Varied menu celebrates different cuisines each year

By BRANDON CANTWELL

Staff writer

HOWLAND — The smells of lunch meats and fresh bread consistent with Cuban sandwiches filled Howland High School’s cafeteria Friday as it wrapped up a two-week cultural celebration with the school’s Student Senate.

For the fifth consecutive year, students at the school had the opportunity to embark on a journey during their lunch periods, with a special menu featuring dishes from staple cultural cuisines such as French, Italian, Indian, Mexican and Chinese. They also were introduced to other cooking that they might be less familiar with — like Irish and German.

Food service supervisor Justin Pancake, who organizes the collaboration, explained that it initially started when the Senate approached him after expressing intentions to bring awareness about different cultures to the school.

“I create the menus every year; they (Student Senate) give me the cultures that they wanted or the countries they want to represent for the year,” Pancake said. “I go out and research dishes that will meet the requirements for the schools, but also have some authenticity.”

While they try and change things up every year so students can acquire new experiences some staples stay on the menu — such as Greek food in the form of gyros or Italian food through the vast variety of pastas available.

“Last year, I made homemade lasagna — I think it was 10 pounds of lasagna I made last year,” Pancake said.

While it takes three to four hours a day to prepare the foods for students, the actual planning process dates back several months, Pancake said, as he had to consider factors such as menus and what high schoolers consume, as he didn’t want to make something no one would think of trying.

Regardless, he said he sees those foods that might be undesirable as potential positive experiences.

“In the past, there’s kids that have sat down and had conversations about different heritages that they come from and had an open debate about it,” Pancake said. “It brings a lot of light to the students about what’s going on out there — just over some food.”

“This is for the kids; they get to come in and experience some new things, seeing what’s out there besides fast food. It gives them different options and different likes and things,” he continued. “Because a lot of these kids, sometimes all they see is what’s in front of them.”

Pancake said the experience has opened his eyes as well, as it has challenged him to see what else is in the world. It also motivated him to develop better menus with new options.

In terms of meeting the USDA meal pattern requirements through the cultural celebration, he said he has stretched things — although the students can be adventurous.

“I did street corn for our Mexican theme, and they blew through that in one day,” Pancake said.

Mary Lynn Dieter, a foreign languages teacher and the Student Senate’s adviser, explained that they brought the idea together five years ago after two high schoolers wanted to incorporate some of the traditions of Howland’s diverse student body.

Dieter said the students came up with the cuisine choices in a meeting, choosing ones such as German, Italian and Spanish foods because the languages are taught at school, and Greek foods because of the large Greek population at the school.

“It’s always what the kids want to try and how; and then we collaborate with Mr. Pancake on what he feels we can produce here,” she said. “Sometimes, he has to tweak it.”

Student Senate also did a highlight portion during the school’s morning announcements throughout the two-week celebration.

“I’ve always done the announcements for two years now and this morning’s and for our goal — awareness — we usually just put what the food is, where it comes from,” senior Hannah Zhu, Student Senate vice-president, said. “Its origins, just like, small information about it, historical origins and then a fun fact.”

Zhu said her peers look forward to the food and the announcements, too, crediting Pancake for the work he does to make it enjoyable.

“The food’s pretty good, and they’re happy with how diverse they are, and they’re really excited to try out the different food every day, and they’re always looking forward to hearing the announcements,” Zhu said. “Like, ‘what’s happening today, what are we eating today?’ And they enjoy the food too.”