School Lunches

School has or will shortly start for another year for our grandchildren or children or friends...and it got me to reminiscing about school lunches. Things sure have changed. When I was in school in the 1950's - 1960's we had real school cooks, farm women who could make even government commodity surplus ingredients taste good. Lunch was 25 cents, a half pint of milk was 2 cents.

Mom tried to save money occasionally by packing our lunch, a disaster for sure. My bologna sandwich was suppose to only have Miracle Whip on it. Brother Bill's only mustard. Chuck's was requested with butter on both slices of bread, Miracle Whip on the top, mustard on the bottom and Tommy wanted double bologna with mustard in the middle. You can imagine the complaining when the sandwiches got mixed up. They were wrapped in waxed paper or a waxed paper bag. And we didn't have lunch boxes, those handy collectible cubes that sell for big bucks today. Our lunches were rolled up in newspaper and bound with string. How embarrassing.

So, mom got a job. I swear she only went to work to get away from us! Lol And then we got to buy our lunch, whether we liked it or not.

Several years ago some of us teachers took a field trip to another school in Western Kansas..Hays I think it was. Their HS cafeteria had several lines. A couple were run by Pizza Hut and McDonalds. another line was a salad/vegetarian line and another was a short order line. We were all impressed with the variety the kids had. Not longer our school system went to a central kitchen where all the food was prepared in one place and shipped out to all the schools. It was worse than before they changed.

Our cooks made some of the best food many kids had for the day in our lower income farming community. It took me years to find the secret to the shredded chicken sandwiches...torn hamburger buns to thicken the broth in that simmering chicken. Ground ham sandwiches left over at the end of the day were handed out for free at afternoon recess....remember recess??? Our cooks made the best desserts....Apple Brown Betty, Peach Cobbler, Cherry Pudding....all made with what was available.