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Lenoir chefs get creative in making menus

Mauricio Castillo sautés the ingredients for the shrimp scampi pasta, served every Tuesday at Lenoir Dining Hall. DTH/Daixi Xu
Mauricio Castillo sautés the ingredients for the shrimp scampi pasta, served every Tuesday at Lenoir Dining Hall. DTH/Daixi Xu

A hint of math, a dash of science and a sprinkle of experience — that’s the recipe for serving about 4,000 students a day in Top of Lenoir.

“The first time around, whenever we create a menu, it’s really a guesstimation of how much we think we’re going to serve,” said executive chef Paul Basciano.

Chefs and managers create these estimates based on how popular they think a meal will be that day.

For example, if barbecue is on the menu, they might assume that 70 percent of customers will eat that entree, while another 30 percent will opt for something else.

These formulations are also rooted in experience, Basciano said.

“Some us have a lot of years of experience in the business,” he added. “We kind of know our customer base.”

But these estimates aren’t always correct.

“Sometimes we’re wrong,” Basciano said. “Sometimes we’re way wrong.”

In an effort to make sure this doesn’t happen frequently, the managers and chefs maintain detailed breakdowns of the production and consumption of food. Records include dates, the menu items served those days and the number of students served.

These production sheets also take into account the weather and special events that could cause the customer numbers to fluctuate.

At the end of the day, these sheets are used to figure out what went wrong and to correct it for the future.

“Hopefully, in a couple of months into the process, we have it down to such a science that we really are zeroing in,” Basciano said.

Then if that particular menu item is served again, “we’re already ahead of the curve,” said Dontez Pherribo, location manager for Top of Lenoir.

But most students aren’t aware of how much really goes on behind the scenes.

“I didn’t know that so much work went into it,” said freshman Alex Payan.

Having even the slightest advantage is important, especially when the dining hall is in charge of feeding so many people each day. But even with all of the mathematical calculations and careful records, there are still some leftovers.

Leftovers


When this happens, there are a couple of options that the kitchen has, including recycling some of the leftover food.

“Depending on what it is we’ll use some items to rework, for soups, different types of stir-frys, things of that nature,” Basciano said. “But that’s all by judgment call. Things we can’t rework, some of our products made in a sauce that would be detectable the next time, you try to serve in a different way. We never re-serve it the same way we originally served it. We creatively rework it.”

Junior Krista Douglas said she knew there a lot of food produced every day in Lenoir but didn’t know what happened to leftovers:

“I wondered if they had extra leftover if they put it somewhere else the next day.”

Lenoir uses an estimated 1,200 pounds of chicken within a single week. If there is leftover chicken that has not been cooked, it can be reworked and used in chicken noodle soup, Pherribo said.

Basciano said leftover shrimp that has only been steamed can be used in shrimp chowder or shrimp bisque.

The other option they have is to donate food on Fridays to the local food bank, the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, said Bruce Eckmeder, senior foodservice director.

The food bank does not take dry grocery items from UNC — such as seasoning and salad dressings — but will take items such as vegetables, proteins, food in the coolers and other leftover food.

But Eckmeder said it’s very rare that there is excess waste.

“That’s one of the beauties of having such a high volume, is food is constantly flowing through the process,” he said.

Pleasing everyone

Along with managing hundreds of pounds of food both before and after it’s cooked, managers and chefs must consider the diverse array of palates that comes with the large student body at UNC.

“We try to get a feel of what the customers want through our customer comment cards,” Pherribo said. “And we like to just walk around and interact with our customers and just see what they want.”

Pherribo said managers view the comment cards as an important way to make sure their customers are satisfied.

Managers even make an extra effort to respond to the comments and incorporate some of the ideas into future meal planning. Pherribo said they are already planning meal cycles for the fall semester and are using these comment cards to help with the preparation.

They also use their own tastes. The managers eat meals in the dining hall three times a day, Pherribo said. If they walk around the dining hall and nothing appeals to them during that meal period, they take note.

But in the end, it’s about pleasing the customers.

“We enjoy seeing the reaction from the kids and seeing that they like it,” he said. “We have fun with what we do upstairs.”



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.

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