every day has no d’oeuvre a main course
the sauce that changes every day the
cheese the changes that’s the menu for
the lunch program at a public school in
Paris a five course meal for
three-year-olds a menu not only given to
parents so they know what their child is
having for lunch it even recommends what
family should serve for that night’s
dinner you don’t want a child to have
fish for lunch and fish for dinner
Vivian Walt is a writer for Time
magazine and her three-year-old son goes
to a public school in Paris and her
experience illustrates just how
seriously the French schools approach
meals Dikwena zubaba a double Maj off
the menus are designed to provide a
balanced meal but also to introduce
children to the tremendous variety of
French cuisine I was there the day they
serve Booga base and yeah that’s me in a
bunny suit because they go to
extraordinary lengths for food safety
each of the city’s 20 school districts
has a central kitchen like this a
high-tech ultra hygienic facility
because children especially young
children are more susceptible to
foodborne illnesses they clean every
bottle every bag every piece of fruit so
there’s nothing that gave displace to
the kitchen that has not been
disinfected the meat they were proud to
tell me not only born and raised but I’m
a chocolate which even in the u.s. is no
guarantee of quality or safety but in
Parisian schools they keep small samples
of every meal for two months just in
case of any suspect illnesses and in the
US schools generally offer vegetables at
lunch but children just don’t eat them
here the dietician isn’t above
deep-frying the broccoli menya
interpretation dr. motion
but a bigger concern is the rise in
childhood obesity fuel partly experts
say by the popularity of fast food a
sample of William is a bit far the most
decisive achieve on this out yet no one
of the very first things that they will
always tell you is about how Americans
gobble their food and it’s one of the
things that drives the French nuts about
Americans yeah okay but I went to City
Hall to talk to the woman in charge of
all the public schools in Paris called
‘cycle all is her name and she believes
that eating is eating is also a pleasure
because you share with your friends in
school your family at home and you share
some food but you also share time
conversation and this is also a point
that is important to me well in a
Parisian school the lunch costs around
five six dollars and the family pays
what they can afford the city picks up
the rest but even in small town 400
miles to the south of Paris where the
budget is about half that the chef there
insists sababa squeeze on value-added
vertical of food LOL qua
this is dominique valla VA he’s the chef
at a local high school and he has to
feed 800 students every day for the
equivalent of about two dollars and
fifty cents a plate it’s ironic because
20 years ago he was a chef at one of the
biggest casinos on the Riviera Giselle
v11 known to do olm oh did you guess who
lives but he married a teacher and when
their schedules and vacations you know
never meshed he left the Riviera and the
Queen to cook for kids but brought with
him his passion for cuisine he insists
everything be made by hand he refuses to
take shortcuts even making his own fish
stock so that nothing goes to waste it’s
at VMA yo mr. sap sap buh buh buh false
most mornings he goes to the market sous
chefs lay Lily gunk even DC aha Lapras
possible the menu that day included Bros
be handmade ratatouille turnovers carrot
salad and muscles all fresh and just as
younger children are introduced a
typical French cuisine at this school
kids are eating escargot yeah that’s
snails there one student even feels it’s
better than what he’s getting at home I
mean I usual seeing a normal scenes of
everybody you with that star like pizza
when you get here exported ready really
good really good people hell the French
as we know are proud of their cuisine
which is why Vivian you remember Vivian
well when her son started nursery school
she’d signed him up for the lunch
program then decided mm maybe she’d
bring him home feed him he could take a
short nap she neglected to tell the
administration and one day got a phone
call requesting that she come to the
school immediately I thought something
was really wrong with my son I ran off
the door I ran down the street run up to
her office walk in and she’s sitting
there with my file in front of her and
she says what is your son eat for lunch
because of course we had signed him up
for the lunch program and I had changed
my mind without letting them know so
Vivian agreed that her son would eat
lunch at school every day and was sent
home with a menu detailing what the
child would be eating every day for the
next two months mm-hmm this to me is a
work of art and these are three year
olds we’re talking about
