Hospital breakfasts

I know this is a wired topic, but I wonder if anyone had any "memorable" breakfasts in a hospital. I was only in a hospital twice, each overnight, but did Ok for myself.

In one place here in NY where you could order off a (limited) menu, so I placed 2 orders, one for pancakes and one for cottege cheese. Put them together with a drop of jelly - surprisingly yummy.

The second, I was in Santa Fe they actually had tortillas on the side and a possibility of breakfast burritos! Not exactly up to typical NM standards, but good enough for hospital confinement! (I don't think a hospital on the East Coast would offer breakfast burritos!)

Last year I had to take my eight-year-old daughter to the emergency room, then follow an ambulance that was carrying her in the middle of the night to another hospital. By the time I went to that hospital's cafeteria in the morning, I had been awake more than 24 hours and was stressed, anxious, and exhausted. When I saw the homemade style banana pudding, I actually got teary-eyed. It looked (and, when I bought some, tasted) like pure comfort food, which I really needed just then. It was a little random thing that made a big difference for me. (And that evening I took my daughter home, treated and cured and healthy as ever, thanks to God and modern medicine.)

I was really sick in 2003......In the hospital for almost two weeks. I do not have one fond memory of my stay there except for when I refused the wheel Chair ride and walked my happy ass out of there.
I will have to return in the future but right now I don't like hopitals. I take my meds and hope for the best. Sad part is, in my line of work I have to sit in Hospital for my entire 8 hour sometime 16 hour shift. I would rather someone beat me with a rock then have to be there. I am grateful that they saved my life but I stil don't like being there. P.S. I don't like Dentists either. "That's all I have to say about that!"

I was in U.S. C. hospital in L.A. for 2 and 1/2 mo.s the food you get at a 7-11 was better than that food ..Nothing fixed to order it was all lumped together to make a mess , take the tuna salad it had so much mayo on it , it was gross and I LOVE MAYO ...but the tuna was swimming in it ...always ...no fried eggs only scrammbled it was hell the hopspital it top notch the food is basment yuk stuff..I would of walked to the 7-11 if I could of ...

My only real experience with breakfast in a hospital, (Medical City in Dallas) was very memorable. I remember it being the most HORRIBLE food I ever ate!

I haven't had any memorable nuttin in a hospital, unless you consider the constant and gnawing desire to unass the place and go home as memorable.

I was in Munson Hospital in Traverse City Michigan 2 years ago for a hysterectomy...and after not being able to eat for almost 3 days......and the threat of killing someone if I did not get food soon, I was presented with their menu!! All I can say is WOW!! It was like a sit down restaurant menu! You got to order what you wanted, how much you wanted, and whenever you wanted! I ordered a made to order omelet,hash browns that were NOT hash whites and toast! It was delishious!!! 2 hours later, I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate malt! This was BY far the BEST hospital food I have ever had!! I hated to leave!! Maybe the morphine drip that I was also leaving had something to do with it!! LOL Let the pain begin!!

University of Iowa Hospital- I was there about a week last December. I was on a carbohydrate restricted diet. My experience was similar to Lindsey- omelets to order, real fresh fruit, a wide selection of lunch & dinner items, such as lasagna, etc. Very tasty-I would not be ashamed to serve some of their entrees at my restaurant.

The local county hospital was an entirely different story- bland, bland, bland. My staff brought me a bottle of Tabasco sauce which helped.

I remember mostly good food when I was hospitalized for three weeks in 1985. They brought in subs from Buscemi's, a local Detroit subshop. However, the first night I was there the meal was liver and onions. Not a good start.

When my daughter was born in August '06, the hospital I was in had some incredibly good food. Not just good food for hospital food, but they had some stuff like you'd get in a restaurant. I was in for three days and never had a bad meal. They had menus and served the meals on a cart with a tablecloth, linen napkins, and real silverware, not those flimsy plastic sporks.

I was in the Scottsbluff, Nebraska hospital several times over the last 2 years. There is a high Spanish population there, and they offer tortillas & salsa with every meal.

The balance of their food is rather blah & boring, but my nurses were extra special & they would go down to the cafeteria & get whatever I wanted


LL

I had intestinal surgery and was laid up for about 5 days. I only ate sherbert after a day or so, and maybe some broth. I was hungry for more but ate what they offered. I did realize that the next time that I am in this situation again, there is a nearby Chinese restaurant that delivers to every floor of the hospital. I suspect I would order soup or noodles.
There is a patient cafeteria where if you can get there, they served a hot meal in the most dismal of locations in the hospital basement.
The worse thing about being laid up there was that the TV had only 12 channels.

mark

I work in a hospital and have breakfast here all the time. Most of it is pretty average. They do make eggs to order in the cafeteria which aren't bad. The scrambled eggs from the regular line are awful. They are from a mix and more often then not are not done. Once it actually looked like soup. They do have a couple of breakfast sandwiches from time to time that are good. Every Friday they serve one that is grilled cheese with tomato and bacon. It's good. I had a stay in the hospital a few years ago (which by the way is weird to be a patient where you work) and the breakfasts were nothing great. I do remember one morning getting a big plate with a cover on it and when I took the cover off, found the smallest little omelette I had ever seen. My wife actually burst out laughing when she saw it. It had to be about a half egg omlette. But at least it was ice cold.

Hospital breakfasts... oxymoron!

At the hospital where I had my son by c-section the food was amazing they actually cook the food it's not any of that frozen junk you just thaw out they have a bakery deliver fresh bread in the mornings and use it for french toast and their dinners are just as amazing people actually go there as if it were a restaurant LOL My neighbor takes his wife to the hospital to eat as a treat

hey yankeesfan, i had an almost similar experience w/ my daughter when she was a few months old (late night ER visit, transfer to children's hospital, total panic, etc.)...sometime the next day, when things were going to be OK, my wife wnet down and brought me back some fried chicken from the hospital cafeteria...best fried chicken i've ever had

in an unrelated story, i was hospitalized a couple of years ago and couldn't have anything by mouth for 4 or 5 days...then one morning my nurse shows up w/ a bowl of beef broth, green jello and a can of tomato juice...and that was one of the best meals I've EVER had!!!

The local hospital here has wonderful food. The public beats a path to the doors to eat in the cafeteria. The facility has meeting rooms and the hospital's chefs cook for the special functions. Amazingly good.

The patients order from menus.. when I was in there for a broken ankle and pneumonia the offerings were varied and well prepared...

I too had a morphine drip -- nahhh that couldn't have anyting to do with it.

Scarlett you are fortunate to have a hospital that serves good food.The few experiences I had with them the institutional cooking was so bland,canned vegetables, fruit in syrup and the meats unspiced cooked in a pressure cooker.My longest stay of 3 days I lived on bread and butter and their very dry 2week old fresh rolls. The only thing good, I guess is many people there are so sick that they don't eat the food at all or starve themselves until discharge time....

when i was a kid my dad would take me to work on saturdays and he always ate breakfast in chicagos mount sainai hospital, i remeber i got 3 pieces of french toast with bacon and chocolate milk every time and it was 70 cents only back in late seventys which was still cheap then and surprisingly good too

As a patient the food was so bad I did not eat for three days, finally a nurse brought me some cheesburgers from MC d's. Funny thing is the cafeteria has excellent food, go figure???

John

I have been in 4 different hospitals and lost weight each time due to the absolutely awful food.

I unfortunately am in hospitals more then I would like, and usually the food is horrible. sometimes even uneatable. But I was in the hospital last year for about a month, and the girls that delivered the breakfasts told me that the chef would make omelets if I asked for them. From then on, I had some of the best omelets I have ever had. amazing

Just got out of the hospital this past week. Three choices for breakfast (same each time): scrambled eggs, French toast, pancakes. Ended up having French toast most of the time--it was the least horrid. The scrambled eggs were slimey.

Best meal overall during my almost 5 days: a family member brought in sushi from my favorite place.

A freind of mine recently had hip replacement surgery at the New England Baptist Hospital. He said the food there was outstanding, and this comes from a guy who frequents high end restarunts often.
I guess with so many options for elective surgery in the area they are trying to compete with better service and amenitys. He also said the bed was the most comfortable he has ever slept in. Chow Jim

The hospital in the last place I lived had pretty good food for both patients and guests: a lot of folks ate Sunday dinner there, and there was a section unofficially reserved for the "zipper club": heart patients on a special diet.

Where I am now it's good for guests, bad for patients. They serve a fair amount of cajun food in the cafeteria, but patient food suffers all the usual maladies of timing, temperature, seasoning, and preparation mentioned so often in this thread. They're trying hard to do better, so I'll update following my next stay.

Having said all that, breakfasts are great in both places for guests, and satisfactory for patients in the first.

Rick Flynn in hot, sticky Natchitoches

At the hospital that I stayed at for most of my cancer treatments, I was able to order from a menu. They had everything you could imagine. Though for breakfast foods I mainly stayed with the poptarts and cereal and milk. I would order the pancakes for dinner, but they were very dry and they didn't give you enough syrup or butter either!

Ami

Hello All,
We have one hospital in our city/county, and it is a good one.
Their food service is very good. Each patient has a choice of
foods based on what their doctor says is their illness. And they
have special meals for those whose diet doesn't have to be watched.
I bought my wife a lobster meal after giving birth to both of our
children.
Regardless, especially for hospital scrambled eggs, I would always
ask for extra packet of salt and pepper.
Take Care,
Fieldthistle

Just got discharged yesterday. Menu for me was "Clear fluid/Diabetic" and every meal was...

Juice of some sort
Gelatin of some flavor
Tea
Broth of some color

Broth was the only show stopper. I should have taken some for analysis.

quote:

Originally posted by kozel

Just got discharged yesterday. Menu for me was "Clear fluid/Diabetic" and every meal was...

Juice of some sort
Gelatin of some flavor
Tea
Broth of some color

Broth was the only show stopper. I should have taken some for analysis.

kozi, thanks for the laugh. I too am diabetic and when I have to be on those liquid diets, the broth,it's horrible. It just blows my mind that the kitchen actually thinks people will eat that swill.

oops, sorry for the name screw up. That's what happens when i try to laugh and type at the same time.

I had a stay in the hospital lately.And,I can tell you that I do not like hospital food !

iqdiva,
Glad you out and posting again. Welcome back!

Thank you so much MilwFoodlovers...I'm so glad to be with my great Roadfood friends!

My kids snuck me in some food.
They brought toaster strudels and and a bacon/egg/cheese bagel.
So I had the juice and tea along with....shhhh

Don't tell anyone.

I have never had good hospital food. The words hospital and food should never be used in the same sentence.

St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Appleton, WI has the best raisin bran muffins I've ever had. My
attempts to duplicate the recipe have been valiant but unsuccessful.

I recently spent a few days in Sarasota Memorial, a well ranked facility. For one breakfast, I ordered a poached egg. I wasn't expecting much but I am not picky about my eggs.

Not only was it hard boiled but I had to use a knife to eat it!

Cakes

I was in the hospital for 5 days in 2006 and for a few days I was out of it and didn't eat anything -- the day before I left the nurse brought me a turkey dinner and I remember how good it was! Of course, that might have had something to do with the fact that I'd been in a coma for a few days I don't think hospital food is so bad, but it's not anything you'd go out of your way for!

Andrea

My son was born at about 9 a.m. at City Hospital in Springfield, Ohio in 1965. I missed breakfast, but about noon they brought me a wonderful roast beef dinner with what tasted like real mashed potatoes and gravy and TWO very good hot fudge sundaes! I've been in the hospital a couple of times since then but for stomach related things so it's just been broth, jello, etc.

In most of the hospitals I've experienced, the food served to patients bears no resemblance to the food in the Cafeteria's.
When I lived in Pensacola, FL, I would drive several miles from work to the Sacred Heart Hospital to have lunch in their cafeteria. The food was terrific and the prices were extremely low.

In May I was hospitalized for ten days with sepsis. I was so sick that I didn't have much of an appetite, but my doctor, the dietician and the nurses kept telling me to eat because my albumin was too low. Anyway, I don't know what they expected. I keep kosher, so the kitchen kept sending me nearly inedible microwaved-to-death frozen meals that had more salt and fat in each one than a day's worth of food from a McD's. I kept begging for fresh cut up fruit and veges to no avail. The best meal of the day was always breakfast - cheerios, a banana I would try to cut with my flimsy plastic knife, and juice. Thank G-d for my family and friends who showered me with real food, otherwise, during those times when I did feel like eating, I would've been stuck with the yucky nausea inducing meals.

The most amazing thing to me is that I was hospitalized in Skokie, Illinois, which has an enormous population of observant Jews and the kosher restaurants, caterers, markets and even a kosher nursing home to feed them. This hospital serves many members of the kosher-keeping community and has for years, but they couldn't figure out how to arrange for fresh meals for Jewish patients? Ugh, infuriating!

Truly, the best hospital breakfast I had was after 60 hours of labor, my baby was delivered and was being cared for by the nurses, and I had real food for the first time in about 48 hours. Again, it was a kosher meal, but this hospital managed to arrange for a hardboiled egg, soft white bread, butter and cereal with milk. My husband made me a sandwich out of the bread, butter and egg, and it was the most delicious meal (and the most triumphant!) I've ever eaten.

I was in the hospital for a few days recently getting a knee replacement, and the only truly edible meal was breakfast. The best thing on the tray, oddly enough, was a little cup of cream of wheat, absolutely plain, no milk, no sugar. I haven't had it since I was a kid, and it was surprisingly comforting.

Many years ago I was laid up for some time in a certain hospital in Kalamazoo,Mi. It was so long ago the nurses dressed in those great white outfits. Anyway I mentioned at my admission that I had a small stomach ulcer. Well it was gruel for three weeks. I lost so much weight that I looked like a prison camp survivor but I had no ulcer! I asked what the stuff was called and they actually called it gruel.

Having some serious health isses I spent a lot of hospital time. Most in the VA. Comparing VA to a regu;ar hospital for food is comparing Poderosa to Morton's.
Most hospitals want to give you a liile exta care w/food these days to overcome the stigma of yoears past.s
Va, half the time is crwam o wheat or oatmeal. wHEN THE va OFFERS EGGS OVER THE REHEATING IN THE CART LITERALY CEMENTS THE HARD COOKED EGG TO THE PLATE.
oN sAT. THE DO GIVE OUT BISQUITS AND GRAVY.
aLSO REG. HOSPITALS WANT YOU TO FEEL SPECOAL. The give you a menu card after the previous meal and you choose the next. Schnazzy!!!!
britt

=== has an enormous population of observant Jews and the kosher restaurants, caterers, markets and even a kosher nursing home to feed them. This hospital serves many members of the kosher-keeping community and has for years, but they couldn't figure out how to arrange for fresh meals for Jewish patients? Ugh, infuriating! ===


I bet it is even tougher for muslims. The bed needs to point to Mecca.....

mark

I like the simplicity of breakfast in a hospital. A hard boiled egg, a small bowl of oatmeal, a cup of orange juice, a cup of milk, a cup of coffee, maybe buttered toast. Simple and satisfying. I mean, it's the hospital for gosh sakes, not a hotel.

quote:

Originally posted by umbada

I like the simplicity of breakfast in a hospital. A hard boiled egg, a small bowl of oatmeal, a cup of orange juice, a cup of milk, a cup of coffee, maybe buttered toast. Simple and satisfying. I mean, it's the hospital for gosh sakes, not a hotel.

That is one of my safe choices in the cafeteria. There is always a basket of hard boiled eggs and some kind of hot cereal if nothing looks good and the line to get eggs to order is too long.

I cook at a Nursing Home, And I can say our Breakfast is not our best opportunity to shine. Oatmeal. Hard Cooked Eggs, Those hold well, but toast and scrambled do not. sadly. It takes over an hour to do toast for the house, and once you put it in the pan into the steam table, irt may be hot, but its not really toast anymore either.

Days we have Pancakes and French Toast however, I'd say our breakfasts are damn good. Those are done to order on the griddle.

Its also a challenge to keep things hot, even with hot plates and pellets the stuff drops in temp quickly :(

I hate the breakfast at the Mayo Clinic. Eisenberg (Methodist Hospital) has thee WORST scrambled eggs (tasted powdered) and runny oatmeal. I usually get a box of frosted mini wheats, a banana & some milk after my bloodwork.

I spent 7 days in 2005. It was ok. They do not have any compitition.

I'm hospitalized even as I write. Will add comments to this epic when discharged. For now,

---

See post of 02/06/0009

Rick I hope you are OK. I have never found good food in the hospital. As you are aware, my wife spent six months at M. D. Anderson in Houston and the breakfast there was barely OK.

I hope you are OK.

Paul E. Smith
knoxville, TN

i had hip replacement last october,the food was awful.i remember lying in bed and hearing the food cart coming and i was so excited till i lifted the lid off it.yuckkkkkk

If you wake up in a hospital it's a good thing.
Eat what they bring you and shut up. It could be worse.
MUCH worse.
Top

quote:

Originally posted by Rick F.

I'm hospitalized even as I write. Will add comments to this epic when discharged. For now,

Afraid of retribution, I fear?

The worst food I ever had in the army was 10 times better than the best food I ever had in the hospital.

While in the hospital giving birth to my oldest son, a nurse brought this big tray of breakfast. It was not for me (I could not eat anything but ice chips, in "natural" labor) but for my ex-husband. It was Thanksgiving morning and the "poor guy" was stuck in the hospital. He was smart enough not to touch that tray.

I just got home yesterday from a 7 day visit in the local hosp. Most of the time was spent in ICU, so that time doesn't matter. But what does matter is that the rest of the place is run by ONE menu now. It has b,l, and dinner options. They prefer that you call them for your choices, up to 10 minutes before hand. Well, I can't tell you how good it was. It all 'tasted' homemade from the shroom and cheese omelette to the meatloaf dinner with fresh gravy. Quite impressive. And if I forgot to call a day or two, they rang me up.

At some times I was so badly ill, and to be treated a little better then normal was a really special thing.

Rick, I don't know where you are in the country, but I am in NJ and if there is ever anything I can do to help you out, just reach out. I hope you are feeling better soon.
kim d.

I was involved in a bad accident on the N.Y Thruway many years ago and was in Kingston General Hospital for 3 months.
I found out rather quickly that when I crossed out items on their menu and wrote in things I wanted, Suprisingly, I actually got them.

At the time I worked for a frozen food distributor and one of the drivers came up and dropped off a case of lobster tails that seemed to "fall off the truck".
I called the nutritionist and asked if they could prepare them for myself snd my room mate.
It took a bit of bribery by letting her take home a portion of the tails but for 2 or 3 nights in a row, we ate like kings.
Since neither of us suffered from anything that would put us on a restricted diet, (me from broken bones, he from burns) We even had a night nurse mix up drinks and sneak them into the hospital in a 2 liter 7 up bottle.
It was one of only 2 times that I was ever hospitalized but they literally had to use a crow bar to get me to leave

quote:

Originally posted by CCinNJ

While in the hospital giving birth to my oldest son, a nurse brought this big tray of breakfast. It was not for me (I could not eat anything but ice chips, in "natural" labor) but for my ex-husband. It was Thanksgiving morning and the "poor guy" was stuck in the hospital. He was smart enough not to touch that tray.

I do understand your position. I picked up my wife at the hospital in MN on Christmas day. Maddy was born on the 23 of Dec. When we got to my parents house for Christmas day, I held Maddy and my wife held her fork. It was great. Madelyn’s middle name is “Noel”.

Todd