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Berger prefers the chicken fried steak and macaroni and cheese because they’re filling, but he said most entrees are starving for spice.
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La Crosse County Jail inmates Jeremy Quinn (left) and Craig White dig into their lunchtime meal of country fried steak, gravy, pasta, and green beans. PETER THOMSON photo |
“Overall, I can’t complain about the food here,” said Berger, 60, of La Crosse, who is serving a sentence for violating his probation. “But it would be nice if the portions were bigger.”
Make no mistake, this is no three-bologna-sandwiches-a-day jail. Here, inmates are served fresh fruit, Salisbury steak with gravy, roast beef and burritos. Food preparation is a science in the jail’s cramped kitchen, where more than 229,000 meals are produced annually. Servings are calculated down to the ounce, and food is utilized as a measure to manage inmates.
“It’s important we keep the inmates healthy,” said La Crosse County Sheriff Steve Helgeson. “With some people staying long-term, health-wise it’s important they’re served a balanced diet.”
A four-week rotating menu is created by a team of 10 dieticians specializing in corrections with the jail’s food service provider, Aramark, and approved by jail Capt. Doris Daggett.
About 14 employees cook and prepare an average of 630 meals daily in the kitchen’s stainless-steel tilt skillet, steamer and convection oven.
“That’s it, there’s no stove,” said Aramark Correctional Services General Manager Robin Stanton, who oversees the jail kitchen.
Meals were prepared at Hillview Health Care Center when the jail was built in 1997, so the facility’s kitchen was built mainly to serve. The room was converted to the existing 23-by-22-foot working kitchen in the jail’s basement at 333 Vine St. when the county switched to Aramark in 2003.
“We have to be efficient because of our space constraints,” Stanton said.
One walk-in refrigerator and freezer store the 11 deliveries required weekly with limited storage space, Stanton said. The jail addition, which will be completed in 2010, will feature an expanded kitchen with more refrigerator and freezer space.
Still confined in the current kitchen, meals are prepared in shifts and around eating times to handle the demand.
Lunch preparation begins about 8 a.m. and dinner about 2 p.m. A cold breakfast is made the day before and refrigerated until morning.
Breakfast is served about 6 a.m., lunch about 11:30 a.m. and dinner about 5 p.m.
In between, Stanton and her staff eat the same food as the inmates and work to keep the white cinder-block walled kitchen immaculate.
“It’s busy all the time in the kitchen,” she said.
When the food is ready, insulated trays divided into compartments are slid down a line of five or six cooks who dish-up the servings. These men and women have the task of guaranteeing equality and uniformity on each tray.
“It’s important security-wise that everything is consistent,” Stanton said. “Otherwise it’s a bad outcome.”
Once filled, the trays are loaded onto a serving cart and wheeled upstairs to the cellblock’s dayroom. Meals arrive hot to the inmates within minutes, Stanton said.
Inmates aren’t provided with copies of the menu, but most know well in advance what’s on the tray each day.
“They write it down in the block,” Daggett said.
Inmates file up to the serving cart, grab a tray and gather in groups of four at stainless steel tables. Bargaining and trading begins immediately, with inmates swapping bread for green beans and noodles for an extra cookie during lunch last week.
In a place overrun with boredom and routine, the three meals are highlights.
“This is one of the events of their day,” Stanton said.
Inmate Richard Ellison, 43, of La Crosse, who is serving a 65-day sentence, raved about the pizza, hamburgers and chicken patties, but said most meals could be dressed up with salt and pepper.
“All and all, it’s OK food,” Ellison said. “I’ve had worse meals at other jails.”
Food costs hold steady at county jail
The exact amount of each meal at the La Crosse County Jail cannot be broken down, but jail food costs will rise 4.6 percent for 2009 based on the consumer price index, said La Crosse County Sheriff Steve Helgeson.
The county’s budget for food and staff to prepare the meals will hold steady at $601,955 because the jail population will decrease when 10 low-risk female offenders are released into new county approved alternative housing on the city’s North Side.
La Crosse County has escaped the fate of some correctional institutions forced to cut and alter menus to handle food price inflation.
“Having sufficient food is a positive management tool,” Helgeson said. “If the inmates aren’t complaining about the food, it’s much easier for staff, and it causes less disruption than if they were being served three bologna sandwiches a day.”
On the Menu
FOR BREAKFAST: Adult inmates begin their day with a cold breakfast that can include cereal, fresh fruit, milk, juice, two slices of bread with margarine and jelly, muffin or breakfast bar.
FOR LUNCH: There are more than 20 lunch options, including hot dogs, sloppy Joes, barbeque meatballs, turkey-rice casserole, spaghetti, tacos, roast turkey and soup. Side dishes such as fries, vegetables, potatoes, chips, coleslaw, rice, garlic bread or baked beans accompany the meals. Eight ounces of juice and a dessert also is included.
FOR DINNER: There are more than 20 dinner meals and side dishes, including turkey-noodle casserole, chicken patties, hot turkey, meatloaf, burritos, and macaroni and cheese. A fruit drink and dessert is served with each meal.
WHAT’S HOT? Pizza, burgers, hot dogs and burritos rank among the most popular items, said Aramark Correctional Services General Manager Robin Stanton.
WHAT’S NOT? Pork is not served because a significant number of inmates have a religious objection, said jail Capt. Doris Daggett. Meals also can be tailored for inmates with medical needs, such as diabetes or allergies.
BY THE NUMBERS: Each inmate who finishes his meals will consume 2,900 calories daily; juveniles housed at the county’s juvenile detention center consume 3,400, based on an American Correctional Intuition recommendation, Daggett said.
