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Investment in food might therefore be seen as investment in security. Instead a poor-quality, monotonous diet is widely regarded, both inside and outside the prison, as part of the punishment.At the end of his shift, Mr Worrall Thompson receives the accolades of his diners – “It’s the first time I have eaten vegetables in my life,” one confides – before wandering out of the prison gates to observe that the experience had taught him how important food was to prisoners. They are put to work during the day – some building cell doors – and are hungry by the end of it As one remarks, a hungry man is an angry man. Food was the catalyst for the riot at Strangeways jail in Manchester, and has been an element in many others, including one at Wymott in 1993.

Sticky Rice makes an entry on the day’s menu – and is an immediate success.Wymott prison holds 800 category C prisoners – those deemed unlikely to escape. So confident is he that the famed London chef will be unable to deliver his promised stir-fried rice from the Wymott kitchens without it sticking that he offers a ribald bet – and wins.It is at this point that Mr Worrall Thompson reveals a secret of the restaurant trade If a dish goes wrong, rename it. He, after all, has to perform this culinary conjuring trick every day of the year and he knows a thing or two about prison cookery. At Wymott prison, Mr Worrall Thompson is shown liberally dousing trays of rubbery fowl with spices to make a chicken tajine – a dish he names Doing Bird – and taking care to slice the courgettes for the vegetable lasagne, which are expensive, wafer-thin to make them go further.His ample waistline, metropolitan garb (yellow trousers with watermelon motif) and matey style leave the catering supervisor Sean Mason distinctly underwhelmed. When it is reduced to nutrition a large part of what people get from food is removed.”For institutions charged with feeding large numbers of people on tight budgets, this is the chief problem. Babies’ love of breast milk and the childhood craving for sweetness are universal.

But by adolescence, young people are experimenting with foods that might be described as not naturally nice – such as beer.Mr Gofton says: “Developing acquired tastes is about developing individuality A part of who you are is the sort of thing you eat There is an element of rebellion here, too That is why dietary rules tend to get broken You cannot eat the same food all the time You need to keep the novelty up. Our inherent drive to experiment and seek novelty accounts in part for our survival.”People – and rats – eat everything. We don’t inherit a set of preferences which we slavishly follow. That is why diets are so diverse around the world,” Mr Gofton says.In early life tastes are determined by inheritance and are more uniform. The Education Secretary’s concerns are different – about the nutritional value of school meals, rather than their palatability – but the issue of control it raises is the same Food is about self-expression through choice. Defining one’s culinary preferences is a part of expressing one’s individuality. Offering choice and variety is as important as meeting nutritional needs – feeding body and soul.According to Les Gofton, lecturer in behavioural sciences at Newcastle University, it is the need for culinary variety that makes human beings the second most successful omnivores on the planet – after the rat.

In Mr Worrall Thompson’s restaurants, pounds 3 is the approximate value of the ingredients on each single plate.Those are the harsh economic facts, and they explain why prison cookery is long on potatoes, one of the cheapest fillers, and short on the choicer cuts of meat.David Blunkett was also targeting potatoes last week, complaining that schoolchildren eat too many chips. That is to provide three meals, delivering a balanced diet, with all nutritional requirements met. In hospitals, the equivalent budget is upwards of pounds 3 a day. But in the process it raised some important questions about power, control and the role of food in institutions, including schools and hospitals.The budget for food in prison averages pounds 1.37 a day.