The other day, I saw a press release touting the Houston Independent School District’s Summer Feeding Program:
Breakfasts will be served from 7:30–8:30 a.m., and lunches will be served from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Adults may also participate in the program by purchasing breakfast for $1.60 and lunch for $2.85.
HISD meals are nutritionally analyzed to ensure that children receive the vitamins, minerals, and calories required to maintain a balanced diet.
All that for under three bucks? How could I resist? So I skipped on down to the nearest government indoctrination center, which happens to be Sinclair Elementary School, less than two miles from MattCo, and I wrote up a little food review.
After making my way past a mean-looking secretary and a bunch of kids who spoke less English than my pet fish does, I found the nearly empty cafeteria, and went through the serving line. The entire waitstaff consisted of one friendly woman in disposable plastic gloves. Here’s what she dished up:
It’s a six-compartment polystyrene tray, loaded with everything a growing boy needs. Today’s main course was breaded chicken strips, accompanied by broccoli cuts, a white roll and mashed potatoes. Accessories included a spork, an absurdly thin paper napkin, and a thin straw. I’ll address each compartment in turn, beginning with the chicken strips and going clockwise.
The chicken strips were thickly breaded, with only a slightly greasy feel. The breading, liberally spiked with black pepper, surrounded a rubbery bit of engineered chicken material. Not bad, as far as chicken strips go. Cream gravy would have been a nice addition, but it was nowhere to be found. The portion was pretty big — five strips! — but I attribute that to the server’s appreciation of my rugged good looks. Sources tell me that the standard portion is three strips.
The broccoli cuts were incredibly hot and somewhat overdone. Despite the overcooking, however, the vegetable’s flavor was unharmed. No seasoning was evident.
The tennis-ball sized dollop of mashed potatoes appeared to have been prepared from dehydrated potato flakes. The texture was perfectly uniform throughout: no bits of skin, no bacon bits, no cheese, nada. Similarly consistent was the utter lack of flavor.
The roll was tasty and dense, but for some inexplicable reason it was sliced latitudinally like a hamburger bun. I suppose the slice could have been an HISD hint, telling me where to apply butter, but none was provided. Pity. The roll was fine by itself, but a little butter or jelly would have gone a long way.
As I was going through the serving line, I wondered what the fifth compartment would hold. Dessert, perhaps? Cherry cobbler with little crumbles on top would have been nice. Alas, the server completed her duties without putting anything in the fifth compartment. Was it a metaphor for the emptiness of an overreliance on government assistance, or just some sneaky bastard hoarding all the cobbler?
The sixth compartment was intended to hold utensils. As you can see, it’s designed so that the utensils face up when the compartment is oriented to the right. When you turn it around, the utensils are upside-down and the entree is far away. I’m deeply offended by this not-so-subtle slap at left-handed people, and I hope the superintendent takes measures to rectify HISD’s de facto policy of right supremacy.
No beverage was provided. I thought for sure I’d get a shot of 2% milk, but no dice. I guess calcium is exempt from HISD’s nutritional scrutiny. Instead, I hit the water fountain on the way out.
Anyway, back to lunch. The decor was pretty boring and institutional. The room was large, with round laminate tables, high ceilings, and way too much linoleum, glazed brick and harsh fluorescent lighting.
While I was enjoying my meal, I was approached by a gentleman who asked what I was doing. Apparently, school administrators don’t get a lot of food reviewers, because at first he seemed unconvinced by my explanation. He told me I should have gotten a visitor badge when I came into the school. Okay, no problem. I checked into the office on the way out, and they scanned my driver’s license into some massive HISD database. Pretty intrusive for some chicken fingers, if you ask me.
All in all, it was a pretty good meal, as long as you don’t stop to consider the fact that its mere existence encourages irresponsible parenting and complete, pet-like reliance on government.
Pros: Extra chicken; low price; convenient location; opportunity to mess with befuddled school administrator.
Cons: No drink; getting hassled by The Man; failing our children with a massive educational bureaucracy and welfare state; no gravy.
Decor: 
(out of four)
Food Appearance:
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26 Responses to “Food review: HISD Summer Feeding Program”Search
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Nice going Matt… you just got yourself added to Sinclair Elementary School’s list of likely sex offenders.
well at least you didn’t impersonate a katrina evacuee….
Matt, you are a freak! Can’t believe I read this!
11 out of 24 possible “M”’s
Overall rating is MMMMMM - bad
Jes’ like my ole Pappy usta’ say:
“You git what ye pay fer!”
I wonder …is the revenue received for these “meals” enough to pay for the food and the preparers and the utilities used? I believe I hear this giant slurping and sucking sound.
MATT, HOW DO I GET SIGNED UP FOR THIS MEAL TICKET?
Whoa, any story with a spork in it is automatically top-notch journalism. Kudos Matt, and do let us know if you survive the night after consuming that stuff.
Don’t complain. You could get the same thing at the ballpark for $28.50
Did they offer you ketchup. Oh thats right, that is a vegetable and you already had one. I agree, the cobbler should have been included.
I pulled up that schools web site under registration and there is nothing there requiring proof of citizenship. They need a birth cert, proof of residency in the area and shot records. The question I have is, what if they dont have the BC or shot records? Do they send the illegals home? If they present a Mexican BC if they exist,do they accept that? I just cant believe kids in this country illegally or with not shot records can enroll in our schools free and on top of that get a free or cheap breakfast and lunch paid for by you know who. ISMHLYKW™.
in addition to the tray, there are those clear transparent containers holding individual food items…
did they have plans to recycle those trays and just ran out of those clear transparent containers for the chicken strip…
think someone is making a bundle for selling those transparent containers from hisd because it defeats the purpose of the compartments on the tray…
if they did not use those clear transparent containers, they may have afford to serve a cobbler with the meal with the money they save from not using those clear transparent containers …
If you were a Katrina evacuee, you would probably have complained about it not being free and why it wasn’t being provided to you forever. You would probably wonder why there was no beer included. You would have stated that the government owed it to you because you are a minority and somewhere in life got cheated or deprived of something.
Or if you were an illegal alien, you have wondered where the beans were and how come there were no tortillas. You also would have wanted a beer.
My point in all this is that the government has told everybody that they will take care of everything for you. You have no responsibilites for yourself and as long as you voted for them they would continue to provide for your every ethnic need because it was more important that you maintain your culture rather than being feed some food.
Just head down to an HISD school Monday-Friday, 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Breakfast is from 7:30-8:30 a.m.
Here’s a list of participating schools.
according to recent survey from high school students the greatest lake in the United states is Salt Lake and the Governor of texas is Harry White.
These students do not deserve any meals.
All of them could name correctly the characters of TV show F.R.E.I.N.D.
I wonder how much gets thrown out at the end of the day?????
Man… If I were homeless, I’d be hanging around the HISD dumpsters! I’m sure there would be something in those dumpsters that could pass for gravy…
All I know is that I used to do IT service work for the Richardson ISD, and we all knew that the lunches were nasty at the elementary schools. Go to the High Schools. They’re much more palatable there. RISD High Schools even had Taco Bell and Cici’s Pizza (back in 1993-1994, at least).
You’re still likely to be harassed by The Man nowadays, though…
#9
Yes, Mexican birth certificates do exist. I have seen at least two in a job-related situation a number of years ago (pre-I9).
Matt, how was the java? Maybe we can get reduced Mocha’s on ol Uncle Samuèl.
#15, that’s because if the food is foul in an elementary school, there will be few kids skipping out to enjoy a real lunch somewhere, that likelihood goes up as they get older so the food gets progressively better to keep em from trying to escape….. they have enough reasons to try to escape, no point making the food yet another.
You ate school cafeteria food? I’m still suffering the effects.
Nice chicken strips. What part of the chicken is the strip again? I’ll bet they’re right next to the nuggets.
#18 - reminds me of an incident in a Whataburger down the street from Skyline High School in Dallas during Exams. You see, I had a study hall during one period, and rather than sit in a study hall doing nothing for 2 hours…
I always thought that with the onset of Summer that hundreds of students died off since their free feeding at the taxpayer trough ceased when school let out. Family can’t afford to feed their own kids so let Uncle Sam provide.
Matt, that was the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time on this blog or any other! Now, I’ll let everyone else go off on the education system!
We don’t need no education
We don’t need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
HEY! TEACHER! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!
All in all it’s just a ‘nother brick in the wall…
Can you still get a soda in school? A decade ago the schools made huge deals with the junk food companies, but now they’re gong to remove the regular sodas (i.e., sugar + the genetically modified High Fructose Corn Syrup) and just leave the diet sodas (those chemicas have GOT to be worse–you do know that Def.Sect.Don Rumsfeld was the head of G.D.Searle Paint when they came up with aspartame (Nutrasweet, Equal, etc.) when they sold it to Monsanto, yes?).
I suggest water, fruit juice (100%, NOT sugar/HFCA), and like you said, low-fat milk. (And you should probably check out the NOT MILK website just to pull a muscle in your brain.) Remember, everything we eat in this country has been fully planned and tested to ensure the highest profits money can buy.
“HEY! Dept. of Education! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE!” –Pink Floyd paraphrase
I can’t stop laughing at the first comment. Of course it may be the 3 pints of St. Arnolds Amber Ale…
kb
Matt, good going, great idea. Hope it didn’t make you sick
This issue chaps my hide, big time. FREE! Not free for most of us.
Anyway, I love the way they checked you out for security purposes AFTER you made it through. Gawd, how pathetic, some kid will get snatched and theyll sue the city!