Rochester Public Schools partners with area eatery to spice up its summer menu

Forget burgers and fries, Rochester students are expanding their palettes this summer with new, culturally-inspired dishes in an effort to diversify the school lunch menu and better reflect district demographics.

Most recently, Rochester Public School Student Nutrition Services Chef Travis Pearce collaborated with the local restaurant El Carambas to develop a made-from-scratch enchilada recipe to feed to hundreds of hungry students.

“I want to be able to represent the districts' different cultures,” says Pearce. “That’s my whole approach at RPS, to bring back the wholesome flavors and pop some spices in there; to bring [students] something that they would normally eat at home.”

The meals are part of RPS’s Summer Meal Program, where any Rochester child age 1-18 can receive a free lunch weekdays at one of the nine school pick-up or mobile sites. 

Local parent Meagan Cochran appreciates Pearce’s efforts to expand the menu. She brings her children ages 7, 5, and 1 to Sunset Terrace Elementary school for lunch and says that they look forward to it every day.

“My oldest loved the enchiladas,” said Cochran. “And I think the exposure to new foods is really important and really helpful to me as a parent.”

Prior to the pandemic, Pearce worked with different employees to rework their favorite homemade recipes to fit the cafeteria and create one new special per month. However, supply chain shortages and scaling issues prompted him to think outside the box.

Pearce reached out to local restaurants for collaboration, since their chefs are experts at effectively preparing food for crowds of people and also bring a variety of cultural dishes to the table. Last year, Student Nutrition Services collaborated with Bloomington restaurant Hoyo Sambusa to provide sambusas to Rochester students.

This summer, Pearce standardized and scaled El Carambas’ enchiladas to create a district recipe, and is now working to make the recipe less labor-intensive so it can be more frequently served.

Photo courtesy RPS

“We just played around in the kitchen and it was a ton of fun, being able to collaborate with someone from the community and bring dishes to the table,” said Pearce. 

Pearce aims to continue crafting new recipes and hopes to test them at the new Dakota Middle School kitchen this fall. The kitchen is structured as a multi-station learning kitchen where he can teach new recipes to employees and Community Education can hold classes. 

Haley Handelman is a freelance writer from Rochester who now studies at Northwestern University.

Photography by William Forsman (unless otherwise marked)