In what is clearly the high point of his “Food Revolution” series, Jamie Oliver stages a “flash mob” cookathon at Marshall University. Dance students saute garlic, spring onions, chilis, ginger, sliced beef, snow peas, bean sprouts and cooked egg noodles in a choreographed celebration of cooking. Dollops of sesame oil and soy sauce precede the final squeeze of a lime, executed to the beat of DNC’s “Jungle Flames.”
Jamie Oliver, glowing with missionary zeal, exclaims, “Brilliant!” And the flash mob “happening” helps lure townspeople to the woks set up outside of “Jamie’s Kitchen” in Huntington, W.Va. But what do food theatrics have to do with altering the nutrition of school lunches?
Everything. As Oliver has said in numerous interviews, America is a difficult market for his revolution. We like easily prepared food and outsized portions to match our outsized bodies. We don’t want to be told what to do, by Oliver or anyone else. Oliver’s four-year effort to change school food in Britain was successful, yet there is resistance on our shores.
We know fresh food is a good thing, and recognize that more fruits and vegetables will prolong our lives and slim our bodies. But we need to be humored into accepting the work and expense involved in preparing better meals — for ourselves and our children. That’s where flash mobs to “Jungle Flames,” colorful food, the sound of sizzling and tempting aromas come in. If Oliver and others can make us want to replicate that slicing, dicing wok dance, our families will benefit.
Even the “lunch ladies” who initially resist Oliver’s suggestions to change the nugget-and-french-fry diet of schools are eventually stirring chopped vegetables and slicing fresh meat for inclusion in students’ lunches. Each Huntington school needs $6,500 a month for fresher food and training — funding that’s granted by the last episode.
What are the recipes for school success? They include healthy ingredients, unadulterated by chemicals and preservatives. Greens, cruciferous vegetables and red peppers are slipped into dishes redolent with onion, garlic and chilis. Tacos, quesadillas and burritos are wrapped with whole-grain tortillas with less meat and more beans and vegetables.
Pizza has a thinner crust and is strewn with fresh tomatoes, spinach or small broccoli florets as well as cheese. Pasta has a higher proportion of healthy “mix-ins” and is served without chemically thickened sauces. Meat and chicken are roasted instead of deep-fried, with no breading or additives. Oliver’s roasted chicken shines with a teriyaki glaze. Salad bars include low-fat dressings and raw vegetables as well as the standard lettuce and tomatoes. Even mac and cheese undergoes a makeover with the inclusion of broccoli.
Fresh is fabulous in the culinary lexicon of Jamie Oliver and Mario Batali, and one look at the photographs in their recent cookbooks will make you want to cook “healthy.” Oliver slips “stealth” vegetables into his school lunches, paralleling his “stealth” campaign for our nation’s well-being. He believes — and data support his conviction — that eating well will improve performance and lengthen lives — and isn’t that what we all want for our schoolchildren and their parents? Join the revolution with more recipes from Oliver later this week.
Erica Jacobs, whose column appears Wednesday, teaches at George Mason University. E-mail her at [email protected].
