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Tomato asiago frittata, quinoa tabouleh with French lentils, ratatouille with homegrown eggplants, Tuscan wheatberry salad, skillet cornbread, broccoli raisin salad, sweet potatoes with lemon basil, homemade applesauce, Indian curd rice, apple pie with caramel crisp, giant shiny golden snail-shaped loaves of challah…selections from the menu of a new local restaurant? Nope. These and other delicious potluck offerings featuring local ingredients, sustainably produced and lovingly prepared by parents, kids, and other food-centric citizens, turned the City Park shelter #12 picnic tables into groaning boards of goodness during the first annual Slow Food Iowa City Time for Lunch Eat-In this Labor Day.
Toddlers wielded giant spoons of potato salad, grade-schoolers munched on handmade Spanish sausages, and parents didn’t even have to tell their kids to eat their vegetables as television, newspaper, and magazine reporters roamed the crowd, listening to people talk about school lunches.  “School lunches are gross,” said Riley Martin, a 7th grader at Northwest Junior High who brings his own lunch to school every day.
“I would never ever ever eat the school lunch,” said Misha Canin, a kindergartener at Lincoln Elementary. “I eat better than most kids,” said Riley’s brother, Lucas, a 5th grader at Roosevelt Elementary, as he feasted on tabouli salad, hummus, and ratatouille. “The people who think kids should eat healthy should try eating those school lunches.” The picnic was just one of over 300 similar gatherings around the United States bringing more than 20,000 people together for a common cause: Tell Congress, as they prepare to update the Child Nutrition Act this fall, that kids need better food in public schools. To local parents, “better food” means a few things, including what food for kids should not contain: high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, refined grains, preservatives, and too much sugar. Kurt Friese, owner of Devotay and a board member for Slow Food USA, would like to see processed foods replaced with fresh, local, sustainable, nutritious foods that meet the Slow Food ideal: good, clean, and fair. “Good means it tastes good and it’s nutritious. Clean means it doesn’t contain pesticides, preservatives, and artificial ingredients. Fair means the people who produce the food are paid a fair price,” said Friese, who admits that improving school food will be expensive, but argues that the health of the next generation, not to mention our country’s food system, is worth the investment. Parents have plenty to say about school lunches, too. “My kids won’t do well in school if they don’t eat something healthy,” said Amy Martin, who packs lunches every morning, often consisting of leftovers from last night’s home-prepared meal. Barbara Canin packs sandwiches, apples, peaches, carrots, almonds, yogurt with berries, applesauce, and other fresh foods for her three daughters. “I love that this campaign is called ‘Time for Lunch’ because the problem with school lunches isn’t just the quality,” Canin said. “It’s literally the time. Kids need time to eat and they are lucky to get ten minutes.” Representative Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, attended the potluck and spoke to the crowd. “I put this issue into the larger context of health care,” he said. “This is a prevention and wellness issue. We need to take personal responsibility for our own health and what you are doing here today supports that. What happens in schools has to happen at the local level,” Loebsack said. To get involved, check the Slow Food Iowa website at www.slowfoodiowa.org for information, including how to contact your legislators, sign the Time for Lunch petition, or become a Slow Food member. |
