What's for Lunch: Taco Salad

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Kids pretty much love Mexican food these days so it didn't take much to convince them to eat this "taco salad." But you probably noticed that the chips in this case are not the "baked whole grain tortilla shells" Chartwells advertised on its website, but rather toasted whole wheat pita chips.

In fact, I liked the pita chips and the kids for the most part seemed to like them as well.

This was the preferred method of eating this meal: using the spork to spoon the ground turkey meat onto the chip. (That's me, as captured by my daughter. The kids did not eat the lettuce.)

According to the Chartwells website, there was supposed to be a choice of turkey meat or "southwest beans," but I didn't see any beans. Instead, kids were given this "Tex Mex corn," which was frozen corn mixed with canned salsa.

As my daughter observed, the corn was a bit on the cold side. But I'm not sure any of the kids in the lunchroom noticed, because I did not see them eating the corn at all. Mostly it went into the trash can untouched, as you see here.

Really, it can't be repeated often enough: if you're going to introduce new foods to kids, you really need to work with them to get them to eat it. Otherwise, it just gets trashed.

D.C. Public Schools serve some 36,000 lunches every day. Imagine all the corn that got thrown away.

What's for Lunch: Bean Taco

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Chartwells at its menu website called this "vegetarian Baja bean" taco. The corn you see on it was actually a side dish (Tex-Mex corn), but some kids opted to have it served on top of the beans.

What looks like a salad on the side is actually "Romaine, tomato and salsa taco fixings" intended to go on top of the vegetables inside the taco.


Here's what the taco looks like if you remove the corn. The apple was advertised as "locally grown."

This might not look like much, but the kids seem to enjoy eating their tacos, although there is spillage.

What's for Lunch: Bean Taco

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Chartwells calls this "vegetarian Baja bean whole wheat soft taco." Quite a mouthful. It looks like canned black beans and frozen corn with lettuce, topped with a tomato sauce or salsa. It was served open faced with a choice of "Tex-Mex corn" and a "pineapple cup." Or, in this case, pineapple without the cup.

I saw very few kids actually choose this lunch. Most of them were taking the Tuesday alternate: "turkey and cheese whole grain wrap." Meaning, there was a choice of tortilla two different ways.


One fifth-grade girl wanted nothing to do with the tortilla. She emptied out the contents--turkey, tomato, lettuce, grated cheddar cheese--and was tossing it around to make a salad.

This poses its own challenges, since the processed turkey meat, cut into deli-style rounds, does not lend itself to being cut with a plastic "spork."

Is There Enough Corn on this Tray?

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

Chartwells listed "taco salad" with ground turkey meat and "baked whole grain tortilla shells" as the entree for this meal. So what was the thinking behind including still more corn in the form of corn on the cob as the vegetable?

The menus at Chartwells' website also called for a "locally grown nectarine" with this meal. But as you can see, the fruit is a banana. The nectarine would earn school food services an extra nickel from the D.C. treasury for being local. So if this is simply a matter of a delivery slip-up--or maybe a few schools getting bananas instead of local nectarines--how will the food services department account for that when it comes time to ask the city for its locally-inspired check?

Now that school is back in session, a number of wrinkles are starting to become apparent in the "Healthy Schools" law passed this year by the D.C. Council, such as a possible accounting nightmare where the local food component is concerned.

Meanwhile, my daughter was so taken with the idea of tacos for lunch that she decided not to bring a lunch from home. Tragically, she was one of the last kids in line and by then the kitchen had run out of tacos. The alternate was salad. She doesn't like salad. So this is what she got for her $1.25:

Under the "offers versus served" rule that prevails in the federally subsidized school food program, this qualifies as a meal. Children are offered an entree, milk and three other items. They must choose three. Even kids who pay full fare are underwritten by the feds to the tune of 25 cents. This year for the first time, kids who only qualify for "reduced price" meals don't have to pay anything at all. The city is picking up the tab, care of the "Healthy Schools Act" passed earlier this year and a sales tax imposed on soft drinks.

Fortunately, daughter really likes black beans, bananas and corn on the cob. Not so fortunately, this corn on the cob was obviously the frozen variety and cooked to death. It was mealy and dull. Most of the kids declined to eat it. They also shied away from the black beans, which Chartwells advertised as "Southwest beans." They looked straight out of the can to me.

Kids are terribly inventive around lunch. Look how they dealt with the corn on the cob: speared on the end of their spork to make for easier eating.

This was how the alternate looked. In fact, it was a delicious looking salad, complete with croutons.