Yeshiva Food

All the yeshivas I’ve been to serve delicious food. It ain’t 60 years ago anymore when you’d get rocks.

Did they serve TV dinners??

I remember when I joined Yeshiva and complained about the food, my brother told me jokingly “it’s an explicit Posuk near the beginning of Parshas Chukas (Bamidbar 19-14): Zos Hatorah, odom ki Yomus be”oil”!

ZD,

“Eating Days” which is a poor translation of essen tag does not mean they only ate certain days. The practice in many of the pre war yeshivas was that community members would have over a yeshiva bochur for specific days to eat. And other community members would have them on other days.

And certain members also got allowances from the yeshiva for food.

Oy,

yet another instance of writing of what he knows not.

We are not in pre-war europe anymore. We are in another generation. Don’t dwell on what was. Bnei Torah are not sleeping on seat benches. Or wake up in the night to see the Chofetz Chaim hovering over them with another blanket and some warm milk.

Those days are gone.

As a mashgiach I see how the old european cooks Jewish or non- make food. Oily. Handfuls of sugar. And lets not bring up hygiene…. Why stir a cake mix with a ladle when you have your finger? Just stick it in!

I … ah … don’t eat from that carerer anymore…

[Forehead-slap]

This complaint is universal when applied to Institutional food. Yeshiva, public school cafeterias, colleges, hospitals, summer camps, nursing homes………

Add the additional costs of kosher, glatt kosher, cholov Yisroel, pas Yisroel and the cost per meal escalates or the quality/variety/quantity must be lowered.

When I was on the board of a day school in the 1990s, we had complaints that the children had not been served meat in three straight months. We had approved and paid bills for many cases of chicken. Turns out, the chicken was being taken home by those staff members who also housed out of town kids and used to feed the staff family and the students suppers and shabbos meals.

Only when the school accepted government lunch funds (and government surplus foods) were lunches required to meet Type A standards for protein, vegetables, starch, sugar and fat.

Gone were the days of May lunches made of fried matzo (bought when the supermarkets marked it down to 10 cents per pound) made without eggs and phony powdered ‘no fruit juice’ punch.

It is up to parents to get involved and insist on healthy meals at Yeshivas, not to say we suffered through it, so can our kids.

BTW…this all ties into the thread about Yeshiva tuition. Day schools need at least $5 per day to feed kids a balanced kosher lunch (no one wants pasta every day), a teen-aged yeshiva bochur easily costs $100 or more per week to feed in a dormitory situation.

For a reality check: Typical college treif meal plans (19 meals per week-brunch on weekends, not breakfast and lunch) cost about $3000 per semester. The average semester is about 14 weeks…that works out to more than $200 per week.

Some colleges have kosher dining which accepts the meal plan. If attending a college with private kosher dining you can expect to pay double.

Bramo…

I think you meant to write the quality of the ingredients.

Quantity doesn’t matter is the quality is no good. Large portions of bad food is not the answer.

Bramo………

It’s ALL about cost. There are many restaurants feeding far more people in a meal’s time serving great, fresh food. BUT they are not doing it for $2-3 per meal.

Joseph…………

Far more in big cities such as NY than in modern, spacious buildings elsewhere.

Outside NYC government health departments are far more stringent when it comes to inspections, especially of institutions.

I served a term on our local Health District board. The director of public health even shut down the kitchens in our public high school when they did not meet standards. They were put back in order in less than 72 hours and now have monthly inspections. not semi-annually.

The assisted living center my mother OBM lived in her final years, no longer has an independent cook under a mashgiach. Instead it is professionally run by Sodexo (the institutional arm of Marriott) with true professionals under full time rabbinical supervision. Much cleaner, healthier meals and lower costs based on economy of scale.

Our area Jewish Federation is considering a central commissary to provide centrally prepared meals for serving by day schools, yeshivos, meals on wheels, senior centers, day camps, etc. All these constituent agencies who accept Federation money could be well served by professional food service and reduced cost/higher quality meals.

I see how the old european cooks Jewish or non- make food

I was going to ask what exactly this “non-make food” that the old

European cooks is, but then I realized what it was meant to mean.