Narrator: These cooks make up to 13,200 meals a day
for the 4,400 cadets here
at the United States Military Academy
in West Point, New York.
Today, the team is making
over 22,000 meatballs combined with 4,000 pounds of noodles
and 150 gallons of tomato sauce.
And that's just for one of the dishes on the lunch menu.
I would say in comparison to a standard college,
we do things a little differently, I think,
than most colleges do.
Group: Attention
all cadets.
For lunch,
we are having
chicken.
Narrator: There are lunchtime rituals,
and each meal is balanced specifically
for these future military leaders' rigorous workload.
Christine: On a normal day, we're probably providing
between 12 and 1,500 calories for these individuals.
Now, whether they eat all of that is up to them
and what they're choosing for that day.
The cadets' nutritional requirements are elevated
because they are engaging in academic work,
in military training,
as well as their physical exercise
that they're completing here day to day.
Every meal is earned, not given.
So the fact that we are able to march in step,
keep our military bearing, shows after a long day
or long morning of classes we've earned this meal.
Narrator: Meals at West Point
are served here at Washington Hall,
the historic mess hall
where army cooks have been feeding West Point cadets
for nearly 100 years.
News announcer: At mealtimes,
the destination is Washington Hall,
where the cadet gains back the pounds he lost
during last summer's hike.
And the food is tops and wholesomeness.
Jason: Probably our most difficult meal to support here
is our lunch meals, where the cadets have about 25 minutes
to get into the building, sit down, eat, and get out.
Faye: I think the one thing that a lot of people
don't realize is how fast it all goes.
So it starts at noon at formation.
We all get in there by 12:10,
and then after that the food is served
to 4,000 people and eaten all within 15 minutes.
Narrator: But it's not just the cadets
who have to move fast.
Christine: A lot of the cook staff
who have been in those military environments
and who have understood what that means to serve
and what that looks like,
so I think they try to structure the menus
so that they may see similar things
when they're out and not at West Point.
Narrator: But how does the staff at West Point prepare
over 4,000 nutritious meals that can be served
and eaten in under 25 minutes?
Insider was granted rare access to the mess hall
to see how they pull it off.
The food is prepared underneath the mess hall
in a labyrinth of hallways, kitchens, and freezers.
Jason: So feeding 4,000 cadets is certainly a challenge.
It is also a very well-oiled machine.
We've got multiple refrigerators and freezers here.
My whole background in the Army has been
in food service the entire 20 years
that I've been in the Army.
In the cadet mess, I have approximately
90 Department of the Army civilian employees that are cooks.
They're the ones that cook all the food.
But we also have another approximately 130 or so contractors
that work in the mess here.
And their job is to actually serve the food to the cadets.
The challenges of preparing 4,000 meals three times a day
are substantial.
Our staff is arriving at 3:30 in the morning,
and we're not opening for breakfast for another three hours.
But the reason is because it takes that three hours
to prepare food for 4,500 cadets.
Narrator: On the menu for today's lunch:
spaghetti with meatballs, breadsticks,
fruit salad,
broccoli,
and iced cake.
Prepping enough spaghetti for over 4,000 students
starts nearly two hours before lunchtime.
In the large kitchen,
cooks start the spaghetti
by boiling 400 pounds of pasta in these giant vats.
Then they add 22,500 meatballs,
which they prepared early this morning,
enough for each cadet to have five.
With the spaghetti underway,
cooks begin steaming 720 pounds of broccoli.
Meanwhile, in the bakery,
400 cakes are being iced and placed on carts.
Back in the main kitchen,
cooks drain the water from the vats
and add 150 gallons of tomato sauce.
While the spaghetti is simmering,
cooks in a temperature-controlled cold kitchen are preparing
for a lunch that won't be served for another two days.
These cooks are opening two pallets
of frozen ribs weighing 3,600 pounds
and breaking them into pieces.
Prepping meals days in advance
is one of the methods the mess hall staff uses
to serve so many cadets so quickly.
Jason: For menu development,
I work with a dietician
that works for the United States Corps of Cadets,
which is upstairs from the cadet mess here.
We come up with options using Army recipes
that are in the Army system,
as well as other recipes that are available online.
And we review those recipes,
make sure that they meet the dietary guidelines
that they need to meet for West Point's standards,
and then we try them out.
I am a registered dietician
and a certified specialist in sports dietetics
for the Core of Cadets at West Point.
So the menus are structured in a certain way to make sure
that they are meeting all of their calorie requirements.
So on the menus there's usually carbohydrate-based foods,
which are going to fuel their brain health
and support their academic performance,
as well as prime their muscles for some of that
moderate-to-high-intensity exercise
that they're going to engage in.
And then we usually have plant- and animal-based
protein sources
in order to support their tissue and muscle recovery.
And then we have a lot
of different fruit and vegetable options.
So fresh fruit,
we have a cooked vegetables at the table,
as well as a pretty robust salad bar
that provides lots of antioxidants
to make sure that they get that color in.
It supports their immune system
and makes sure that they combat
some of that inflammation that's incurring
from that intense exercise.
Narrator: Once all the dishes are finished,
they're served into portioned containers
and loaded into heated carts.
We have around 50 to 75 of the hot carts going.
So generally speaking,
each hot cart will hold food for about 10 tables.
Group: Ten minutes
until
assembly
for lunch
formation.
Before lunch formation and before morning formation,
the plebes call minutes,
and they say the meal for that day.
Group: For lunch,
we are having
chicken,
rice,
and vegetables.
Narrator: After receiving the minutes read aloud
by freshmen, known as plebes ...
Group: Five minutes remaining.
Narrator: ... cadets get into company formation
in front of Washington Hall in an area called the Apron.
While the students gather,
members of the West Point Band play them into formation.
Meanwhile, inside the mess hall,
the waitstaff is setting out the water
and bread for the 25-minute meal.
Jeanaoh: Oh, it's like everything you've seen in the movies.
Before formation, we heard the band start kicking off,
really telling us to fall in the companies.
Once the accountability is taken of the company,
then battalion, in the regiment,
we all start marching to the beat of the drums
to the mess hall.
And really, the drums help us stay in step,
keep the cadence,
and keeping our military bearing.
Narrator: As cadets file in,
the waitstaff has only six minutes
to get the food from the hot carts onto each table.
We make sure that all the table is set
in terms of etiquette and making sure
that everybody has their silverware, plates, napkins, cups.
The plebes are actually in charge
of making sure that this etiquette actually happens.
Narrator: Meals at West Point are full of traditions
that the cadets observe,
like the plebes pouring water for the upperclassmen.
Etiquette is a huge deal in the military.
And so this kind of just reinforces
from your first year here that etiquette is super important.
Narrator: At the plebe end of the table,
every seat has a specific role and responsibility.
Typically you'll have one person at the end,
and that's your cold-beverage corporal.
They will be in charge of making sure
that everyone has a cup full of water,
because there's water pitchers on the table
when you get there.
And then there will be a gunner to the left of them
at the end of the table.
They're in charge of the desserts.
And then to the right of the cold-beverage corporal
is the hot-beverage corporal.
That person is in charge of getting
if there's soup in the buffet line
or coffee in the mornings.
Faye: And then the plebes will call the table,
which means so that they basically say
the fourth class has performed all their duties,
and now we're ready to eat.
And then at that point, we all start eating our meal.
Narrator: Portion sizes are crucial
to ensure each cadet
is receiving their daily caloric intake.
But some tables in the mess hall receive more
than the standard portion.
Christine: So there's a variety of different cadets here
with a variety of different nutrition needs.
And they're always doing different levels of activity.
Narrator: Tables with a "heavy" designation
receive a portion and a half,
and tables with a "heavy/heavy" sign get double portions.
For some of the athletes that we have
that have to maintain a higher body weight for their sport,
such as football or heavyweight wrestling
or some of our track and field throwers,
they require more calories
to be able to support that activity,
as well as keep their body weight in a range
to be competitive in their sport.
So they may need more calories to support that.
Narrator: For cadets, lunch is a mandatory meal.
They're all coming here from all over the country
and honestly, all over the world,
because there are exchange students as well.
So it's a way to make sure
that they can build that camaraderie
and build that teammate,
build that team together by making them have that meal.
Narrator: For upperclassmen,
breakfast and some dinners are optional,
where they can choose from several other options on campus.
Another tradition in Washington Hall:
All four years of students sit next to each other for lunch.
I love having a table
with both freshmen, juniors, seniors.
It definitely allows you to interact
with people in your company that you normally wouldn't.
And we switch tables every semester as well.
So we get to build those new relationships with people
throughout our four years here.
So I think probably the most favorite meal
and something you'll probably hear a lot
is there's a spicy chicken patty
that the cadets absolutely love.
My favorite meal here would probably be
either spicy chicken
or the sweet and sour chicken with rice.
Favorite meal is definitely crispitos, sir.
It's like a hot dog burrito, if I had to explain it.
I really do like taco Tuesdays.
I also think they do a very good job with the seafoods.
My least favorite food would probably be taco night.
Probably the pork chop.
I'm not really a big Philly cheesesteak guy.
Sometimes they'll get burnt out on eating chicken.
There's only so many proteins that we can prepare.
Chicken is one of them that really almost everybody eats.
It's trying to find different ways to season the chicken
or different ways to prepare the chicken
so that their palate doesn't get burnt out
from eating the same thing.
Sherman: This is Washington Hall,
inside the cadet mess area, as we call it.
So behind me is the famous mural.
The inspiration behind this
was by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, class 1903.
And in the 1930s, he became chief of staff of the Army.
He worked with the academic board here,
and they came up with the concept
of battles, leaders, commanders, and technology.
You'll see Alexander the Great up top with the chariot.
You'll see siege rams and so on.
All the states are by admission.
So you got Arkansas, Texas, Iowa, California, and so on.
Behind me is the entrance from the mess hall
when it was finished in 1929.
So below me about three or four feet would be steps
and then the grass area out here.
This was the front of the mess hall.
So in the early 1960s,
the idea was to expand the enrollment of the academy
because the Army and the Air Force Academy,
which was only a few years old,
had an enrollment top of 2,500,
where the Naval Academy had 4,000 midshipmen by law.
So there's different aspects that occurred,
but in 1965, the law was signed,
and they started building, expanding.
So they built out from the original 1929 mess hall this way.
So at the end of the meal,
normally they'll call "Upperclass rest" or "Brigade rise,"
and then at that point, everybody can get up and leave.
So at that point, the meal has ended.
It usually only takes, like, 12 to 15 minutes
for everybody to eat.
And then we're on our way to our next class.
Our next class starts at 12:45.
Narrator: As the cadets begin to leave Washington Hall,
the waitstaff cleans the tables.
And back in the kitchens,
the cooks have begun preparing dinner,
which is only five and a half hours away.