What’s For Lunch?

By R’Nasia Murphy

Photo by http://livelearnventure.com, http://www.pcs.k12.va.us,

MARCH 15, 2018: It’s obvious every country, city and just basically everywhere has a different atmosphere and culture. One country could be completely different from a country right next to it. If the culture is different, you can already guess that the food is extremely different. This all started when Ms. Powell, the FNN advisor at Tech Prep asked,  “What kinds of lunches do they have in other places?” That got my attention and I started researching and made some interesting discoveries.

Starting with South Korea, I found that they serve dishes with rice each day that can be white, flavored or spicy. They may have some type of soup with their lunch. They always have a side dish, which is called banchan. Their lunches can consist of kimchi, vegetables, or radishes. The students eat lunches altogether, and most times with their teachers. That’s also a common occurrence in Japan where you will find rice, meat, fish, and soup on their plates, which is very much like lunch in South Korea.

The US lunches vary for every state.  In most places, school lunch isn’t free. Luckily, in DC public schools, lunches are free.

France put a lot of effort into healthy lunches. They have a range of healthy foods—vegetables, cheese, and fish.

These are just some of the choices that schools have to put into creating healthy, fun, and cultural dishes for the hard-working scholars in their country! It was fun to see how many different types of food there were. I can say this made me incredibly hungry to create these different types of cuisines. So after seeing these choices, go out and make your own lunches based on lunches in other countries! Do your own research and show off how serious you snack!

R’Nasia Murphy is a 9th grade scholar at Friendship Tech Prep Academy.