Mourning the death of the school lasagna

Beloved dish leaves school menu

Varun Mutyala, Staff Writer

February 11, 2026

Upon the death of the vegetarian lasagna, a new dish has emerged in its place: the mac and cheese, which is met with varying positive and negative opinions from students.

Hundreds of students line up inside the Cal High commons building every school day to get a well-deserved lunch after two exhausting periods.
But many of these same students will spend their second semester lunches mourning the death of Cal’s beloved vegetarian lasagna and garlic bread, one of the most popular dishes served on campus.

The delectable dish was officially replaced by a butternut squash mac and cheese at the beginning of this semester, a sudden end to one of the greats.
I know, it’s tragic. Something about the different layers of cheese and tomato sauce in the lasagna piqued the interest of our hearts, making it feel like we were at a fancy restaurant eating a gourmet lunch.

The mac and cheese, however, has developed a pretty bad reputation during its first few days on the menu, with many students outright rejecting it.
“It just didn’t look appetizing,” freshman Vardhan Tripathi said.

Because of this, the mac and cheese was quickly replaced again with a teriyaki chicken thigh with a mac salad.
To honor the lasagna, we’re going to put it on the battlefield against its current replacement.

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Lasagna and teriyaki chicken vary a lot when it comes to nutrition. According to Nutrislice.com, the teriyaki chicken and mac salad meal has 309 more calories, three more grams of fat, five fewer grams of carbohydrates, and a whopping 42 more grams of protein than the lasagna and garlic bread.

But most people don’t mind nutrition if it tastes good. After all, why do you think junk food is eaten so often? So the winner of this food feud shall be determined by taste.
Some students believe that the lasagna was genuinely bad and needed to be removed from the Cal lunch menu.

“Lasagna deserved to die,” freshman Milo Gillette said.

For the workers serving lunch in the cafeteria, mac and cheese is also just easier to serve.

“I’m happy with [the lasagna] leaving, because it was a real mess to serve,” junior Sumali Duncan, a volunteer at the lunch lines in the cafeteria, said.

She also explained the lasagna would just deteriorate moments after getting on the plate.

Others believe the lasagna outshone the mac and cheese by a massive amount.

“It’s nothing new or crazy, it’s just like the mac and cheese they’ve always been serving,” junior Pratik Ganesh said. “It’s not worth swapping out something good for something they’ve served before.”

A few students believe both dishes have their own strengths and downsides. For example, while the mac and cheese is good, the fact that it’s vegetarian loses out to meat lovers who prefer the teriyaki chicken.

“I do believe that mac and cheese was an upgrade, but they need to serve something else with the mac and cheese,” freshman Refael Pelealu said. “Something similar to the garlic bread with the lasagna would work.”

So in the end, what is better is up to personal taste, but no matter what, the lasagna deserves its place for helping carry the lunch menu while it lasted.

With many students (including myself) mourning the loss of this beloved member of our lunch community, some have questioned why this change was necessary to begin with.

Students have come up with many theories about the motive for this mouthwatering menu massacre.

Some students thought that it was just too high quality and too expensive to make.

Ganesh believes that since the lasagna was high quality, it would’ve been difficult to financially support serving it to thousands of kids weekly.

Others believe that it just wasn’t satisfactory to students.

“I think it was replaced because either the lasagna wasn’t filling enough or that students didn’t like it,” Pelealu said.

The crazy part of it all is that the lasagna might not be doomed forever. There is a real chance that it could make a cheesy comeback in the future.

“We rotate our menus,” Duncan said. “For all we know, it could come back by next year.”

There are many layers to the decision-making process when determining what goes on the menus and what doesn’t, so nothing is a guarantee.

But for now, the only thing that’s certain is that students can and will find the vegetarian lasagna in hunger heaven, along with Choco Tacos and Coca-Cola Oreos.

Even if you think the lasagna isn’t good, many students looked forward to lunch for it. It shall hold a valuable place in our stomachs forever for its service.

About the Contributors

Varun Mutyala, Staff Writer

Varun Mutyala is a freshman who is spending his first year in high school with The Californian. He is a staff writer for The Californian, preparing to enhance his storytelling and writing skills while in the Newspaper. Varun loves to play video games, watch sports, and spend time with friends and family. His interests have an immense variety, going from Pokémon to the NFL to geography. He wants to write stories and spread information that people probably won’t know about in the Newspaper. When he isn’t at school or sleeping, he is either riding his bike on the Iron Horse trail and looking at the creek for turtles, hanging out with his friends Ori Laron and Vardhan Tripathi, or studying, reading, and playing video games at the library. Varun is a huge fan of the Miami Dolphins, despite their lack of success, driving him crazy and stressing him out each week. This insanity has translated to his interest in geography, where he has memorized all 193 UN-identified countries. Despite losing his mind due to the Dolphins, Varun is excited for his first year writing for The Californian.

Morgayne Childress, Photographer

As a sophomore, this is Morgayne Childress’s first year being a part of The Californian. She is interested in writing and gathering information to inform others. In previous years, she has been the one to keep classmates updated and informed on global issues. She understands the importance of staying informed, and that’s something that The Californian also strives for. While the gathering and writing of information is something she has done countless times and is comfortable with, she hopes this class will teach her something new. That is why she chose to be a photographer this year. She has been interested in photography for many years, as she comes from a family of both digital and physical artists. She has many creative outlets like crochet, painting, traveling, and trucks. She and her family travel in their beat-up Power Wagon around the West Coast, going to new places and breaking parts of cars that shouldn’t have to be dealt with.