Brain Food

Catering to a convention of about 400 people is bad enough. But try serving 400 teen-agers, able to eat at all hours, as they study for the United States Academic Decathlon.

At the Red Lion Hotel/Riverside, the cooking staff worked for days to prepare for the adolescent onslaught, ordering extra food and even whipping up a special room-service menu pleasing to pubescent palates.

In just two days, hotel assistant chef Greg Borup said Friday, the decathletes consumed:

* 140 pounds of hamburger meat

* 120 pounds of french fries

* 30 pounds of Cheddar cheese

* 25 pounds of tortilla chips

* 20 gallons of cheese sauce

* 12 pounds of hot dogs

* 10 gallons of chili

During one three-hour stretch Friday, room service waiter Brian Hoyt--the only waiter on shift--rang up nearly $500 in sales. “I don’t know what it is,” Hoyt, 19, said wearily. “Usually when kids come in, they don’t have the money to order room service.”

Not these kids. The team members from El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, for example, receive $30 a day for meals supplied by the Los Angeles Unified School District and the nonprofit California Academic Decathlon. With that kind of per diem, how do they and the 400 other students here tip?

“They don’t,” said Hoyt, who pulls in an hourly wage of $3.20. During the Friday lunch period, he said, “I think I made $2. . . .”

Apparently none of the students’ textbooks is by Emily Post.