ShareThisBy STACY FINZ
San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
With less than two weeks to go on her sentence, hotel heiress Paris Hilton reportedly is rejecting most of her jailhouse rations, opting for just the cereal and bread.
The Los Angeles County jail is no Ritz-Carlton, to be sure. It's not even the Hilton. But contrary to popular belief, food fare in the slammer these days is far from gruel and water. In fact, a whole set of regulations requires that meals not only be nourishing but also look good on the plate.
Many California jails have gone so far as to serve vegan dishes to please their socially conscious inmates. Other jails have a plethora of plans to satisfy diets restricted by religion or health issues.
Some serve fresh, roasted turkey on Thanksgiving, Danish for breakfast and even dessert. One sheriff, so desperate to get one of his prisoners to eat, broke down and bought him a Big Mac.
Steve Whitmore, a Los Angeles County sheriff's spokesman who has been working double-time handling the press covering the Hilton case, says he's been eating a lot of meals from the socialite's new home -- the downtown Twin Towers jail.
"I think they're really good," said Whitmore, who particularly savors the bologna sandwiches. As far as Hilton: "I'm not going to comment on what individuals in the jail eat or don't eat," he said.
On a typical day, according to Whitmore, inmates get a breakfast of cold cereal, hard-boiled eggs and a beverage. For lunch, it's usually a sandwich of ham and cheese or turkey, fruit, Jell-O and cookies. Dinner is a hot meal -- entrees like pepper steak or macaroni and cheese, vegetables and dessert.
Los Angeles County has 47 different meal plans for inmates who can't eat certain foods, said Magi Work, a field representative for California's Corrections Standards Authority, a government agency that monitors jails statewide.
Unlike prisons, jails hold people either awaiting trial or sentenced to serve less than a year behind bars.
According to state regulations, jail food must meet nutritional requirements and include at least one hot meal a day. Inmates must have a minimum of 15 minutes to eat and in some jails are permitted to chow down in front of the television -- just like home.
The state also dictates that violent or problem inmates be served the dreaded "disciplinary loaf," which is designed to be eaten without utensils. The strict recipe calls for dry milk, potatoes, carrots, tomato juice, cabbage, lean ground beef or turkey, textured vegetable protein, eggs, red beans and chili powder -- all baked in an oven for an hour.
"It's actually not that bad," said Marin County Sheriff Sgt. Mike Crain. "And it's very nutritious."
But do the inmates like it?
"These are the kind of inmates who wouldn't like filet mignon if you served it to them," he said.
At the Marin County Jail, if you're good, you get cake, baked in-house. You also get an occasional dinner of chicken cordon bleu or meat loaf. Not in the mood for rich comfort food? Crain says folks can trade any entree for a good old peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
A few dishes might even have scared some crooks straight. In San Diego County, for example, the threat of a steady diet of "Duffy burgers" -- bologna sandwiches named for the late Sheriff John Duffy -- was enough to put fear into the most hardened criminal. Word was, however, that the jail's chocolate-chip cookies could turn even a preacher bad.
Yet there are always those people, maybe not as rich or as pampered as Paris Hilton, who just don't like eating from a prix-fixe menu. San Francisco once had an inmate who refused meals for nine days. When Sheriff Michael Hennessey pleaded with him, the man replied that he'd eat only a Big Mac.
That caused much debate at the jail. Would they be setting a bad precedent if they gave in to the fellow? Hennessey decided it would be worse having a man die of hunger on his watch.
So he went next door to McDonald's and got the man his burger -- and a side of fries.
