Venting.... you've been warned read on at your own peril
So, for the last year I have been catering MonUCS camps. The feedback willingly offered at the time of the events had been overwhelmingly positive and I must say I was a little chuffed. Not only had I set myself challenging menus considering the budget, but the meals, by and large, were cooked by a crew with no formal kitchen training under my supervision in a kitchen with virtually no catering equipment beyond pots, stove tops, ovens, a grill (which proved a nightmare to clean) and benches. Sometime the compliments about the food were downright humbling (one fresher passing through the kitchen burbling about how the food was "just as good as if I were at home" before blushing and running away). But increasingly challenging have been the spiralling demands of specialist diets and expanding expectations to treat "dislikes" and "does not eats" at the same level as "can not eat pig products for religious reasons" or "committed vegetarian".
Some time back nclean attempted, on a LiveJournal post, to articulate the need for catering for the exception diets so as to not exclude a sub-set of the population at mass catered events. With MonUCS camps, there are a number of controls that are available to understand the dietary requirements before the menu is finalised, costed and the ingredients bought. How ever, for various reasons recent MonUCS committees have chosen to allow campers to book past the cut off and have their dietary requirements accommodated.
Unfortunately, although I had intended to cater the MonUCS camp coming up this weekend and had gotten as far as polling on FaceBook for campers' preferred menu options, planning a menu, lining up kitchen staff, arranging time off work to do the morning market shop, negotiating specialist menu items with a camper who has particularly tricky dietary restrictions, arranging pet care while we'd be away, etc. it is not to be.
The reason for the bailing at the last minute is that the proof of menu coverage of all dietary options became detailed to the point of ridiculous. I had even made the offer to committee to allow campers to pre-book their menu options (almost a la carte) before they got to camp to ensure that all campers were happy with the catering. As I tired to tease out the nature of the paranoia about the menu suiting the requirements of even the most finicky eater at camp, the allegations of complaints arising out of past camps began to get thrown around. Completely flabbergasted that (a) there had been so many complains or such severe complaints and (b) extremely disappointed that I was never made aware of the issues when I could have remedied the situation, I set to finding out the source of the complaints.
What I've found is the following:
So can we have one big arse reality check, PLEASE!!!
Key points:
Some time back nclean attempted, on a LiveJournal post, to articulate the need for catering for the exception diets so as to not exclude a sub-set of the population at mass catered events. With MonUCS camps, there are a number of controls that are available to understand the dietary requirements before the menu is finalised, costed and the ingredients bought. How ever, for various reasons recent MonUCS committees have chosen to allow campers to book past the cut off and have their dietary requirements accommodated.
Unfortunately, although I had intended to cater the MonUCS camp coming up this weekend and had gotten as far as polling on FaceBook for campers' preferred menu options, planning a menu, lining up kitchen staff, arranging time off work to do the morning market shop, negotiating specialist menu items with a camper who has particularly tricky dietary restrictions, arranging pet care while we'd be away, etc. it is not to be.
The reason for the bailing at the last minute is that the proof of menu coverage of all dietary options became detailed to the point of ridiculous. I had even made the offer to committee to allow campers to pre-book their menu options (almost a la carte) before they got to camp to ensure that all campers were happy with the catering. As I tired to tease out the nature of the paranoia about the menu suiting the requirements of even the most finicky eater at camp, the allegations of complaints arising out of past camps began to get thrown around. Completely flabbergasted that (a) there had been so many complains or such severe complaints and (b) extremely disappointed that I was never made aware of the issues when I could have remedied the situation, I set to finding out the source of the complaints.
What I've found is the following:
- MonUCS campers by and large do not realise that the entire budget for food per camper for the entire weekend is $10 per head (or less) for Saturday breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and a dinner of entree, main and dessert, Sunday breakfast and lunch. Please try feeding yourself the same food as you got at last camp on this much for an entire weekend if you don't believe how restrictive this is.
- The MonUCS campers who are making the most noise could no sooner plan and execute the catering of a camp for 45 people 25 of whom have specific dietary needs with a kitchen staff of volunteers a significant proportion of whom have limited cooking skills, than I could complete a Formula 1 Grand Prix race. (Harsh perhaps, but I'm yet to see any of them do it.) Yet they are quite content to dictate how someone else should do the job.
- That an extremist culture of ultra-acceptance within MonUCS is painting the logistical restrictions of catering on such a limited budget as being "exclusionary" and therefore something nasty to be weeded out.
- That the committee driven decision making prevalent in MonUCS is feeding a never-ending cycle of rescoping/redesigning. Instead of a timely open discussion followed by a direction being set and discussion ended, members are free to reopen the discussion and redefine the requirements of work in-flight.
- That limitations and constrains imposed on the caterer by the MonUCS committee (such as agreeing that there was no budget to buy soy milk or dairy free margarine at one camp or the store room supplies not arriving at camp) or the camp site (locking away critical catering equipment) have not been communicated to the campers and therefore the campers have blamed the catering.
So can we have one big arse reality check, PLEASE!!!
Key points:
- Camp food was never, ever intended to be a full service, a la carte, all possible food foibles catered for experience. The mission is to feed as many people as possible with out making anyone ill or killing them.
- If you have problems with food, either physiological or psychological take some personal responsibility! Bring your own snacks or pre-prepared meals or offer to cook your own meal after the main meal is served or go off site for meals. (For those of you who know me, you know that I do not say that without personal past experience of both physiological and psychological food problems.)
- The provision of food at the camp site is a service to enable people attending a remote location for a weekend of rehearsal. It is not intended that a full service menu is available for every whim. If you don't like big chunks of onion or raw tomato or olives, push them to one side of your plate or choose something else. Pretend its your grandma who just served you that! Would you bitch and moan to her?
- Feel free to augment the camp food with the stuff that you just can't do without for a weekend: goats milk, rice bubbles, whole wheat bread, non-vegan gluten free baked goods, carrot sticks and dip.