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MICHELE MILLERAdventurous eighth-graders prepare and sample foods that the Lewis and Clark Expedition may have had during its exploration through the American West.
NEW PORT RICHEY - Danielle Czjkowski was camped out in a corner booth with a few fellow classmates, digging into the somewhat gamey lunchtime fare she'd piled on her white plastic foam tray.
"It's really good," she said when was finally done chewing. "It tastes like chewy cow."
This wasn't mystery meat Danielle was talking about - she knew exactly what she was downing, buffalo, and not the wings that come in mild, medium or hot.
While the rest of the students at Seven Springs Middle were dining on the usual - chicken patties and pizza - Danielle and 19 fellow eighth-grade students were exploring other territory.
Food - the buffalo in particular - was part of a lesson in history meant to launch their taste buds back to the days and the travels of American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. The menu, which consisted of cornmeal blueberry mush, pumpkin bread and buffalo roasted in peppers, onions and garlic, was fairly typical of what Lewis and Clark and their 43-member expedition team might have chowed on in the early 1800s as they sought a water route across the continent to the Pacific Ocean.
That's according to history teacher Scott Johnson and chef Tom Ellerman, the cafeteria manager at Seven Springs Middle School, who worked together on the culinary expedition.
"I thought it would be great if they could experience some of what Lewis and Clark did," said Ellerman, who purchased the buffalo meat from a distributor in Colorado, and prepared it along with kitchen staff, Diana Caldwell and Kellie Smith.
For their journey, the students first suited up in aprons, paper hats and plastic gloves and headed to the school kitchen to help prepare the food.
The meal fit right into Johnson's teaching style. Typically, his students had studied books, pictures and old maps. But they also wrote journals taking along the identity of certain members of the expedition - Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, privates John Shields and Hugh McNeal - as they trekked across North America.
"This is great, this is so hand's on," Johnson said. "Not only are they learning about history, they're learning math, food preparation, sanitation.
To be sure, preparing cornmeal blueberry mush was an odyssey into uncharted territory for kids like Cameron Caldwell and Rick Sanchez whose experience in the kitchen was somewhat limited.
"I've made easy macaroni and cheese before," Sanchez said.
As for Caldwell?
"Frozen waffles and cereal," he said. "That's about it."