School cafeteria food goes Cajun

Chef Charles Gilliam thought developing a menu for school students would be a piece of cake.

Things were a little harder than he expected.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be easy. We can handle this and just change the world in on swift stroke.’ As is turned out, there’s a lot more to it,” said Gilliam, who owns Okra’s Louisiana Bistro in old town Manassas.

Gilliam met some obstacles in the school system that he hadn’t expected or encountered in the restaurant business.

“They have a tight budget they have to work with, and unfortunately they have really, really tight restrictions for what they’re able to do to put together the food for the kids,” Gilliam said.

But Gilliam hasn’t given up.

He’s been working with the school system since last year as part of First lady Michelle Obama’s  “Chefs Move to Schools” program, which is run through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to help chefs partner with schools to create healthy meals.

“I think my biggest purpose right now is to go down there and try to make a few good recipes and put some things in their mouths that they will kind of expose them to different foods and work on awareness of better foods,” Gilliam said.

On Friday, Gilliam introduced the first menu item of red beans and rice, maquechoux and corn bread to the students at Metz Middle School.

Maquechoux is a corn dish the Choctaw Indians gave to the original Europeans who settled in Southern Louisiana, Gilliam said.

“I call it an ordinary dish, but it tastes extraordinary,” Gilliam said.

Gilliam and the school system’s food service staff want to lure the students away from the foods they tend to gravitate toward.

 “The ladies down at that school really do care about what the kids are eating. They want them to eat good food. They want to make good food for them,” Gilliam said.

Gilliam said he and the staff are trying create “more exciting recipes to encourage students to eat healthier food and expand their dining habits.”

 “The kids seem to be drawn to the a la carte line that has the cheese pizza, the pepperoni pizza, French fries, all the things that really aren’t on top of the food chain for healthy food,” Gilliam said. “We’re trying to make the kids eat better food.”

Word must have gotten out Friday about the new lunch item at Metz Middle School.

Students lined up to get the red beans and rice.

Elyan Montoya  pronounced the new dish a success.

“It was spicy, but I liked it. I like spicy food,” the 15-year-old said.

Isai Fonseca, 13, said the dish had “a lot of flavor.”

Carline Garneau the cafeteria manager at Metz said she thought the things worked out well at the unveiling.

“It’s a little out of the ordinary for us, but I think the kids are really enjoying it,” she said of the food and the party in the lunchroom, where the Okra’s alligator showed up to mingle with the students.

Metz cafeteria work leader Cathy White said the students’ enthusiasm surprised her.

“It surpassed my imagination; I didn’t think it was going to take off like this. I thought the kids would still be eating pizza and fries,” she said.

Gilliam said he hopes shake things up in schools across the city.

 “If we can get something going at Metz, we’ll work our way in to Osbourn and Mayfield and see what we can do,” he said.

Senior reporter Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.