I've never been ecstatic about camp food. Even the private tution camps tend to have lackluster menus and preparation. I attribute it to campers and kids generally having the same food preferences regardless of their background, and that camp kitchens have to prepare menus that will appeal to the largest and most common preferences. This means a lot of pizza, chicken fingers, and various hot sandwiches (everything from chicken wraps to burgers). At my last camp I had a pretty good relationship with the kitchen manager (chef), who said that breakfast was the easiest to plan for as it was basically the same every day cereal (hot and cold) and then eggs (always scrambled), breakfast meats, and then a bread like pancakes, french toast or waffles. There was nothing to really plan, just rotate those various choices. He did omelets once, just once and never again, they take to long and require too much attention. One thing he said was that in his years of experience the kitchen crew was usually immigrant labor, who while some of them had some kitchen prep and cooking skill and experience, that language barriers usually meant keeping instructions simple.
Dinner was the hardest meal to prepare for because he had to prepare for so many different variations around a theme. Italian night might be some type of classical home style dish like lasagna and garlic bread (no actual garlic) then some kind of kids food like pizza, and then prepping the special diet alternative and the salad bar means that they start prepping the sheet pans of pizza and the lasagna at lunch time.
There were only a couple times I've had bad dining hall food and it was usually when the kitchen had to make something to feed staff and campers at the last minute, such as when campers would return early or late from an offsite trip or on the first day of staff arrivals which is basically van trips back and forth with staff arriving at different times of the day, and is basically one long day of make your own sandwiches or grilled cheese and french fries.
