School Lunches Then Vs. Now

The first generation of my siblings (the first four or five of us) will remember what school lunches were like growing up in the 50’s and 60’s. Everything was homemade. The cafeteria ladies wore white uniforms, hairnets and white aprons and NO plastic gloves. They got there at the crack of dawn, put on their hairnets, washed their hands and cooked our school lunch every day. Everything was fresh and homemade.

There were fresh green beans, real mashed potatoes with lumps, homemade gravy, greens, corn, steamed carrots, peas, roast, chicken, meatloaf, smothered steak, and sometimes liver and onions; just to name a few items. The desserts were absolutely divine; pies with meringue 6” deep, real brownies, cherry cobbler and yellow cake with fudge icing. You could get white vitamin D whole milk, chocolate milk, or iced tea (mostly for the teachers). Real pottery plates (divided) and real stainless steel eating utensils were provided to put on metal trays warm from the big dishwasher. If we were lucky, we’d get to buy a school lunch for about 25 cents.

A dear friend reminded me that the junior high school menu was about the same. He said that high school actually had a little more variety. Ahhhh, yes….. Cokes were available as well as other orange sodas, Grape Nehi and hamburgers on some days of the week. Grilled chicken also hit the menu in high school, and again, always fish on Fridays. If you could imagine Luby’s for school lunch at 25 cents, that’s the way it was; more like eating at Luby’s. Actually, I think the cost went up a little in junior high and high school…but not by much.

Most of the time, we made our lunches, and I really, really, really wanted to buy my lunch. But, alas …… I remember my red plaid lunch box with a thermos that invariably broke after the first week of school. We’d pack a sandwich, milk, fruit and cookies. By the time lunch came around the lunch box usually smelled a little funky, and my orange or apple had smashed my sandwich, which was wrapped in waxed paper. If I was lucky enough to have peanut butter instead of bologna or tuna, I’d usually eat the whole sandwich whether it was smashed or not. Then I’d eat the fruit and crumbled cookies, and maybe drink the milk, which didn’t stay very cold.

After the second or third grade, we just used brown paper bags. We’d trade around a bit, but I usually just ate my own lunch. The real trading didn’t start until we got in to junior high school. By then, we noticed that other kids got stuff that was way cooler than ours. I know we weren’t the only kids that had to take a lunch to school. One girl in my class took a tuna sandwich every single day. We only took tuna on Fridays, and then, when we’d get home we had fish sticks for dinner. In a small nutshell, Catholics refrained from eating meat on Fridays, as a sacrifice in order to make reparation for their / our sins. Apparently, according to the Catholic Church, if you ate meat on Friday, you were going straight to hell. It isn’t so these days, with the exception of Lent….I’ve heard. And even then you can get special dispensation to have whatever you want … in a pinch.

Anyway, school steam table lunches in the 50’s and 60’s were definitely above most school lunch standards of present day. As time slipped by, they seemed to go down hill. I would occasionally go to school to have lunch with my daughters. This was in the mid 70’s and mid 80’s. It had totally changed. They got a plastic partition molded tray. It was served by cafeteria workers wearing baggie gloves. They also wore hair nets. I happened upon Mexican Food day a couple of times. This consisted of a large ice cream scoop of sticky rice in a mound in one of the partitions. A ladle full of canned chili was poured over the rice. On top of that, a hand full of Fritos was sprinkled. A salad of lettuce and a few shaved carrot pieces was added, and half a peach in heavy syrup was spooned into the remaining partition. There was a space for a small carton of milk. This made me more insistent than ever that my kids take their lunches, which they invariably forgot.

I have it on good authority from a friend that goes to lunch with her granddaughter; that school lunches have improved since we (she and I) went to lunch with our own kids. Maybe the schools wised up about putting nutrition before budget. I think that some of the schools have taken the Coke machines out of the cafeterias. It still could never beat the lunches we had when we were growing up in the 60’s. It was a great deal more nutritious, if not just down right wholesome and yummy! Our kids and grandchildren will just never really know what they missed.