New Haven Independent

Norman (pictured at top and at left) oohed over the pasta with eggplant and zucchini simmered with zesty Indian spices. His friend Thomas Jaynes was equally enthusiastic, exclaiming, “I love natural vegetables,” and adding that his mother grew lots of them. But Julio Cirino wouldn’t taste any of the dozen vegetarian dishes set out in bowls on the ground on the upper Green, insisting he had already consumed his fill and had no room left for experimentation. Norman and Cirino were among the hundreds who had waited in a long line for free cups of Red Hook beer.

Elsie Kenyon (pictured), a junior at Yale, is a member of Food from the Earth, the student group that sponsored the Eat-In. “Part protest, part potluck,” it was also part of Slow Food USA’s national campaign to get better food into public schools. She said her group works with Yale’s Sustainable Food Project, which runs the Yale farm.

Much of the food came from the Yale farm and from the farmers market in Wooster Square. The students prepared all the dishes in a few hours, which included the pasta dish, three kinds of cooked greens, lentils prepared two ways, roasted beets, a medley of tomatoes, green beans, salsa, cucumbers, a vegan chocolate confection for dessert, and a whole box of apples.

Kenyon said the Child Nutrition Act, which governs the school lunch program, is coming up for re-authorization later this year. (Click here for a previous story.) “We’re really pushing to get real food, local food, fresh food, into the [school] meals,” she said. That could be accomplished by increasing the payment for school lunches by a dollar per student per day to $3.57.” Her group is also calling for getting rid of junk food in schools, including in vending machines; teaching children healthy eating habits; giving schools the incentive to buy local; and create green jobs with a School Lunch Corps. Click here to read the details.

Kenyon reported that by the time the food ran out, about 60 people had come by to eat. She said that even though they weren’t in a school setting or interacting mostly with parents and kids, members of her group were able to explain the importance of weighing in on the bill’s re-authorization.