Annual Global Feast Celebrates Culture, Tradition and Great Food

2/12/2025

Connection, community and cuisine were the key ingredients for a joyful and jubilant International Dinner earlier this month.

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The beloved annual school tradition brought close to 300 upper school day and boarding students, faculty and staff together for a global feast of signature dishes from students’ respective home countries.

International Club co-chairs Anna Caponnetto Insa ’26 (Spain), Laura Luolan Yuan ’25 (China), Warsameh Jama ’25 (Somaliland), Eunice Sien Wang ’25 (China), and Jeremy Renze Li ’25 (China) organized and hosted this year’s event.

“It gives us a chance to celebrate our diverse cultures through delicious food and amazing performances,” said Caponnetto Insa, who helped prepare paella. Jama made a beef suqaar dish, Yuan cooked a stewed beef brisket, and Wang prepared a taro coconut dessert. Li assisted with decorations.

Penny Peng, upper school Mandarin teacher and International Club co-advisor with Robert Fish, dean of global studies, enjoyed everything from the Trinidadian curry chicken to hwachae, a Korean fruit bowl drink.

“For the boarders, food can bring so much comfort to students who are living away from home,” Peng shared. “The warm, communal energy of the event built important connections among our students. It demonstrated how diverse and culturally rich our community is.”

The dinner wouldn’t be complete without entertainment. This year, guests were treated to performances by student band 3 on 49 (Mert Kaplan ’25, Sebastian Simkin ’26 and Jonathan Peralta ’25), pianist April Zixuan Wang ’27, and KODE, the student K-pop dance ensemble.

Caponnetto Insa was wowed by all the talent in the Masters community. “Whether it was dancing or playing an instrument, they all delivered beautiful performances that brought us closer to their cultures,” she said.

For Lee Bergelson, general manager of Brock dining services, it was a very exciting day for what he described as one of the largest turnouts. “With 23 dishes being prepared from 18 countries and almost 50 students working in the kitchen, everyone was very organized and focused and it translated to some delicious tasting and looking dishes.”

“What I loved about attending International Dinner was just how much pride and joy there was,” said Samantha Weber ’25, a day student. “We are such a special, diverse community, and it was really a beautiful thing to see everyone embracing one another’s cultures.”