W.B. Saul's Brisket

 Steers grazed on an east-facing slope several yards from the Food Sciences building at W.B. Saul High School. A line stretched through the back door where students served beef brisket, pulled pork sandwiches and scoops of ice cream.

It was the 65^th annual Country Fair Day at the agricultural high school in Roxborough; visitors shopped for herbs in the greenhouse, listened to students share vermicomposting know-how, toured the farm, and walked down a grassy trail to feed the sheep.

And many parents, alumni, and neighbors lined up for student-made lunch featuring dairy and meat produced on campus.

A senior at W.B. Saul splayed soft rolls in foil-lined paper boats and assembled them above trays of pulled pork and brisket. 

Charles is studying food science and processing, one of the four programs (including horticulture, natural resource management, and animal science) students choose between after their freshman year. “I didn’t know much about food science or nutrition,” he says, “I wanted to learn how to eat healthier.”

Charles wakes up at 5am and catches two buses to get from his home in Southwest Philly to school. But to him, it’s worth it. “It’s like two educations in one,” Charles says. In the morning, he’s in psychology, environmental science, English, and sociology classes; in the afternoon he’s studying food science, safety, and nutrition.

The day before the fair, he helped cut the brisket in Mr. Amoroso’s class. “This is all about student involvement,” the food sciences teacher says. Wearing a white, knee-length butcher coat, he popped between the meat lab (the school sell cuts of campus-raised beef to the public once a year at the fair) and the lunchtime operation, keeping an eye on brisket supply. 

As a student dug her tongs into the juicy brisket I asked if they enjoyed this spread during the school week. “Ha! We wish!” Though they're served the standard school district lunches, they get one special perk: salads made with veggies from the campus CSA farm run by Weavers Way Coop.

The students sold out of brisket a half hour before the end of the open house. “We had four pans!” Charles was incredulous, but Mr. Amoroso wasn't too surprised. Alumni come back for that W.B. Saul flavor, achieved with an extra zingy rub, eight hours in the smokehouse, and, of course, the well-tended steers of last year's pasture.