All the possibilities of meals in schools

Several canteen workers and school administrators have lauded the Mission: Food Possible (M:FP) initiative, which they say will have a positive impact on schools’ menu offerings and students’ diets.

The initiative, spearheaded by food security activist, chef and author, Peter Ivey, is an annual food security training programme geared towards exposing schools to what he described as the “unique culinary history and identity of their communities”.

This year’s staging ran from October 12 to 14, to commemorate International World Food Day on October 16.

Ivey said the mission is to positively impact food insecurity across Jamaica, by incorporating into menus what he described as MVPs (most valuable produce) which are locally grown foods.

Menu items included cho-dash vegetable medley, made using chocho and dasheen, yammin-jammin pockets, and dishes derived from converting ground foods into a dough stuffed with vegetables.

This year’s targeted schools were Snowdon Primary, Plowden Primary, Albion Primary and Bethabara Primary in Manchester, and Frankfield Primary in Clarendon.

Albion Primary and Infant’s principal, Paulette Chedda, expressed confidence that M:FP would yield great results for her school.

“Our cooks are all excited, and the kids, I’m sure, will appreciate the new and creative ways in which the food will be presented, and will probably eat more nutritious meals because of this initiative,” said Chedda.

“Children generally don’t like vegetables, they rather having fried chicken every day, so if we have other options to disguise the nutrients in, and it is more palatable and pleasing on the eyes, they will gobble it all off.”

PREPARATION OF NEW OFFERINGS

Karen Smith, principal of Plowden Primary and Infant School, who was also among the trainees, shared similar sentiments. Smith also bragged about the new knife-cutting skills she had learned that she would be utilising in her personal kitchen.

Snowden Primary and Infant’s cooks, Trudy-Ann Answer-McKenzie and Collette Barnett, spoke highly of the M:FP venture.

“I feel good about the training, because it helps us to prepare new ideas for our students, and also the community, so it’s a good initiative,” said Answer-McKenzie.

With some stakeholders bemoaning the challenge to get students to eat vegetables or ground produce, Answer-McKenzie believes M:FP has ended their woes.

“We have now learned how to incorporate vegetables and so forth into other things. The children don’t like the cassava [for example], so I can now put it into the flour, or put the vegetables into the flour and fry it,” explained Answer-McKenzie.

Barnett lauded the initiative, asserting that she was taken aback by how much they had learned within the three days.

“It’s like we have completed a six-week course in three days,” said Barnett, who basked in having new ideas for their lunch menu.

“Every [meal] today is a new idea, so we’ll definitely be taking them back to our school,” said Barnett.

Ivey, M:FP’s founder, said, “The idea behind Mission: Food Possible is that you can take the skills of chefs to areas around Jamaica, and impart those skills – how to cook yam, ackee [etcetera]. All of these foods are linked to Jamaican culinary heritage and identity, and we want canteen staff to feel empowered to be creative with these dishes,” Ivey told The Gleaner.

Ivey said the initiative has been a success since founded some six years ago.

“In 2018, we were featured in Forbes Magazine as possibly the answer to the world’s hunger problems,” he said.

M:FP’s executive chef Patrice Harris-Henry told The Gleaner that the initiative could also positively impact the country’s agriculture sector.

“In Jamaica, we have a lot of grown crops that we don’t utilise a lot, and we need to teach our students how to have the connection between what they eat and farming, as agriculture is one of the biggest assets that we have,” added Harris-Henry.

olivia.brown@gleanerjm.com