Mary's Menu
By Mary Crowley
Disclaimer: I want to preface this by saying how much I, along with the rest of Littleton Public Schools, immensely appreciate the work our lunch staff do. They are responsible for feeding hundreds of children nutritious, full meals every day and do always do so cheerfully. This column is not intended to berate them for their work but instead commentate on the products they are given by our government and are forced to make appetizing. We must also understand we are still getting meals for free this year so they are not expected to be the best quality in the world.
September 8th: French Toast Sticks
Oh how a titan has fallen. The once-glorious, beloved breakfast meal has become a shell of its former self, as it seems the recipe for our beloved french toast sticks has changed since last year. The sticks themselves are no longer as deliciously dense and sugar-coated as they once were. Admittedly, they are probably healthier now, but even that fact cannot redeem the floppy, bland disappointment I found on my plate this September morn. That’s not even accounting for the side dishes either; the turkey “bacon” was as shriveled and thin as it possibly could’ve been (though it didn’t taste awful), and the corn was as un-flavorful as the main dish. I give this a 4/10.
September 20th: Soft Shell Carnitas
This meal confused me. I did go in with high hopes, as I’ve never seen this school attempt carnitas before and I was intrigued. Upon further inspection those hopes were dashed. As seen in the picture, the grey appearance of this dish already set us off to a bad start. The taste of the carnitas could also be described as such: grey. They didn’t really taste like anything too discernible, not even pork. Unfortunately, the combination of the cold bean salsa didn’t really improve things as I’d hoped, only made it more wet. It had potential, but for now I’m giving it a 5/10.
September 27th: Hard Shell Tacos
This dish actually shocked me with how good it was. The appearance was not inherently promising, especially with the meat just sitting in a wet pile in the corner. However, once I combined all of the ingredients it was decent. Bonus points for the hard shells cause I love hard shell tacos. The only real downside in this one was the cheese, which neither looked, tasted, nor behaved like usual cheese, but with the rest of the components it was fine. Additionally, it was a little inconvenient to eat because once I finished two very full tacos I still had a heap of beef left. I ended up combining it with the rest of the leftover ingredients and it was fine. Overall, big step up from our last “taco” experience on the 20th. 8/10
