What We Ate (in the school cafeteria)

 

Did You Walk To School…Or Take Your Lunch?

I first heard that silly little question in sixth grade from my best friend Rod Irvin (who also told me, “30 days hath September, April, June and November, all the rest have 31, except my grandmother and she drives a Buick).

It was funny because, well, I was eleven years old; and also because it twists the natural second half, which should be “or ride the bus.” It also flips the script on the second half of the sentence, which should follow “Did you buy your lunch….”

When it came to lunch, I did both. Some years I bought from the cafeteria, other years I packed. And one year in grade school, I went out for lunch! At Johnson Elementary, if you had a note from your parents, you could actually leave the school yard and walk over to the Rainbow Grill, next to Oakwood Market, for your daily hot dog fix.

Even when I brought a sack lunch from home, I still had to go through the cafeteria line to get milk: 2 cents for a half pint when I was in grade school in the fifties. Lunches were 25 cents.

My mother packed a variety of things for me to eat over the years but there was always a sandwich – peanut butter and jelly or pimento cheese – a banana or apple, a nickel bag of chips and some sweet treat she had made.

In high school that sweet treat was frequently my mother’s mystery bar, a blonde brownie dusted with powdered sugar. And most days I would trade the mystery bar to Toni McClellan for something her mother had packed, usually a packaged snack like the Garden Basket sold, maybe even a Twinkie! (For my 65^th birthday Toni gave me a framed copy of my mother’s Mystery Bars recipe!)

But when I bought lunch, what did I get? I couldn’t remember so I looked up the old School Lunch Menus that the Kingsport Times-News published every week.

 

What We Ate

The earliest School Menu I could find was from April 16, 1950:

“A county-wide menu for this week in Sullivan County school lunchrooms was released Saturday by Mrs. Francis Sanders, county lunchroom supervisor. Day-to-day menus are as follows:

Monday

Black-eyed peas, steamed potato, butter, tomato cup, corn muffin, peach halves, 1⁄2 pint milk.

Tuesday

Turnip greens, scrambled egg sandwich with diced pickle, baked sweet potato, bread and butter sandwich, banana pudding, 1⁄2 pint milk.

Wednesday

Beef stew with vegetables, toasted cheese sandwich, lettuce and sliced egg salad, peach half in jello, 1⁄2 pint milk.

Thursday

Pinto beans, buttered spinach, stewed tomatoes and corn, biscuit, butter, plain cake with apple sauce, 1⁄2 pint milk.

Friday

Meat loaf with tomato sauce, boiled potato, creamed peas, hot roll, butter, boiled custard, peanut butter cookie, 1⁄2 pint milk.

 

What strike me today: It looks like it was Wednesday before we got any meat on our plates.

I don’t remember ever eating a scrambled-egg sandwich and don’t hope to ever eat one. Nor did I ever have a bread and butter sandwich. That sounds like prison food.

But we got plenty of vegetables, especially potatoes, and plenty of fruits but only beef stew on Wednesday and meat loaf on Friday when it came to meats.

 

Jumping ahead to Jan. 18, 1959:

City school menus, according to Mrs. Josephine Pratt, city dietician, are as follows:

Monday: spaghetti and meat balls, glazed carrots, green beans. cole slaw, whole wheat muffins, peanut butter cookie.

Tuesday: macaroni and cheese, frozen greens, corn pudding, buttered turnips, corn muffins, pine- apple upside down cake.

Wednesday: meat loaf, mashed potatoes, English peas, combination salad, hot rolls, chocolate pudding.

Thursday: beans, oven-browned potatoes, boiled cabbage, cake with caramel sauce.

Friday: baked fish with tomato sauce, au gratin potatoes, lima beans, carrot sticks, cornbread, fruit jello, cookie,

 

Ah, in 1959 with the addition of spaghetti and meatballs to the menu, we had meat on three days: Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

These seem to be more robust meals with three vegetables every day.

Also fish on Fridays makes its debut.

 

Jumping ahead another decade to October 10, 1971:

Monday: Country fried steak, buttered peas, orange juice, fluffy potatoes, biscuit, jelly, apricot gooey cake, milk and butter.

Tuesday: Hot dog, carrot and cabbage slaw, navy beans, finger roll, chocolate covered raisins, milk and butter.

Wednesday: Pizza, tossed salad, green beans, applesauce, toasted loaf bread, brownie, milk and butter.

Thursday: Turkey and dressing with gravy, broccoli spears, potato salad with egg, whole wheat roll, blueberry teacake, milk and butter.

Friday: Fish and chips, molded grapefruit salad, French fries, corn muffin, pineapple layer cookie bars, milk and butter.

 

Pizza? Hot dogs?

The cafeteria staff was angling towards diner food.

 

For one last menu, let’s take the cafeteria time machine ahead twenty years (or back thirty years from today) to Dec. 13, 1992.

DOBYNS-BENNETT HIGH SCHOOL

Monday: Chicken nuggets or pizza; select two: California vegetables, whipped potatoes, cole slaw, assorted fruits, rolls, prime time pizza.

Tuesday: Chili beans or hot dog/chili/onions; select two: vegetables/dip, potato rounds, cole slaw, orange wedges, cornbread, breaded chicken sandwich.

Wednesday: Submarine sandwich/lettuce/pickles or grilled chicken sandwich/lettuce/pickles; select two: French fries, potato soup, apple sticks, jello/pineapple and pears, rolls, foot-long hot dog.

Thursday: Turkey/dressing/gravy; select two: green beans, sweet potatoes, cole slaw, fruit salads, rolls, grilled chicken sandwich.

Friday: Hamburger/lettuce/ pickles or pizza; select two: French fries, corn niblets, tossed salad, assorted fruits, rolls, double-decker cheeseburger.

 

The cafeteria is now competing with fast food joints: chicken nuggets, pizza, subs, double-decker cheeseburger.

Did the food get better or did the cafeteria marketing department just get better at writing food descriptions?

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t compare our cafeteria food to what we compared it to when we were in school: Prison food.

Yes, I found a couple of prison menus from then.

Prison menus were not easy to find.

The earliest I could find was a 1948 menu for the Kingsport City Jail:

“The daily menu served to the prisoners included bacon or baloney, bread and water for breakfast, and bread, beans, potatoes, and water for lunch. No supper is served unless the prisoners are working.”

Bread and water? Definitely prison food.

I believe our school lunches were better.

The next local jail menu I could find came from 1990 after prisoners staged a hunger strike at the county jail over what they called a “deficient” menu:

“On most days, breakfast consists of biscuits and gravy, jelly or apple butter and coffee. Eggs are served two days a week, and Sunday breakfast is listed as sausage and eggs, pancakes and syrup, orange juice and coffee. In addition to the standard breakfast fare, oatmeal is offered on request three days a week. The noon meal lists a sandwich, pork and beans, mixed fruit and coffee or Kool-Aid. Evening meals consist of a meat, at least two vegetables, biscuits or corn bread, milk and coffee, with dessert five days each week.

“’I'm sorry they're unhappy with the menu,’ said Sheriff Keith Carr, ‘I'm sorry they're unhappy with the decor, but one sure way to avoid that unhappiness is to obey the law.’”

 

Dana Harrison in 1992, 23 years into a 65-year sentence for robbery.

And finally, for readers who remember the Kingsport jail’s most famous regular guests, the Harrison twins, Dana and Danny, this story about Dana and prison food from 1968:

“One of the prisoners at Kingsport city jail apparently got carried away while he was eating lunch Monday and swallowed a spoon. Dana Harrison, 20, of Kingsport, was listed in ‘fairly good’ condition in Holston Valley Community Hospital Tuesday night, and officials were uncertain whether surgery would be necessary to remove the spoon. Harrison had been confined in jail since the weekend when he was arrested for possessing whisky and driving without an operator's license. Harrison was fined on the whisky charge in city court Monday, and the other charge was dismissed. Officers arrested Harrison after he struck four autos on Roller Street and then ran from the scene on foot. What was served for lunch that enthused Harrison so much? ‘I don't know what it was,’ was one officer's reply, ‘but it was probably followed by castor oil.’”