I am an intern. Right now I am an intern in foodservice. When I used to think of foodservice it was the foodservice from reality tv chef shows. It seemed fun. I like cooking. I like baking. I like it when people eat foods that I have prepared.
However those shows are nothing like hospital foodservice where I am currently interning. For one thing, everyone hates their food. This isn't necessarily surprising as it is mass produced and everyone is sick so things don't taste right anyway. Second, there are a lot of logistics! In hospitals there is constantly construction and there are meetings about that construction and foodservice has to be involved because food is important. Finally, they don't really cook in hospitals, as I have discovered. My fellow interns and I are responsible for planning an event during our rotation. We wanted to do gingerbread men and decorate for the holidays. Apparently our food supplier not only does not supply gingerbread men, but they don't provide gingerbread cookies, gingerbread bulk dough or gingerbread mix. This means that we would have to make the cookies from scratch. When I presented that idea they said that they really didn't do that.
So, hospitals don't cook food, they thaw and reheat it. Instead of cooking they spend their time sorting out ordering guides, figuring out staffing issues, going to meetings about construction and filling out patient satisfaction surveys for unsatisfied patients. Essentially the only aspect of reality tv celebrity chef foodservice that I enjoy, cooking, is omitted from the process.
Disclaimer: I really do not like my foodservice rotation so I could be a little bit down on hospital food. I have eaten a few meals in the cafeteria and they are okay.
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