Poor People's Food

[Igel]

1. Sounds like the food when I was in high school.

I wouldn't eat it.

Now I recognize it as "institutional food."

It's cheap to buy. You can buy it in large quantities.

It's cheap to store. You can leave it on the shelf (most of the stuff) or in the freezer (meat) indefinitely.

It's cheap to make in large quantities. Huge batches of spuds. Load up the convection oven. Boil 10 gallons of the spinach. Or peas. That's because it's mostly premade. So preparation is simple. No frying. Any expense in buying it mostly premade is saved in preparation time/complexity.

What's in portion sizes is perfectly uniform; what comes in a lump is easily scoopable for uniform portion sizes.

It's perfectly reproducible at any scale by whatever staff of whatever calibre happens to be in the kitchen. What you personally prepare for 20 today will be identical to what somebody hired at minimum wage 1 hour before lunch would prepare for 200 next month or a volunteer or a politician in need of a photo-op who came in for an hour would prepare for 800 people six months from now.

And best of all, nobody comes back asking for seconds because of gluttony. You gotta be honestly hungry to like it. Or have your taste buds thoroughly warped.