Posted April 24, 2019 in Student Newspaper

Author: Kaitlin Bender, Sophomore

Saint Martin de Porres has been renowned for its school lunch by students and staff for several years. The cafeteria offers a variety of food choices from the hot lunch to the salad bar, and even a wrap station. Foods that have been served in the hot lunch meals are wings and fries, chicken and potatoes along with veggies, sloppy joes, and chips, baked potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs, Italian beef calzone, walking tacos, and so much more. At the salad bar, students can customize their salads with spinach or romaine lettuce and add toppings such as tofu, ham, chicken, chickpeas, oranges, cucumbers, tomatoes, banana peppers, edamame beans, broccoli, sauté mushrooms, green peppers, cheese, pumpkin seeds, olives, and bacon. You can also get croutons and craisins, and choose from a variety of dressings. The wrap station allows students to customize their own wraps and add pepperoni, salami, ham, turkey, popcorn chicken, tuna salad, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, banana peppers, and olives. They can also grab a pickle and bag of chips on the side. It doesn’t sound too bad, right? Sophomore Ne’Shai Harris said, “It’s okay, I guess it’s cool. It depends, some of the stuff is better than others. It definitely changed from when the other chef was here because her food was better to me.” An anonymous Junior stated “I don’t see a lot of problems with it. I hear a lot of students complain about it. If you go to any other school you get cold meat wrapped in plastic.” We also heard from Junior Keimari Warfield, “I feel like the school lunch is okay, but they changed the hot lunch. Me, personally, I don’t like the chicken because it’s dry. They switched the sandwich line with the burrito things. I liked the bread more than the wraps. And as far as the salad, I would like them to use the real chicken, like the buffalo chicken, instead of the popcorn chicken but overall it’s okay.” This topic has become very controversial among students in the Saint Martin community. The lunch has undergone some changes in the past year. Chef Tahirah Green took her passion for cooking elsewhere and Chef Kenny filled her place. In addition, the once popular sandwich bar was also replaced with a wrap station. Despite the changes, Saint Martin students are lucky to have a dedicated kitchen staff that goes above and beyond to provide a variety of healthy lunch options.