Reading "The Glory and the Dream"

Under the influence of the new TV program on ABD, "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" I have been inclined to research the history of the National School Lunch Program - how did we get to this unhealthy mess?!?

Along the way, I found a fascinating account of how rural communities overcame their difficulties in providing lunches to school children at the turn of the 20th century. What a difference it could make today to put a cow in the recess yard and encourage students to bring vegetables to cook the lunch together!



(from http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/AboutLunch/ProgramHistory_2.htm):

Nationally, rural schools had a special problem in attempting to establish warm noonday lunches for their pupils. Almost without exception there was no room available for setting up a kitchen and dining area. Children came to school from long distances, and their lunches at noon consisted mainly of cold sandwiches, many of them of questionable nutritive value.

Efforts were made beginning in the early 1900's to provide some means of warming certain foods brought from home or to prepare a hot food of some kind at school as a supplement to the foods brought from home. Public funds for such purposes were generally not available. But many ingenious teachers devised plans for preparing soups or similar hot dishes from meats and vegetables brought to school by pupils as a donation for the general use of all. Students took turns in helping to prepare the foods before the morning session began. Such dishes were cooked in a large kettle set on top of the stove which also heated the school room.

In Wisconsin, an extensive program known as "the pint jar method" was used in heating foods brought from home. Students were encouraged to bring such items as soups, macaroni, cocoa, etc. in a pint jar. The pint jars were set into a bucket of water on top of the room heater or stove, and by lunch time such foods would be piping hot. Much stress was placed upon the importance of students receiving some hot food at school each day to supplement the cold sandwiches (sometimes frozen solid by the time the student reached school).

In 1914 the Pinellas County (Florida) health officer, decided to experiment at the school to see what results would come out of a program which would provide each child with a half pint of milk a day. To get the program started a large white cow was placed on the playground with posters and other material to explain what was being attempted. Amid this setting the children were served their milk. The health officer was so impressed with the results that he suggested they serve a bowl of soup to the children with the milk.

A group of mothers and the principal planned and carried out the project serving the children a hot bowl of soup with crackers and one-half pint of milk. The meat and some of the potatoes were donated by the mothers. They also furnished the utensils, and the principal supplied the vegetables grown in the school garden.