There was a question posed on Yahoo Answers:
Hospital food or airplane food or jail food?
which one is the best and which one is the worst?
I have debated this question myself. Not for very long, however. I do feel that I know the answer to it, so it is not a “chicken or the egg” argument in futility. More on that theory at a later date.
Peter, author of Peter’s Hospital Diary had a revolutionary theory in the archives that takes the onus away from hospital dieticians, namely his thesis that it is not the actual food, but the distribution system that makes it so bad. He writes:
The food is all cooked centrally and distributed in hot cupboards – plated and covered up. There lie two immediate problems. The first is the hot cupboard, which must be hot enough to make sure the food is transported above the legal (for food safety purpose) holding temperature – which I think is 72C. The problem is that if the cupboard is above that temperature, and kept for any length of time, it continues to cook, and dry out, so things like vegetables, pasta or rice are overdone, and wet food congeals, and dry food gets drier. Worst of all is that the plates have covers on them, and when that is removed, the smell is appalling – especially fish and some vegetables. The most successful meals are casseroles and the like.
Technically, based on his observations, the person at the end of the hall of the 8th floor could be getting sick, where the person on the 2nd floor could be raving about a culinary masterpiece, as if existing in two parallel universes.
He goes on to write:
(Just heard from one of the nurses that the food has won awards – best in the country – which it may be when it leaves the kitchen – but not at the point of delivery. Heaven help the worst…)
Ironically, a hospital in my very own county is just like this. They have won awards at the county wide “Taste” of the town type of events for their perfect Hollandaise sauce and their whole overall quality and presentation. People that are not staying at the hospital actually hires them to cater hoity toity events. Go figure. This seems to support Peter’s sage theory, or smart excuse, even though Peter’s hospital appears to be in the U.K. and the one I speak of is in a semi-rural county in Florida.
Maybe after reading this you will never look at red jello* the same way again.
(*= Red IS a flavor. Just ask the Freezer Pop/Freezer Ice people).
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