There was roast turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, gravy, corn, lettuce salad, onion rolls, sweet potato pie, chocolate milk, and a choice of fountain drinks for the 2,200 prisoners in the Gus Harrison and Parr Highway correctional facilities just south of Adrian, Michigan. The Lucas County jail served a similar meal, including candied yams, green beans, and pumpkin pie, but no carbonated beverages.
The biggest meal at the jail in downtown Toledo is on Christmas, when it plans to offer roast turkey and roast beef - a total of 7 ounces of meat, plus mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, roll, apple pie, ice cream, and a fruit drink.
But if the extra cost of serving holiday meals seems extravagant, keep in mind that the other days of the year inmates eat pretty cheap - thanks to a variety of efforts at prisons and jails across Michigan and Ohio.
Over the course of the year, the meals served in some local lockups cost less than a third of the $8.80 a day that the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports the average American spends on food, which includes meals eaten at home and in restaurants. The average cost of jail and prison meals, in fact, often seems to be mentioned proudly by corrections administrators.
Less than 83 cents a meal is the figure for the Corrections Center of Northwest Ohio, a regional jail near Stryker that books inmates from Lucas, Fulton, Henry, Williams, and Defiance counties. Administrators point out that's about half of the state average for similar lockups.
Average costs for meals in Ohio's jails, which typically house about 18,400 inmates, range from 64 cents to $4 per meal. But unlike CCNO, not all institutions figure the cost of food preparation labor into those figures provided to the Ohio Bureau of Adult Detention.
The difference between those highs and lows are largely in labor costs - specifically whether inmate labor is used. Prisoners are paid 17 cents to 32 cents an hour for kitchen duty in Michigan's 50 prison facilities, which house 49,000 inmates.
CCNO, which has one of the lowest meal costs locally, uses inmate labor. The Lucas County jail, which does not use inmate labor because of security concerns, is spending almost 70 percent more - $1.40 per meal.
Both lockups use a national food service provider, Aramark Corp., based in Philadelphia.
Such numbers allow bulk buying that is inconceivable for Ohio's tiniest jails, which sometimes go for days without housing any inmates. Such lockups, which often use a combination of contracts with nearby restaurants, hospitals, or nursing homes and frozen meals that can be microwaved, help boost the average prices.
The highest prices for feeding inmates are often for those with special diets or those in hospitals. The average cost of meals in the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections medical center is $3.64, which is for the food only and does not include the preparation.