We all try our best to make it to the family dinner table for the holidays. Well, maybe not all of us — some might use their signature ruse, or flip to a page in The Art of War by Sun Tzu to find a fitting strategy on how to retreat with honor.
We tell our children Santa Claus praises good behavior and rewards us for it through gifts. If only that concept stayed true until retirement, maybe the world would be a better place.
Well now, back to reality and the criminals behind bars. Some unforgivable and some unfortunate, do both deserve a break through the guise of food from the horrors of prison?
Out of sight, out of mind is a societal preference towards criminals. I’m not here to write about the ideal situation for criminal reform or address the structural issues in the justice system. I came to think about how those so-called forgotten criminals celebrate holidays, specifically Christmas, and what they eat on that day.
Prisoners of The United States Of America
Before digesting these meals fit for criminals, a fact that is hard to swallow is that the United States of America has the highest prison population in the world. America has less than 5% of the world’s population, but 20% of the world’s incarcerated people are in America. Yes, 1 out of 5 prisoners in the world is locked up in the United States. That is a terrifying and sad fact.123
So what would be served on Christmas to the 20% of the world’s incarcerated people?
American celebrity prisoners seem to have their cake and eat it too. Information is easier to find about the famous and seems to get special treatment served on their food trays. Regretfully I had to peruse an article from TMZ. The winning protein is a Cornish hen, a USDA-approved name for a particular variety of broiler chicken, which is served under maturity, weighing under one kilogram, and is the poultry of choice for the US prison system of 2022.
According to The Daily Mail and depending on the prison, it seems what is served varies from a Cornish hen, roast beef, spinach quiche, mac and cheese, turkey, sliced beef, and gravy.
I don’t care what celebrities are eating in prison. Those articles joke, dehumanize and rob the little dignity left to non-celebrity prisoners. Spending Christmas behind bars remains a reality that millions of Americans will face, and again, one-fifth of the world’s incarcerated population. The truth of what their food trays look like is a grim and ghastly insight into the reality of food behind bars. An image I rather not share, but let you use your imagination.
As I’m sure, inmates couldn’t care less if it’s Christmas or not as well as the staff. It could just be another excruciating day in the life, and go on with gang politics, drugs, and making moves. According to Dazed this inmate who was locked up for running an LSD empire tells what is on offer for Christmas meals:
“The Christmas meal is big. It’s one of the only times of the years where the chow hall actually makes an effort to give you decent food. There’ll be corn, stuffing, pie and that big Cornish Hen. They fill your tray up to capacity and you are allowed your feast. But the big feasting comes afterward as the kitchen workers smuggle everything that isn’t chained down back to the units. Later that night after the Christmas meal you can get pecan pies, ice cream and more cornish hens back on the unit.”
The Federal Bureau of Prisons is a law enforcement agency that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of federal prisoners. In America there is a majority of two separate prison systems, one is federal and the other is from the state, and both have very different conditions.
The federal prison adheres to a national menu that is served in every federal institution. For the Christmas meal, I believe it varies and I couldn't find a straightforward answer. Yet, after a little more digging, I found one of the US Prison Food Suppliers, the first thing you read on their site is:
“National Food Group supplies high-value food items for a full range of cycle menus and budgets for federal and state prisons, private prisons, county and city jails, training facilities, work release programs and other correctional facilities.”
“High-value, cycle menus, and budgets.” Keywords that make you cringe. The National Food Group shows the markets they serve; on one side you see K-12 Schools, and on the other Correctional Facilities. It almost blurs the difference in general and in terms of nutrition.
On that site “Julie from Minnesota (Corrections)” shared an enthusiastic blurb to put on their internet site saying:
“I have purchased Opportunity Buys® from National Food Group for approximately six years and the products, prices, and service have always been top-notch. I am a FSD for Minnesota DOC and the Opportunity Buys® have really increased the quality of food I can serve offenders while still saving the state of Minnesota some money.” - National Food Group internet site.
Both Julie and the National Food Group want to promise you this will save you money, after all, a lot of these prisons are privately run and have set out contracts that have standards that must be met, especially financially. So, payments can be deducted for ‘poor performance’ against the contract. Which is a whole infamous and complex money-grubbing system that exploits its prisoners.
Back on Track with Food
Well, here I go diving deeper into politics than the food. There is a thin line when it comes to food and politics which I get easily sidetracked with. It took me a while to find a realistic explanation or portrayal of Christmas prison food but I finally found it.
Another article from 2017 by The Daily Mail. The pictures are copyritten so I can’t share them here. Some of the comments at the bottom of the article share their opinions such as “Don’t do the crime” or “You could imagine that there's some liberal out there that's upset that a felony isn't eating as well as he is,” or “It's prison. What do you expect?”
There is a massive difference between getting served a gourmet meal or getting served some ‘schlopp’ from Dr. Seuss, even though that schlopp looks quite good in the book. An equivalent to the word schlopp brings me to Nutraloaf — a degrading form of food that is borderline a cruel and unusual punishment in itself. So unappealing that numerous prisons faced lawsuits from convicts for serving it. According to NPR, this food is served as a form of punishment:
“The loaf is something above and beyond. Prisons and jails are allowed to come up with their own version, so some resort to grinding up leftovers into a dense mass that's reheated. Other institutions make loaves from scratch out of shredded and mashed vegetables, beans and starches. They're rendered even more unappetizing by being served in a small paper sack, with no seasoning.”
A misshapen and unsavory brick of cuisine — luckily not served for Christmas, as far as I know.
Prison in the United Kingdom
Let’s take a quick dive into the UK’s Christmas meal. As with the United States, the Christmas Day menu varies from prison to prison. Those locked up in a maximum security jail in Leicester, are limited to £2.17 per day spent on meals and it might be higher for Christmas. These prisoners are offered four options according to The Sun: diced lamb curry with rice and naan bread, a cranberry and mushroom nut loaf, two slices of turkey, one roast pork slice stuffing and pig in blanket, and finally, spinach, chickpea, and cauliflower homemade pie. All options are served with roast potatoes, sprouts, and parsnips with gravy. For dessert, inmates can enjoy a Christmas pudding and cream.
Lunch offers another four options that are served with a cheese salad and a baguette: A halal roast beef-lamb sausage roll, a vegetable pakora salad, a slice of ham and a sausage roll, or a meat-free sausage roll and a boiled egg, or two smoked kippers (a type of herring) and a boiled egg salad.
Not too shabby.
In religious contrast, Scotland’s Glenochil prison claimed a record number of inmates have converted to Judaism so they could receive Kosher meals. In 2016 more than 100 inmates signed up to receive their dietary-compliant food, just a few years before there were only 9 Jewish inmates in that prison. According to this French article, Glenochil prison was inspired by the TV show Orange is The New Black, specifically season 3 which came out in 2015 and shows an inmate doing the same thing and converting religions.
Christmas For All
Moral and ethical questions come into play, yet again for the criminals who committed unforgivable crimes. Do the worst of the worst deserve a celebratory meal in the name of religion? Here I go distracting myself with principles.. Back to food!
Norway is known for some of the most humane prisons. Inmates receive a monthly stipend if they buy and cook their food and are fed things like fish balls with white sauce and prawns, chicken con carne, and salmon.
Japan has a nifty restaurant that emulates the same lunch as the Abashirishi prison next door. You would get served some rice boiled with barley, fried fish such as mackerel pike, thinly sliced daikon radish, Harusame noodle salad, and a miso soup. Since there is a low incarceration rate, more money can be spent on nutritional meals for inmates.
As for China, the stories of having food rations cut in half because of a lack of work production seem the norm. China has an obfuscating way of dealing with or sharing information. Even more so about who and what goes on in prisons. Even if Christmas in China is more of a romantic holiday, the Chinese prison food looks fucked up.
Russia has a few of their prisoners showing off their locked-up recipes, showcasing “prisoner Nutella”, or making prison moonshine. There is no shortage of Russian prison narratives, from exiled revolutionaries sent to Soviet Gulags to more recent accounts. The fear and threat of the word ‘prison’ in Russia is a powerful enough tool to do your best to not mention it, the food as well.
France has bad prison food. France has a constant battle of secularism vs. religious freedom, especially in jails and halal food in prison. In 2013 France suspended serving Halal meals in a prison in the city of Grenoble. On November 7, 2013, the French court ruled in favor of the inmate and ordered the prison to provide halal meat options.
Italy has got it made! Some prisons claim to have convicts involved in growing food, making jams, juices, and olive oil, and learning winemaking. The harvested produce is then served to inmates with 250 ml of wine each evening with their dinner. According to a 7-year-old news article, the restaurant InGalera inside the Bollate prison on the outskirts of Milan has convicts serving food to guests. In January 2013 the European Court of Human Rights ordered the country to fix its prison system. Another prison in Volterra operates a restaurant that has become a unique location for locals and tourists to try out Tuscan cuisine.
How is that for reform?
Cornish Hen-ly yours,
The Greasy Pen.
I wish you lovely holidays and am looking forward to writing more for you in the new year. Thank you for reading.
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/01/16/percent-incarcerated/
https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/document/p21st_sumB.pdf
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisons-report-series-preliminary-data-release#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20prison%20population%20was,increase%20from%202021%20(1%2C205%2C100).
Bare subsistence in some cases (a piece of ham and a roll) but better on Sunday.
They took extreme liberty in even implying it’s nutritious. Looks like stuff they scraped off the floor.