On April 28th, after Career Day ended and before the opening show of Into the Woods began, tables in the Townsend Harris lobby were set up with dishes for the International Food Festival, a celebration of the varied cuisines of different cultures. 

After Career Day ended on Friday, April 28, students were greeted by tables set up with ten different dishes and their histories in the school lobby. These dishes came from all parts of the world and included pierogies, fried rice noodles, ceviche, couscous and tea, arepas, and more. The lobby quickly became crowded as students tried to sample the dishes.

“I’m very happy to be able to get some free food,” said freshman Dante Pereira-Olson. “The food is wonderful.”

“I thought it was really fun. I wish it were in…a bigger room just because [it] was kind of crowded, but the food itself was good and I think it was cool to see all these different cultures,” said junior John Rossi.

International Food Festival was previously known as International Food Night and had existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was not able to take place during the pandemic or during last year’s post-pandemic.

“This is the first year we’ve brought it back since the beginning of COVID. We wanted to bring back the event, so we followed basically the same procedures that we usually do,” said junior Hellen Oliveira, an organizer for this event.

“Hopefully now that people know that people know what it is and how great it is, it will be a bigger event moving forward,” said Coordinator of Student Activities Jaime Baranoff.