SOUTH KOREANS LEARN FOOD SERVICE LESSONS.

Byline: Carol Rock Staff Writer

VALENCIA - Their students enjoy fish and kimchee, items unfamiliar to Santa Clarita schoolchildren, but it was chocolate-chip cookies that provided common ground Tuesday for a dozen nutritionists from Seoul, South Korea, who toured the Santa Clarita Valley School Food Services Agency.

``You have to try these, we make them here,'' said Pavel Matustik, chief administrative officer of the agency, as he gestured to a table of cookies and cinnamon rolls.

The group arrived a few days early for a fact-finding mission that will be capped by the California School Food Service Association's conference in Rancho Bernardo this weekend. Matustik also serves as president of the association and offered the visitors an opportunity to see how their centralized kitchen works, as well as arranging for tours of other food service facilities in surrounding cities.

``We want to know more about your food systems and how it is distributed,'' said Jeon Seok-Jin, deputy director of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education, through Jay Choi, an interpreter who translated for the group. ``It is a very different food culture.''

Choi explained that schools in Seoul produce lunches on each campus and that the government is looking into centralized production because of budget concerns.

After a short presentation on the development of the agency, the group toured the kitchen complex, watching hamburgers and potato chunks being packaged, cinnamon buns and cookies baking in rotating ovens and rolling racks for each school loaded onto multicolored trucks. Anne Grandjean, director of food services, led the group, followed closely by Choi, who listened to a chatter of questions and tried to field them as he repeated Grandjean's narrative.

Part of Matustik's presentation showed the evolution of the school lunch that included a high-fat spaghetti sauce, ranch dressing, canned pears and whole milk in the 1970s to the lunch served today that features 15-percent fat ground beef and turkey, lowfat yogurt dressing instead of mayonnaise, a fresh pear and nonfat milk. The nutritionists chuckled when spaghetti was mentioned, noting that the pasta dish is their students' favorite Western food.

Before the group left the offices, they presented Matustik and his staff with gifts from Korea, which agency officials reciprocated by giving each visitor a T-shirt bearing the logo ``It's Cool to Eat At School.'' Asked by a few women what ``cool'' meant, Matustik was at a loss for words. Giving them a thumbs up and a broad smile, the gestures spread through the group quickly.

The nutritionists toured Castaic Middle School and Northlake Elementary School in Castaic after leaving the facility. They are also scheduled to visit a production facility in Inglewood, the kitchens of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and tour the Moreno Valley schools before the weekend conference.

Carol Rock, [phone]

carol.rock(at)dailynews.com