Westbrook School Department on Oct. 14 served up a community dinner in observance of National School Lunch Week.
Mary Emerson, school district nutrition director, put together a meal with a Middle Eastern main course, Halal chicken shawarma, at the city’s middle school. It featured mostly Maine-produced food including chickpea shawarma.
Emerson said the chicken was purchased from a Halal poultry processing company in Maine; and grain for rolls was Maine grown as was oatmeal and fruit for blueberry crisp; and chickpea shawarma; but, yellow rice was produced elsewhere in the United States.
“Our coleslaw that we served was made from cabbage that came from the Saccarappa Elementary School garden,” Emerson said.
Emerson strives to have one or two “international-type” dishes each month as part of the hot lunch menus. She said the national theme this year for school lunch week was “Taste the Globe: Your School Lunch Passport.”
“So, we made sure we had choices from South America, Asia, Africa and Europe in not just the main dish but also custom-made salads in our salad bars at the high school and middle school,” Emerson said, adding that all Westbrook schools have salad bars.
Superintendent Peter Lancia said at the community dinner that Westbrook schools have students from 38 countries of origin and speak 28 languages with a variety of dialects. Lancia said the top five languages spoken in the Westbrook district are English, Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish and French.
“Food is a great way to bring people together,” Lancia said.
The district has several school gardens and greenhouses and next year plans to produce veggies with hydroponics. Retired teacher Guyla Woodbrey oversees produce grown at Saccarappa that has extensive raised beds.
Emerson’s staff volunteered to prepare last week’s community meal.
“We cook from scratch here,” Emerson said. “We are the biggest restaurant in town.”