As Webb continues its hybrid online and on-campus classes, students begin to enjoy the perks of campus life, including a wide variety of food options. On-campus students are offered various choices for a lunch meal and snacks throughout the day made by the Price Dining Hall chefs and staff that fed the whole school prior to 2020.
Both new and returning students have voiced that they enjoy these meals, while also feeling like a few things are missing.
Just like any other year at Webb, the Price Dining Hall staff has created a wide range of choices for students to choose from for lunch, including pastas, sandwiches, burgers, different kinds of chicken, and so much more. New students applaud the meals for being unique and enjoy trying different cuisines from different cultures.
“No meal has been the same, so you can always expect something different,” Jovana Luna (‘24) said.
The meals also follow the recommended nutritional guidelines that students learn about in Freshmen Seminar. The food is served in a box with an entrée and sides that each contain different food groups like vegetables and proteins. The meals are always fulfilling and leave students with a full stomach to finish their days.
With Webb aiming for healthy dishes rather than fatty and sweet taste, a few dishes are inevitably bland, though students say there have been considerably more tasty meals than bad.
“There have been a few meals that have not tasted good in my opinion,” Neria Spence (‘24) said. “In general, there have been more tasty meals than there haven’t.”
Finding this middle ground between healthy and taste is quite the achievement, especially when feeding hundreds of hungry high school students.
Other components to an inclusive meal program include being diet and allergy friendly. The meal questionnaires at Webb take into account different dietary needs, including vegetarian and nut-free options that are said to be both healthy and as tasty as a default dish.
On the other hand, many religious students have diets that pertain with different holidays, such as Holy Week. Although there was a kosher option for this specific week, students with other diets were not able to eat the kosher meal because of its other ingredients.
“This week is a Jewish holiday which prohibits any intake of grains or bread, and there was not much consideration of this on the most recent menu,” Neria Spence (‘24) said. “The only kosher option was a salad, which included meat on it, which I can’t eat.”
Though the Price Dining Hall chefs and staff are doing a great job with mainstream diets, taking more consideration for different religions or letting students give feedback on meals would be a great way to improve.
While there are areas to improve, the Price Dining Hall staff and chefs have seemed to adjust to this new meal program, though the extra work is a hassle.
“It takes a lot of work to set up the meals, move them around campus, and clean all the trays,” a Price Dining Hall staff member said.
In the end, their hard work pays off and students look forward to new dishes and hope for the possibility of seeing old ones.
“I’d love to get a panini option like they had in the dining hall, and I also really miss Webb brownies,” Julia Tyck (‘23) said.
Overall, students are enjoying their on-campus meals and thank the dining hall for keeping them healthy and full throughout the day.
