A School Meal to Remember

Guest Blogger, Derrick Lambert, Child Nutrition Advocate at Hunger Free Vermont

I lived and worked in France for four years – I was a teacher there, and spent lots of time with kids in school. Living up to the cliché, I adore French food : The funny thing is, I feel the same way about school food there! My second year teaching as a language assistant in Gourdon (of the Lot département in southwest France), school cooks there regularly served stuffed cabbage with beef – something I’d never had before! I probably ate stuffed cabbage 10 times while I was there, thereby doubling or tripling my lifetime intake of what had otherwise been an obscure vegetable in my life thus far. At my childhood public school in Mississippi, vegetable soup and pizza had been the norm. The fact stuffed cabbage even existed in the world came as a revelation.

These small-town school cooks drew on reasonably-priced ingredients and their own expertise to hand-craft memorable food. It took them time to prepare the meal and care to serve it, and they needed confidence in their audience – middle- and high-school kids – to believe it would get eaten. This speaks not only to a culture that appreciates food, but a habit of putting healthy meals on kids’ trays and allowing their palates to develop accordingly. This requires patience and a belief that investment – in talented staff, fresh ingredients and creative thinking – will cultivate in our children the lifelong belief that an otherwise humble head of cabbage can be transformed (by heat, by time and by love) into something memorable for years to come.

RECIPE: Slow-Cooked Stuffed Cabbage Recipe (Taken from chow.com)

Makes 6-10 servings

Ingredients:

For the cabbage:

• 1 large head green cabbage, cored
• 1 1/2 pound ground beef
• 2/3 cup medium- or long-grain rice
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For the sauce:

• 2 (30-ounce cans) tomato sauce
• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped apples
• 1 1/2 cups roughly chopped onion
• 1 1/2 cups peeled, seeded, and roughly chopped tomatoes
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 3/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 6 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest

Instructions:

1. Place chopped meat, rice, eggs, salt, and pepper in a large bowl and mix until evenly combined. Roll into 1-inch balls and refrigerate.
2. Fill a large stockpot 2/3 full with heavily-salted water and bring to boil. Stick a long fork (one with a rosewood or like handle) into the cabbage head and gently place it in water. When leaves become soft and start to fall off, carefully remove these cooked leaves and place them in a large, flat colander. Return the remaining cabbage to the stockpot and repeat until all the leaves are done. Place the colander in the sink and then pour the water from the pot over the cooked leaves. Gently rinse them with cool water. Drain then cut and discard the thick ends/spines.
3. Lay each leaf out on a flat work surface and place a meatball in the center. Top with a smaller leaf, roll and tuck edges so that you have small packages. (If there are any remaining cabbage leaves, chop and reserve.)

4. Begin layering; I use a 7-quart Dutch oven, which generally requires three layers. Add 1/3 each of tomato sauce, apples, onions, tomatoes, brown sugar, lemon juice, vinegar, zest, and the remaining chopped cabbage or meatballs. Place stuffed cabbage on top of this but do not crowd them. Repeat until you have three layers.
5. Add water until just filled to the top of the last layer. Place on stovetop and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until meatballs are cooked through and flavors are melded, about 1 1/2 hours. Taste sauce and adjust with salt and pepper as you please. Plate, and serve with egg noodles or boiled potatoes.