DISH
with Maribeth Maloney
Ahhh, Christmas. The tree is up, the gifts are wrapped and the stockings are hung by the chimney with care. It’s at this most special and magical time of year that my mind goes to thoughts of…prison.

Face it people, this is Nantucket. The stores are selling off all their merchandise, the restaurants are all closing, the suitcases are all packed and everyone’s leaving for vacation. My next door neighbors even have the audacity to be heading off before Christmas. What a nerve. They don’t seem to care that they’re taking with them the only buffer between my sanity and the incessant play date naggings of my spastic eight year old — their daughter. It’s gonna be a long school break and an even longer winter and this is not winter as normal people know it. To said “normals” the only discernable difference between the seasons is the presence of coats. How bizarre it is to read a weekly list of hours of operation to find out whether hunting down a babysitter for the night is a worthwhile pursuit? Even more so is the fact that the prospect of the lights being on when you reach your destination is shaky given the “ish” used to qualify many of the closing times.

Winter on Nantucket and life in the big house have an alarming number of similarities: lots of colorful characters, periods of solitary confinement, nightly lock-down, limited visitation and nothing good to eat. At least when you’re sent up the river you know what menus you can count on every day. And if you don’t like the offerings or, the kitchen runs out of something, it’s fully expected that a riot will break out.

To the more than two million incarcerated criminals in this country, chow time is an event to look forward to. Prisoners are guaranteed three square meals a day with the offerings varying widely depending on whether you’re in a federal penitentiary or a state or local jail and, not insignificantly, how bad you are. High security prisons housing the most violent criminals are known for serving the best food, a pace set by James A. Johnston, the first warden of Alcatraz.

When “The Rock” opened for business in August of 1934, among Johnston’s first string of handpicked houseguests were Al Capone (Prisoner #85), “Machine Gun” Kelly and Robert “The Birdman” Stroud. His theory was that serving food that was better than mystery gruel — and allowing the baddies to eat as much as they wanted — would keep the beasts at bay. Suppers typically included soup, salad, rolls, potatoes or pasta, a meat entrée and cake or ice cream. Holiday meals usually featured turkey with oyster dressing, ludicrously accompanied by gift packages containing candy, fruit and cigarettes. Even harder to swallow is that an inmate musical combo generally performed at mealtimes. Something’s wrong here — that Rock’s sounding good to me.

Today, it costs more than $80,000 a year to keep a convict in the federal penal system in the style to which he’s accustomed. (I say “he” because women account for only 180,000 of the two million jailbirds.) Food is among the first orders of business upon checking in, with guest services demonstrating their aim to please by arranging a meeting with a nutritionist. You’re diabetic? On a low-sodium diet? No worries, the prison doctor will set you up with a menu suited just for you. How about Muslim? Kosher? Hare Krishna? Seventh-Day Adventist? Vegan? No problem. There’s a special menu for you. All you need to do is complete an application with the prison chaplain and the concierge will take it from there. Sort of.

In accordance with the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ 1984 adoption of Operations Memorandum No. 110-84, you’re entitled to the “Modified Fare Religious Diet Program” if you can prove that your diet is necessitated by the tenets of your religious faith, which is not to say your moral beliefs. So if it’s soy products that you need, being Buddhist will score them, whereas being an animal rights activist will not. (Can’t say I’ve ever heard of a Buddhist ax murderer.) Just as VIP treatment at a highbrow restaurant makes the law-abiding feel a sense of privilege and power, so it does in the pen where the annual number of attempted conversions continues to escalate. Kosher Judaism is particularly coveted because the food’s prepared off premises and brought in specially. Personally, I think the feds have got to smarten up and start serving that with a side order of circumcision.

But there are some down sides; it can’t be all fun and games. If you can’t live without rack of lamb or take delight in gnawing on drumsticks, life on the inside is not for you. Inmates are never served meat with the bones in and, given that they prepare all the food, each and every scrap bone in the kitchen must be accounted for. And if you like food that’s spicy or well-seasoned, you might want to consider leaving your taste buds at the gate along with your other personal affects; you’re entering a world where pepper is a weapon, oregano is smoked and nutmeg, which comes from a plant containing “myristicin,” is considered a narcotic.

Should you refuse to make nice and play by the rules, you’ll find yourself enlisted in a behavior modification plan which uses food as a device to get you to calm the heck down. A number of prisons have been experimenting with “Nutra-Loaf,” a blander than bland curiosity which is said to tame the savage beast in convicts who otherwise can’t be subdued by stun guns and batons. You may want to be seated for this — it could make you a bit weak in the knees — not to mention the fact that it’s described as smelling like the food served in the elephant cage at the zoo. Mix together massive quantities of the following: chopped wheat bread, grated imitation cheddar cheese, grated raw carrots, shredded spinach, potato flakes, tomato paste, powdered skim milk, vegetable oil and (gulp) raisins. The nightmare is dumped into large foil loaf pans and cooked at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes. When it begins to pull away from the sides of the pans, it’s done. I have no further comment except to say that Warden Thomas Corcoran of the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center reports that there’s been a 50 percent reduction in violent behavior at his facility since the advent of the loaf.

In the last thirty years, the number of jailed people in the United States has increased sixfold;

no other western democratic country has

ever imprisoned more. 6.5 million people are either behind bars, on parole or on probation — that’s one in every 32 adults. Ironically, according to the Bureau of Justice, the national violent crime rate is at an all-time low, having plummeted by more than half since 1994. What does this mean? It means that murder simply isn’t as popular in real life as it is on network television. It also means that prisons are chock full of nonviolent criminals. But prison is big business; $41 billion is pumped into financing it annually. Critics believe it’s a corrupt system designed to provide employment for rural rednecks who’d otherwise be on welfare. Case in point: my favorite food crime and a fine example of excessive Texas justice — 29 year-old Kenneth Payne was sentenced to 16 years for stealing a Snickers bar; the D.A. argued that it was “king-size” and that he was a repeat offender…he previously stole a bag of Oreos.

I suppose I’ll just stay on the straight and narrow and focus on the good aspects of winter on Nantucket. Besides, I’d probably wind up on that Nutra-Loaf in a matter of moments.

I

JAILMIX
    Adapted   from   “The   Convict   Cookbook”
written by the prisoners at Washington State
Penitentiary (August 2004); they wanted to
beat Martha to the punch —
• 2 packages Top Ramen noodles (any flavor)
• 1 large bag plain M & M’s
• 1 bag sunflower seed kernels
• 2 boxes Cheerios
• 1 bag chocolate-covered raisins
• 1 bag roasted peanuts
    Crunch up noodles and toss together all
ingredients in a clean garbage bag. Sprinkle in
Top Ramen flavor packet and shake. (I have
absolutely no clue how many prisoners this
feeds.)