Philly students got to be food critics, and their reviews of school lunches ranged from ‘mid’ to ‘bussin’’

An array of dishes were set out for the critics — whole-wheat lasagna rollups, veggie samosas, cheeseburger bites with dill pickle ketchup.

The jurists did not hold back.

“That’s bussin’,” one student said of the lasagna, indicating his approval of the dish.

“Mid,” another commented on the cheeseburger dish, shrugging his shoulders to emphasize how very mediocre it was.

Hundreds of city students descended on Philadelphia School District headquarters Wednesday for a food show — their chance to weigh in on dishes that might show up on their school breakfast and lunch plates next year. Thirty-three manufacturers showed off 55 products not yet in district cafeterias, from whole-grain onion rings to turkey sausage bites.

It’s one of the biggest days of the year for Lisa Norton, the district’s executive director of food services.

“We give the students voice to select the menu that they will eat every day,” Norton said. “It’s the dietary fuel that students need to learn.”

Norton knows her critics won’t hold back. She was prepared for that.

“They will tell the vendors, ‘We don’t like this,’” she said. “But that’s what we need. We want to buy food they’ll eat.”

All around Norton, students scoped out offerings, tasted things that looked good, then recorded their thoughts after scanning QR codes on their phones. At one station, a man dressed as Elvis danced and encouraged students to try more.

Three friends from Hancock Elementary in the Northeast said everything they tried was “really good” — an improvement from the food offered in their cafeteria now. (Though Philadelphia is a “universal feeding” district, so every student receives free breakfast and lunch regardless of income, the Hancock students were like most who spoke to The Inquirer — they said they eat school food only sometimes, preferring to bring lunch from home most days.)

“Sometimes it’s mystery mush,” sixth grader Alina Leone said of current school food offerings.

“Sometimes it’s not bad,” said her classmate Calie Sharpe.

“There’s pizza almost every day,” said Aislee Blaney, another Hancock friend.

Havyn Nelson, a seventh-grade student at Lingelbach Elementary in Germantown, found the brownie bars and the taco meat tasty.

Peyton Sanders, Havyn’s classmate, scrunched her nose when asked to describe the dishes her school offers now.

“It’s prison food,” Peyton said.

Angelo Valvanis, who works for the company Grecian Delight, offered students beef gyro with what he marketed as “white sauce” — tzatziki sauce. His firm has dishes that students in Chicago, Detroit, and New York eat, and it was hoping to break into Philly.

“You guys ever get gyro from food trucks? It’s really good. You know, the meat that turns, and you cut it with a knife? It’s from Greece,” Valvanis said.

The idea of school lunch still conjures the image of tasteless, lukewarm, floppy food — hot dogs, pizza, chicken nuggets — but school meals have changed, Valvanis said.

“These kids are much more open,” he said. “They all see these things on YouTube.”

In front of him, a group of students nodded.

Gabby Swaminathan, a sixth grader from Meredith Elementary in Queen Village, nibbled the gyro. It was good, she said.

“Our food at school right now is not that good,” Gabby said. Her strategy was to rate the food she liked — the gyro, the lasagna roll-ups — really highly, with hopes those will eventually replace the food she doesn’t like.

Wednesday’s event was timely. Several members of Philadelphia City Council grilled district officials about the food at a Tuesday hearing on school matters, saying constituents had concerns about the quality of the meals served to students. The elected officials said they want to come to a Center City school to eat the same lunches students eat.

Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. explained the district’s conundrum — its food service program must be funded completely by reimbursements from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The dollars are not robust enough to have filet mignon everyday, but it is sustenance, and I say that very respectfully,” Watlington told Council.

Kameron Garrick and Amaud Burton-Bullock, students at Martin Luther King High, can say definitively they have never been served filet mignon at school.

They mostly skip school lunch, they said, and buy food at a corner store or eat at home.

But sure, they were game to try the offerings.

The cheeseburger bites? OK.

“I would say it’s mid,” Kameron said. “It needs more seasoning.”

But they found a bright spot — the cornbread bowls with chicken.

“I would take that cornbread,” Amaud said. “It was nice and moist.”