Senior Living

Chefs must stay creative and flexible to meet the special dietary needs of this group // By

Amanda Baltazar

If you never thought green beans could be controversial, you may never have experienced the world of senior dining.

“Certain people want them cooked and cooked and then cooked some more; others want them fresh; some want them with salt and pepper and some want them without — so how do I offer green beans five ways every day?” says ACF Chef Brian Menzel , executive chef of Friendship Village Senior Living in Chesterfield, Missouri.

As a result, he cooks them multiple ways every day: very soft; just done; and al dente. Each is served with salt and pepper or without, and with butter or without. “Even with all the different ways, it still becomes a challenge,” he says.

Likewise, says Chef Jason Houdek , executive chef with foodservice contractor Cura at Lakewood, a LifeSpire retirement community in Richmond, Virginia, “some people want green beans cooked to death and stewed for hours but others might want them to have some snap, al dente.”

Feeding seniors can be challenging, fun and exciting. Chefs who work in residential facilities tend to offer a variety of comfort foods and more adventurous meals, to satisfy all appetites.

Chef Menzel feeds around 400 seniors for dinner daily, serving five entrees that change every three days: Two of them are health-focused, such as low-sodium; one is an American classic like pot pie or meatloaf; and then Chef Menzel gets creative with the other two. These might be barbecue-rubbed chicken breast with caramelized onions and Alabama white barbecue and broccoli slaw; or broiled seafood like barramundi scampi-style topped with Russian red crabmeat and garlic butter.

There are several dining rooms at BHI Senior Living communities in Indianapolis, allowing seniors to decide what’s for dinner, says ACF Chef David Kay, regional executive chef, Morrison Living.

When he introduces global foods and flavors, he cooks them as authentically as possible. However, since most food is made-to-order, he can usually tailor it to diners with special needs such as low-sodium diets. “Some of our most adventurous creations include a duck confit ravioli with browned butter sage sauce, a winter herb pesto-crusted lamb loin, BLT fried deviled eggs and a maple bourbon creme brulee,” says Chef Kay. There are two demographics of residents at Lakewood — the over 80s and under 80s, Chef Houdek says. He tries “to meet the needs of all the residents.” But typically, he says, the older residents opt for comfort foods like fried chicken or pork barbecue.

The under-80-year-old group of residents is more adventurous, and Chef Houdek cooks dishes such as pork belly bao buns; smoked duck breast in port wine sauce; seared scallops with roasted butternut squash puree; and roasted sweet potato, kale and green pea orecchiette.

Tailoring to Customers

Chef Menzel does his best to keep everyone happy. He recently introduced tacos featuring traditional fillings such as braised pork and carne asada, but several customers complained. So to satisfy everyone, he started serving different choices: crispy ground beef tacos in the dining room and the more authentic

Mexican-style carne asada, al pastor and baja fish tacos as specials in the bistro.

Chef Menzel even throws in the occasional plantbased dinner, partly because a lot of residents’ families come to eat with them, though some of the seniors like to eat these foods, too, he adds. Popular dishes he’s made include eggplant lasagna and portabella stack (with grilled yellow squash, zucchini, red bell peppers, spinach and fresh mozzarella, oven-baked and served on top of passata). He also serves a Beyond Burger daily and recently used plant-based Mindful Chik’n.

Plant-based dishes have a place on Lakewood’s menus, too. Chef Houdek recently prepared a roasted acorn squash stuffed with quinoa, goat cheese, red currants and freshly chopped mint and parsley, “which meets the needs of the vegetarian people, of the gluten-free people, of the people who are looking for something that’s not loaded in fats,” he says. And, he points out, these foods also appeal to younger visitors who “don’t want to eat food from the 1950s.”

It’s important to keep things exciting, says Chef Menzel, but he has to gauge how authentic to make foods he introduces. “When I first make something, I try to keep it as authentic as possible, then when I get the feedback from guests, that’s when I start tweaking, so I get more into their comfort zone.”

For example, he’ll change the name of a dish so it’s more familiar; at other times, he cuts back on the spices, such as with Indian curries. In the case of a Balkan cevapi sandwich, he used pita bread instead of Balkan somun bread to make the sandwich smaller and more approachable.

Stepping Up Special Events

Chef Kay loves to create events to keep meals exciting for his residents. In the summer, he hosts cookouts, and yearround he runs events like wine dinners and has a program called Teaching Kitchen, featuring food demos and interactive activities. These sometimes have themes, such as superfoods, featuring ingredients high in antioxidants like acai berries; “Pickling, It’s Kind of a Big Dill;” and introductions to global cuisines to teach recipes like citrus pork carnitas and cinnamon churros from Mexico or cucumber and papaya salad with Mysore chicken from Africa.

Special events are also popular at Lakewood. In September, Chef Houdek orchestrated a 45th anniversary gala, an upscale catering event featuring dishes such as gremolata roasted beef tenderloin and grouper with prosciutto and artichokes.

He also recently ran an Iron Chef competition to engage residents. Chef Houdek and his team from Lakewood competed against another LifeSpire community. Residents were judges, basing opinions on presentation, originality and taste.

Lakewood has an activities department that helps plan many events. There’s dinner and a movie once a month; a fivecourse tasting menu, also monthly; and “we celebrate virtually every holiday or festivity,” says Chef Houdek. Events are an opportunity, he says, “to introduce new types of food.”

Senior diners are an easy bunch to keep happy as long as they’re offered the comfort foods they grew up with, but offering a variety makes things interesting and will expand seniors' palates.