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ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS LUNCHES
CATERING & HOSPITALIT Y | 39
“Our Christmas lunches are very traditional – but our own recipe nut roast replaces the turkey”
Richard Palmer (left), St Christopher’s School
ST CHRISTOPHER'S
What’s the alternative?
As Christmas approaches, Rebecca Paddick asks what else, besides the traditional turkey dinner, schools can serve up to satisfy students taste buds
Kids in control O
ne way to ensure students stay satisfied over the festive season is to let them
get involved in creating the menus and also geting them stuck into some cooking. St Christopher’s School in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, has been a vegetarian establishment since it was founded in 1915. All vegetables and fruits used in the school menu are sourced from local suppliers, and an impressive 18 different salads are on offer every day. The school works on a system
C
hristmas has become so much more than just one day of celebration per year, and that means we usually indulge in more than one Christmas lunch. So coming up with alternative dishes to turkey with all the trimmings followed
by traditional Christmas pudding could prove tricky for school caterers, especially at a time when they are having to think about nutritionally balanced meals more than ever before. And as the number of international students atending independent schools in the UK continues to increase, a rise in special dietary requirements, different cultures and acquired tastes is inevitable.
of self-governance, where ‘major officials’ (the St Christopher term for a prefect) are nominated and elected by their student peers. School meetings allow students and staff alike to propose, vote and implement new and amended rules and policy. “It is interesting to note that although the school could discuss and debate whether we should remain vegetarian they never have – the fact that there’s no meat or fish is largely irrelevant to them as the quality of the food is so fantastic,” explains Richard Palmer, head of St Christopher’s School. One of these meetings recommended that the school
SCHOOL
introduce cookery lessons for all its students. This persuaded the school’s governors to spend £750,000 on equipping a brand new cookery school, where all children learn horticulture and cookery as part of their PSHE curriculum. “Our Christmas lunches are very traditional – but our own recipe nut roast replaces the turkey,” says Richard. “We have found the younger children like the traditional Christmas lunch. However, over the past couple of years the junior school pupils have opted for a ‘party lunch’ instead of the more formal traditional meal. The school supplies sandwiches, fruit, cake, jelly, ice cream, sweets as a special treat.” The sixth-form boarders, however, opted for a slightly less traditional offering last Christmas. The older students can cater for themselves if they so wish in their own self-contained off-campus boarding house. Last year, they decided to try an Italian-themed evening meal. “One of the boarders was Italian, she cooked for the most part, with the help of her mother, who was visiting,” says Richard.
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