Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412120004
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: HAMILTON LENGTH: Medium
He scrunches up his face and shakes his head from side to side as he spots the cause of his dismay: salmon loaf.
``It doesn't sound good, and it smells bad,'' says Peter. He opts for the chicken nuggets.
Most people think corn dogs, mystery meat and limp string beans when they think school lunch. But recently, flaked salmon has showed up on cafeteria menus and asparagus is headed in that direction, thanks to a government program that buys surplus food and gives it to schools.
Teachers may love these more unusual items that often have gourmet cachet, but many children say ``Yuck!''
Salmon's "not something we love to get,'' said Serena Suthers, Prince William schools' food services supervisor. ``We made wonderful salmon cakes but only the adults liked them. It's good quality salmon; it's just not many 10-year-olds like salmon.''
Last year the U.S. Department of Agriculture bought more than 6.6 million pounds of flaked salmon from the Pacific Northwest at about $1.50 a pound to prop up the salmon market.
Most of the fish was then shipped to the nation's schools free of charge - including 140,000 pounds for Virginia.
And this year, schools already are flipping through their recipe books to figure out how to use 50 tons of frozen asparagus that is expected if a government purchase is completed.
School cafeteria directors said they've tried everything they can to get kids to eat salmon - mostly without success. In addition to doing salmon ``burgers,'' they've tried camouflaging the salmon in tuna and calling it ``seafood salad,'' but it doesn't work. Kids locate the pink meat and refuse to eat it.
And lunchroom workers say the fishy smell that fills the air when they're cooking salmon dishes usually drives away customers.
Finding uses for off-beat foods is nothing new for the nation's public schools.
For almost 60 years USDA has been purchasing products in bulk to support their open-market prices. For many of these years, these foods have been sent mainly to schools and to child-support programs, Indian reservations and soup kitchens.
USDA food buyers say that unusual items such as salmon and asparagus make up only a small portion of the foods they purchase, and cafeteria directors say the department has become more responsive to school needs.
But once in a while, school pantries get a shipment that looks more like upscale deli than Department of Agriculture.
Bailey McCreery, Arlington schools food service director, remembers when 200 cases of olives showed up. It took three years to use them up.
``I shake my head sometimes,'' said Sherry Atkisson, supervisor of food services for Loudoun County schools. ``I don't understand why we get some of the things we get.''
But an optimistic Ken Clayton, who oversees the section of USDA that's been buying salmon, thinks kids would eat the fish if it were repackaged into ``salmon nuggets'' - an idea he's working on.
Salmon nuggets or not, some schools are telling USDA they don't want any more salmon, even free.
by CNB