Keep menus appropriate to the temperature; the weather; the season; occasional holidays.
Recognize the limitations imposed by equipment; amount and kind of help; range of cost permitted; left-over foods to be used; form of service.
The first point to consider in planning a menu is the type of institution to be served. For reasons that are obvious, the purpose of the high school cafeteria is very different from that of the metropolitan hotel, while neither of these has the same object as the municipal tuberculosis sanitarium.
The age, sex, nationality, economic condition and occupation of the patrons must be kept in mind. The adult demands a freedom of choice which may be denied children. For this reason the content of the grade school lunch may be fixed in an arbitrary way, while this will not do when one is dealing with adults of any class. For instance, grade school children are satisfied with the morning bowl of bread and milk and the noon lunch of bread and soup. Adults, even in a charitable home, would undoubtedly complain of the simplicity of such meals. The high school lunchroom may eliminate colfee from its menu and have frequent "pieless" days. Any such attempts to regulate the diet of adults, except for patriotic reasons such as were the incentive to denial during the war, are highly inadvisable.
As far as the food elements are concerned, the same kinds of food may be served to boys and girls or to men and women. But, practically, they will not eat the same foods with equal satisfaction, and this should influence the planning of menus in different institutions.
School lunch managers and social service workers have found that in order to accomplish their aims they have to recognize racial food tastes.
