bags of chips for each diner at lunch will be a hit.

[hops_scout]

I much preferred camping in the campsite a lot better than going to dining hall for each meal. The camp our troop goes to now has meals cooked by patrol for 2 meals a day. Normally it's breakfast and dinner cooked in the campsite with lunch in the dining area. Parents' Night they have dinner in the dining area and lunch in the campsite. Parents' Night is Pork Steak.

 

Eating in the campsite has a few plusses.

1) It's not crowded. I hate eating in dining halls that are so packed you can hardly move!

2) If the Scouts screw it up, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

3) Patrol teamwork

 

Couple negatives

1) Time can be an issue. Cooking and cleaning both take time of course. Gotta be careful.

2) Getting stuff cleaned. While this goes for all campouts, summer camp is especially important to make sure stuff gets cleaned well. Like I said, time is an issue, so sometimes the Scouts will rush.

 

 

Overall I like the patrol cooking the best at summer camp. I've had bad meals and I've had good meals both in patrol cooking and in the dining hall.

[packsaddle]

I think scotteng had it right. Make it to their taste (a.k.a. meat and potatoes) and have plenty of it. Me, I'll eat the eggs runny, rubbery, green, or red. I'll eat the meat no matter what vermin it came from. But the boys are sometimes finicky.

 

We always try to miss the first week or so of summer camp. It allows the staff to perfect their skills, so-to-speak, heh, heh.

The salad bar is surprisingly popular. But so are the PBJs.

[SSScout]

Camp mistakes I've seen, from both sides of the steam table:

 

Watch what comes back, thru the dish window or trash bins. It's messy, but a good measure of what's sucessful and what isn't. If you send out 12 chicken steaks to a table of seven boys and a counselor/staff, and you see eight come back, maybe it's not because folks don't like chicken, maybe it's the chicken...

 

Budget blowers: BIG bowls of catsup/condiments that never get used. They must be thrown out after each meal if not used. Use SMALL bowls or squeeze bottles, and clean them well periodically. Same with puddings, veggies, etc. If you serve "family style", which is good, use SMALLER bowl units and make SECONDS available when the small bowls empty. Better to send out one small bowl, which gets used than one BIG bowl where half gets thrown out. Count the savings in wasted food, less clean up, less trash haulage fees.

Make sure the table surfaces are CLEANABLE. Raw wood is a health nightmare.

 

Cold milk, 2%, available at all mealtimes. Coffee/tea table available for adults at all hours, and a place to sit and talk thereby.

 

Published menues? Maybe not a weeks worth, but on the door coming in, for the day is nice. Don't forget the campers may not eat there after the week is over, but the staff will, again and again. "Tuesday means spaghetti" may/may not be a good thing. On the camp clear day, between camps, give the staff something special, if possible. Banana splits are really appreciated.

 

If the food is supposed to be served HOT (hamburgers, chili) make the effort to serve it HOT.

 

Consider an arrangement to provide in camp snacks for a special occasion. Watermelons are good. If campfires in the Troop sites are allowed, hot dogs available for night snacks? etc.

 

You want their attention? Try serving something Anything, enflambe! Have the fire prevention crew at the ready, of course. Maybe not to the whole dining room, but to the head table?

 

Not too salty or spicy, ever. One can always add hot sauce or pepper. Or catsup.

 

Use real eggs and real potatoes, if at all possible. The raw stuff is always better, even if the Scouts learn how to prep it.

 

And don't forget that thirteenth point of the Scout law...

[scoutmaster52]

One of the best ideas that I have seen in Scoutcamps is having PB&J,fruit and juice avalible throughout the the day for the boys.

This said nto us that the camp understood that boys get hungry and that it didnt push the boys at the trading post for candy.

[Kudu]

How about an option for Troops that use the Patrol Method?

 

Some camps make it easy for a Troop to pick up its share of the raw food so that it can be cooked in the Patrol campsites.

 

Kudu

 

[le Voyageur]

The best was at Lost Valley during NCS with professionals handling all the meals. Great food, and those of us in sections that burned the calories never left feeling starved.

 

The most interesting was Camp Shand....Granny Grits was a hoot, and I hope she's still there the next time I'm at NCS.

 

Camp John Mensinger was a feeder, Pete was an awesome cook and every meal was one you didn't want to miss.

 

The worst being because the Camp Director was more interested in getting his under the budget bonus at the end of the season. He chisled the breakfast menu down to 15 1/2 cents per plate, PBJ's and cheap hot dogs was the lunch time staple, and dinner ran less then 33 cents a plate. Those of us on staff couldn't wait till the weekend to head out to town. Needless to say, the complaints were many, and the camp's reputation suffered. That was ten years ago, and I don't think much has really changed as I see a number of units from that council showing up at the camp where I now staff.

 

None the less, I do know that on those rare days when I do use the dining hall, there's no doubt that I eat much better at my outpost then any of the campers.

[ironrosefarms]

I think that the suggestions so far have been good ones and food quality is an absolute must along with a generous quantity. One thing that I think is often forgotten though is morale. The cooking of 300 or more meals, three times per day can be tireing to say the least. Be sure to let the cooks and other kitchen staff come out and have some fun with the campers at meal time. Kitchen staff skits, songs, and the like help build a relationship between the staff and the campers.

 

Here is a couple examples,

 

Idea #1 Monday a couple of the kitchen staff come out in hillbilly attire (bibs and straw hats pitch fork) and offer a altered rendition of where oh where are you tonight (remember heehaw?), even the young kids who have never seen heehaw find it funny. Use food related lines like this one or better yet make up some,

The noises you made at our supper table

Your habits, dear scout, were surely absurd

But how many times do I have to tell you

Soup is a dish to be seen and not heard.

 

Idea #2 The scouts line up outside the dining hall on Friday morning as usual, however they are greeted by signs posted around and the kitchen staff is banging pots with metal spoons and chanting about being on strike. The head kitchen should have a scroll of demands (the longer the better) that he can roll out as he/she "negotiates" with the camp director. Often by now the boys will have sided with the kitchen! At this point the camp director and a few other staff members make an agreement to serve the breakfast meal while the cooks get to eat with the campers.

 

Of course this takes some planning and some help from the rest of the camp staff, but it is a morale booster for the kitchen help and just simply a lot of fun for the boys.

 

Camp should be fun, if it is just dealing with stressed out adults in a different environment, the fun is gone.

[Stosh]

I'm with Kudu and Hops, I prefer the patrol cooking in campsite. It fulfills FC #4 requirement for 5 boys in each patrol, builds teamwork, and the boys can never complain about the food. The camp gives $50 discount and then doesn't provide any food. This way our site can always have PBJ's ready, coffee pot on 24/7 and all the amenities of life right when you need it.

 

I have found out over the years that it is pretty much a crap-shoot when it comes to the food. Sometimes it's ok, sometime's it's great and sometimes I just go without. It all just depends on whether or not the camp hires a cook or just has staff re-heating up institutional foods. Having worked for an institutional food outfit, I can tell by Sunday night whether or not we're going to be eating well or not for the week.

 

If the boys plan their own menus, prep and cook their own meals, I know well in advance what the food's going to be like. I find there is a lot less waste of food if the boys are the one's making the plans/menus, cooking and calling the shots.

 

Stosh

 

 

[Shadowrider]

EBSR uses the canned institutional food and its passable, barely. The salad bar, while not fancy, is popular with scouts and parents alike. Fresh fruit, oranges, apples, and bananans go like wild fire. While the entree portions are small, the all you can eat salad bar, fresh fruit, and peanut butter, jelly, and bread help campers of all ages fill up. I've never seen anybody walk away from the dinning hall hungry in 4 years.