Here is what $35,000 buys today: Steak and blue cheese tossed with dandelion greens. Artichoke, tomatoes and fennel with penne. Oven-roasted rutabaga fries.

And a rigorous education, to boot.

Parents who have wondered why New York private schooling costs so much have always been able to take solace in the fact that the cost of tuition usually covers lunch. But anyone who grew up eating Tater Tots counted out by lunch ladies might not recognize the cuisine now being served in some of New York City’s prep schools.

Many lunchrooms are run by professional chefs, who poll students on food preferences, survey consumption of squash varieties for menu planning and call students “clients.” Students at Friends Seminary eat locally sourced, grass-fed beef. Girls at Spence eat sesame Napa cabbage. Earlier this year, Dalton students welcomed Eric Schlosser, an alumnus and food activist, and Dan Barber, owner of the high-end farm-to-table Blue Hill restaurant, for a daylong food symposium. (Mario Batali worked the school into his schedule, too, but on a different day, parents said.) Discussions included food production in America and the perfect Moroccan merguez. Lunch, served family style, included roasted fennel salad with Parmesan frico, apple and red onion on frisée and faro with grilled vegetables and nebbiolo vinaigrette.

Public school menus have become a bit more creative, too: on the same day, students at nearby P.S. 198 and around the city were fed Tuscan roasted chicken, heart-shaped pretzels (it was Feb. 14) and French-cut green beans. Nonetheless, since they spend $1 per head — about a third of what private schools spend — and cook for hundreds of thousands of students in 1,700 schools, public schools are somewhat limited in just how haute they can be.