School Lunch from the Great Depression

[@TastingHistory]

Question! What was your favorite school lunch dish?

[@KetchupwithMaxandJose]

Square pepperoni pizza 🍕

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

That square pepperoni pizza was great back in the day!

[@Hybris51129]

French bread hamburger pizza. I would put mustard on mine and it was quite good.

[@matthewharter6134]

I wasn't picky as a kid, they were all okay in my book.

[@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980]

Oh man square pepperoni pizza & mac & cheese.

[@arraelle7453]

" oh those poor children " when tasting the soup is priceless xD

[@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980]

This is the kind of recipe I'd expect Dylan B Hollis to make.

[@maydaygarden]

When Max makes the side-eye, you know what comes next. Watching the recipe being made it was obvious those ingredients weren't going to play well with each other.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

@@maydaygarden Yeah, but if you're *really* hungry, that doesn't matter so much.

[@Fiendishfool]

Reminds me of SpongeBob's homemade sundae

[@coopercummings8370]

@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t It is still a massive improvement over modern school lunches

[@technoir2584]

When I grew up my family was so poor that School lunch was the only thing I got to eat most of the time. There was a lunch lady who noticed how skinny I was compared to other kids, and she told me to come to school earlier and she would give me something to eat before school started. I hope today's kids appreciate having school lunch and the lunch ladies.

[@lollymac2259]

Most schools have breakfast programs now & I volunteer for a local food bank and we pack weekend bags of food for those who have been identified as children who face food insecurity. I’m sorry you had to face childhood hunger. No child should ever go hungry.

[@prcervi]

my school from over a decade ago now did have a breakfast program mercifully, ate it once during midterms and can say it was adequate

[@chrisdonovan8795]

I work in a high school in the Bronx. School lunch and breakfast is provided for every student for free. The program is undoubtedly feeding some people in need, but as is, at least half the food they take is thrown in the garbage; often without being tried. I think this is due to three reasons: 1. We currently live in a time of relevant plenty, 2. Students must take the entire tray of food, whether they want to or not, and 3. They may not like the taste. It's insane.

[@sarahstrong7174]

@@chrisdonovan8795 Please ask better off students to bring clean paper bags & put their untouched items in & give them to those in need.

[@chrisdonovan8795]

@@sarahstrong7174 I could mention it, but they'll look at me like I'm crazy. This is a systemic issue. To illustrate my point, the cafeteria staff will throw out excess or about to expire food instead of donating it. It's maddening.

[@lairdcummings9092]

My grandmother had a near-fetish for canning. She raised three boys through the Depression as a single mother, and growing & preserving her own food was their saving grace. Up to the time my father was in his 70s, he grew truck gardens and harvested mass quantities of base staple foods. Tomatoes, sweet potatoes, potatoes, pole beans, peas, peaches and grapes, and squash of multiple types. While she lived, my grandmother marshalled my siblings and myself as her minions, canning and pickling and preserving. Peach preserves, grape jelly, canned marinara sauce and tomatoes, even pickled watermelon rind - we had literally years-worth of such 'put up' when she passed. More than two years after she passed, we still had a few jars in the pantry. And yes, it was still good. She had mad skills at canning.

[@EpicAMV911]

"we encourage all our citizens to fill up on Veggies our boys over seas need the meat" My great grandfather fought that war. -WWII Props to your family for being resourceful

[@abracadaverous]

I "inherited" some wonderful homemade chutneys that my beloved auntie made. It also took me about two years to finish them. After the last bite of the last of the chutney, I thought to myself, "That's it; she's really dead now."

[@darwinism8181]

My grandparents went through the Great Depression as well and it marked them both in different ways; my grandfather refused to eat stewed greens of any sort because for over a year different stewed greens made up the majority of his diet, and my grandmother was constitutionally incapable of throwing away any food that didn't have a thick carpet of mold - to the point that it was an unspoken rule to never eat anything from her fridge unless you knew 100% when it was made, a lesson my cousin (who hadn't spent as much time with them) learned the very hard way via a trip to the hospital with some real bad food poisoning. She also canned, of course, and I remember that quite a bit more fondly than the unintentionally booby-trapped fridge.

[@RomanvonUngernSternbergnrmfvus]

@@abracadaverous hope you’re making your own now as well to pass it along

[@Cosmiccoffeecup]

​@@abracadaverous I have the last one of my grandmother's preserves. I can't bring myself to open it.

[@jzyyz]

How Lunchables managed to trick kids into pressuring their parents to buy them miniature WWII military rations is a masterclass in marketing.

[@ej8710]

Lunchables are not the same. The meat is now ground up and glued together.

[@KittinPyro]

I mean some of them where actually pretty tasty, even now i really love the chicken nugget shaker one. It’s the portion sizes that they’re really ripping you off with. It was never enough even as a 10 year old.

[@ZeoViolet]

@@KittinPyro I remember when there were six or seven pieces of chicken, and the sauce was pretty thick. Now it is watery and you only get four pieces.

[@CurtisThomas-l9p]

Start with a cute name

[@jlshel42]

Steve from MREinfo’s origin story

[@thechaospope]

Max's disappointed face when he first tries the soup is absolutely priceless. I love how you can still see him pondering going for a second bite as the spoon moves towards the bowl and he's hit by the realization that no, he really doesn't like this very much and doesn't need that second spoonful. When I heard the menu, my first question was "Why not just tomato soup and peanut butter sandwiches?"

[@fullmetalfunk]

this was my exact thought too lol. i think it's obvious they were just trying to get protein in somewhere so they went with the peanut butter but WHY in the soup? in fact, it'd be better to put the butter in the tomato soup and the peanut butter on the bread.

[@thechaospope]

@@fullmetalfunk I'm neither a food scientist nor historian but I don't know what the average person in the 1930's knew about protein or why it was important. I believe they were generally aware that a diet of various foodstuffs was a healthier option. Vitamins weren't discovered until 1926 and how they fit into our diets took a bit longer to sort out. It looks like what we now call "protein" with regards to our diet wasn't really known about until the 1950's.

[@Rebecca_English]

I suspect that the peanut butter was there to stretch the tomato soup, as peanuts were a cheap and accessible food with a long shelf life. That way, you can feed more children without blowing the budget!

[@aslandus]

From what I understand, peanut butter was originally invented as a meat replacement so people who couldn't chew meat could still get their protein, so they may have been running on the logic that "we can't afford meat for our meat and tomato soup, so replace the meat with peanut butter". It still seems absurd not to taste test the meal or experiment with different arrangements of the ingredients before making it the standard fare, but I can see how a very sudden change in the lunch budget could result in these weird recipes.

[@ljmiller96]

@@fullmetalfunk good question. in fact PB&J sandwiches with Cream of Tomato soup made my mother's basic lunch menu when we came home for lunch in the elementary school days. She grew up in the Depression and wouldn't touch cabbage, but she still liked tomatoes well enough.

[@eddieboyky]

That moment when Max bites into something he doesn't really like and has to figure out in the moment what to say about it without being too negative! That instant side-eye is priceless!

[@Raevynwing]

It's my favourite part I'm ashamed to admit 🤣

[@FreihEitner]

At least he is honest about it. I always love on TV cooking shows how they make a big deal about how good everything they made tastes -- as if they were ever going to say "Oh my god that's awful!" and toss it across the room. :-)

[@gllyflower]

Honestly I thought that fish pudding was going to break him haha

[@Tiberon098]

Never thought of peanut butter going with tomato soup, I can kinda see it as the umami from the tomato goes with the peanut butter.

[@slimslamfl]

I've got to wonder if a bit of butter sandwich helped the soup

[@keeponwishin]

My grandpa grew up in the 1930s in rural Ohio and he’d talk about this very lunch. He said he was grateful for it because it was his only meal throughout the day, but would say that he and his mates would either spread the soup on the buttered bread or tear up the sandwich and mix it in with the soup and that made it taste a bit better.

[@Rose-jz6sx]

His only meal! I know that was and is more common than we'd like to think, but it's still so sad... I can see the buttered bread helping the soup for sure.

[@williamyediares7057]

@Lex Bright Raven I never understood why they gave us that Chinese chop suey out of the giant cans so gross.

[@taejaskudva2543]

​@@williamyediares7057 Gross, and on no way actually Chinese....

[@dracofirex]

@@williamyediares7057 It was cheap, and that's all it was... ew

[@markgordon8146]

You talk like Yankee.the man on t.v. have clean face like woman.soup look good.

[@miscaccount7567]

I went to a rural high school and they were trying this novel thing by hiring a local chef. Same ingredients, but full reign on how to use them. He made bibimbap for us Midwestern kids! Custom omelette bars on Fridays! Pasta straight from the skillet! You could also have as many vegetables as you wanted so I ate loads as a hungry teenager. There was also pizza every day if you wanted it and it was fine and predictable. I was so excited to eat school lunch most days. Apparently after I graduated they decided to let him go and go back to standard, unappetizing American school lunches because it was cheaper . I feel really lucky to have had that experience.

[@JackTalyorD]

I often wonder about the decline in cook skills ......... My grandmother could make 50 Cooke's and cakes from scratch and had the receipt memories My mother could make some of my hand mother's recipes I can make cookies from a box. That such a basic skill has been lost, To be able to look at 10-15 integers and think of 50 different meals .......... Is it a lack of passion for there work that has them make the most basic of meals or the lack of skill that means the can only make the most basic of meals. Most food is just the combating of the same key ingredients in different ratios

[@soph-ia-]

That is so cool!!!

[@Grandmagaga60]

My mother said that years ago her friend was a lunch lady and she and her co-workers were thrilled to have ingredients to cook with during the depression as they didn’t have much to cook at home. I believe the schools received commodities and were free to cook home-style meals…the kids were thrilled to have good hot food to eat.

[@vivianloney]

​@JackTalyorD the skill is lost when we no longer have to do it to eat and survive. Food is so much cheaper nowadays as a portion of people's income, even after inflation. It's so cheap that it's an absolute shame there are still people unable to feed themselves and their kids with a full time job, speaks to how little they are being paid.

[@JackTalyorD]

@@vivianloney I would say the skill was lost when there was a change in society and the rise of convenience foods. Cooking became a luxury a hobby to be enjoyed rather then a skill of note. I would say it still has value but is not being encouraged on a family due to lack of time

[@josephanthro]

We have a dope af lunch program for our students in Sitka, Alaska. Local fishermen frequently donate some of their catches (salmon, halibut, and even sometimes crab) to the local public schools. Then most of our high schools have programs where students help kitchen staff make meals (to learn how to cook themselves). Most of our schools even bake their own bread; so our students get some incredible school lunches.

[@harvestmoon_autumnsky]

I want Alaskan salmon for school lunch! The school where I work has our school lunches delivered from over 30 miles away, in cardboard, wrapped in plastic and heated up in an oven, with the plastic on. It is free though, which is new after covid.

[@josephanthro]

@@harvestmoon_autumnsky haha Alaska's a dope place to live (but it's not for everyone)

[@TheDownrankTrain]

Kids get good food and learn valuable life skills. I wish my school had widespread cooking leasons

[@tanyah.9131]

That fresh food is also great nutrition for the kids!

[@seronymus]

That's awesome. I hope you can try to visit any Orthodox sites in your area, Alaska is a traditional bastion of the Church in America. :)

[@imahoare4742]

My grandma used to tell me about her family life during the depression. Lots of canned food, lots of pickling and lots of grain or bread. She worked with her mom as seamstress when she was a teenager. After the depression she also worked on the railroads during WW2 because most of the men in her area were drafted.

[@frenspanglify]

My great-grandma just passed 7 months ago and i'm really gonna miss her garden and all the canned food she made up. She would give it to some of the villages in my area (very rural and farmland for the most part) for those who need food or would just leave a sign in her front yard if she had a bunch of tomatoes and zucchini. I miss her so much.

[@lairdcummings9092]

My grandmother raised three boys through the Depression as a single mother. Many decades later, pickling and canning was still a passion - we grew and canned so many tomatoes that even after she passed, we had *two years* worth of canned tomatoes remaining.

[@frenspanglify]

@@InspiriumESOO I’m not sure what you are getting at, when you’re poor you don’t have much of a choice? I’m not sure what that comment had to do with our grandmother/great-grandmother. I don’t think being malnourished would be considered healthy cause that’s what happened to my great grandmother and had complications due to that from when she was growing up.

[@mrhumpty]

Talking to my Grandparents about their early lives was kinda nuts. If you listen to people complain today... it was nothing like it was in the early to mid 1900's. Both grew up on farms. They had family members die from burning to death due to a coal from a stove. They, too, lived off of canning, pickling, salting during the depression. Luckily, (funny as this is to say) they still lived on working farms during the depression so their food intake was much more stable. My grandma ended up a nurse for WWII and my grandpa a pilot. My Grandpa was a couple of weeks away from flying into Japan before the bombs were job. He had been a pilot trainer most of the war but was being called in because they were short living pilots. Again, we live in the best time ever on this planet. Understanding history and the plight of the common man over the years should sober people up a bit.

[@mrhumpty]

​@@frenspanglify Go easy on him. if he's thinking pickling and canned/jarred foods are the healthy plant based diet he's referring to, he has no idea what he's talking about. Whole Foods Vegan is the only "vegitarian" diet that is proven healthy... and that is one of the most privileged diets you can think of these days.

[@kadikaado]

That is a subject that touches my heart. I am a teacher at a public school in Brazil and our kids stay here from 8am to 5pm, they have 4 meals at school, breakfast (small meal), lunch (main meal), another small meal and then "diner" that is usually some sort of soup. I have some kids that the only time they eat on the day is at school. Last year my students were talking about wanting to go home and then someone asked a girl if she wanted to go home, she said something like "No way, there's no food at home", so I remembered how important their meals at school are. In another school I worked previously there were always cases of students fainting during classes because the only meal they had was at school, it never happened in my classes, though. Here in Brazil most schools serve just one meal for its students, usually rice and beans and some vegetable and protein, like grounded meat stewed with carrots and potatoes, or chicken stewed with chayotte (we rarely ever have fried food). The students usually study from 7am untill noon or 13pm untill 18pm. Adults usually study at night from 19 till 22.

[@tracybartels7535]

I'm glad your students have 4 meals. Those are long days!

[@markmower6507]

Children staying in school from 8-5 sounds like a great idea, at least two more hours before they are let loose to terrorize the neighborhood, Hahahahahahahaha 😂!!!

[@rigues]

Here in Curitiba (south of Brazil) city schools serve Chocolate Milk and bread and butter at breakfast, then lunch around 9:30 am. The menu is quite varied, with pizzas, bread, cake, fruits and the like, all supervised by nutritionists. Sadly, that is not the reality in the rest of the country, where many times all the kids have to eat are biscuits and some powdered "juice", if they have anything at all. And you are right, in many places school food is the ONLY food they are sure to eat all day. And it is not unheard of to hear of kids asking for extra portions of food (if any) or fruits to take home and help feed their parents or siblings who are not at school.

[@nyarlatothep666]

Do kids or parents have to pay for those meals?

[@rigues]

@@nyarlatothep666 In public schools, no. Here cities and states share responsibility for public education: cities are responsible for schools until 5th grade (about 10 years old) and the state afterwards, until high school.

[@purple_menace6604]

I have to appreciate how functional this lunch is. Tomato and peanut butter soup for vitamins and proteins, butter sandwich for fats and carbs, and an apple for natural sugars and other nutrients. The inclusion of a little cookie is actually pretty heartwarming though in the context of the great depression.

[@soggsthemage6679]

When they spoke about putting the tomatoes through a sieve they probably meant a food mill which sometimes is also called a purée sieve. In the context of the quantity necessary for 50 kids a food mill also makes more sense than somebody doing it with a spoon by hand.

[@vysharra]

I wonder if old canned tomatoes had citric acid as an ingredient. That makes modern canned tomatoes much firmer than without (and affects the taste a bit too).

[@maydaygarden]

Plus they used whole tomatoes, not diced which have "something" added to them to keep them firm and hold their shape. No thanks.

[@lairdcummings9092]

@@vysharra my grandmother used lemon juice.

[@TheMichigami]

@@maydaygarden canned whole tomatoes don't have "something" added to them to hold their shape, they are just packed into the can whole, then cooked in the can, the fibers in the tomato flesh kinda just hold their shape themselves like that and come out of the can or jar still whole. Same with diced tomatoes, they're just tomato bits put into the can with water then cooked. home canned or industrial, they're literally just tomatoes, water, and heat. some people might add other things like salt or an acid like citric or lemon juice or such, but those are totally unnecessary and really don't do anything except affect the flavor, not the firmness.

[@maydaygarden]

@@TheMichigami I was referring to canned diced tomatoes, not whole which are the only kind I buy. I either break them up by hand or blend them for sauce. 🍅

[@Amertsi]

Present day lunch lady here! I work at a high school in California, and right now in our district all meals are free, so at my smaller school, we serve about 500 kids at lunch and around 400 at breakfast. We're currently in the process of moving towards more meals being cooked from fresh ingredients in the kitchen. A lot of what we cook right now comes frozen, but it's much healthier and much tastier than what was served when I was in school, and we have a salad bar of fresh fruits and vegetables available every day. It's tough work, and we're most certainly understaffed, but thanks for putting the spotlight even just a little on what can often be a thankless job! At the very least, the soups we serve twice a week are much tastier than what you concocted, or at least I hope so! (We serve pozole and albondigas soups, which are both a hit with the kids!) Making meals from scratch is definitely a lot more work though, and with only 5 of us in the kitchen, it can be a challenge to prepare everything on time, so if you're reading this, please let your local school district know that you support higher wages for us lunch ladies, and also look into working as one yourself if it seems like something you'd like doing! It's a tough job at times but I get so much satisfaction out of knowing I'm helping these kids have a warm meal everyday.

[@hellsmyhome8979]

THANKS FOR YOUR WORK

[@Just1Nora]

I've never heard of those soups...guess that's what I get for being raised in the suburbs. 😅

[@leoalcaraz6153]

Thank you when I was a kind sometimes the food ladies like you prepared was all I got to eat for the day

[@britishgamer666]

You are doing god's work, bless your soul, and your soul fulfilling work.

[@kel292]

truly you and your coworkers do so much more for the public education system and those kids then you are ever given credit for

[@ingriddaniel766]

Thanks,Max, for pointing out that teachers still have to pay for many school supplies themselves. I just returned from Walmart, where I restocked paper, pencils, pens, and dry erase markers for my classroom.

[@TastingHistory]

Thank you for all that you do!

[@trashcatlinol]

Our lack of support for teachers is frustrating.

[@RedwihteGame]

Insane!

[@sancho7863]

I’m pretty sure lack of funding for public education is intentional

[@williamyediares7057]

Yeah its pretty ridiculous that teachers are required to supply that stuff on they're salaries , hopefully it can be written off at least.

[@NougetChops]

Every child deserves a free lunch. Period. And they deserve a GOOD free lunch.

[@Andrea-kx6dc]

Yes!!❤

[@stockandoptionstrading]

There is no free lunch

[@demonboy7777]

​@@stockandoptionstrading Perhaps but a child shouldn't ever be the one paying for it.

[@spazzasaurusrex-4450]

Children should get free lunch, if prisoners get free food@@stockandoptionstrading

[@SauerPatchGardening]

​@@stockandoptionstrading I'm a lunch lady. The school breakfast and lunch is free in our school district for all children. I'm in Illinois

[@Luffans2]

My grandmother told me about how humiliated she felt at lunch time every day. Her teacher inspected the lunches and always shamed hers in front of the other kids because she was very poor. I think she was lucky to have one biscuit in her lunch most days. I bet she would have loved to have school lunch provided.

[@momkatmax]

My Mom was born in 1921 and experienced the same thing. Her Mother wasn't a great cook on top of not having a lot of money due to being widowed. My Mom often took a stale chunk of pie, doughnut, or some such. She ate alone because she was teased that she ate dessert first.

[@suzanne529]

@@momkatmax A girl in my school brought powdered sugar and butter sandwiches. In the late 50's.

[@komiks42]

​@@suzanne529Dude, i still eat it sometimes. Don't shame sugar and butter sandwith

[@doldemenshubarti8696]

@@Anita_Minute most likely a psychopath. we stopped eliminating unwanted genes like that and sometimes even praise psychopaths

[@piperbarlow2730]

​@@doldemenshubarti8696how do you suggest we eliminate those genes? eugenics? theres no way to do anything youre suggesting without acting like a psychopath yourself

[@meh_lady]

I went to a tiny rural school in the late 80’s and the lunches there were so good! Everything was made from scratch by country gals. Biscuits and gravy, yeast rolls, chili, soups, shepherds pie, chicken and dumplings…all kinds of good stuff. There were only about 100 students from K-8 and it was such a communal place. I have great memories of that school. ❤

[@annseabolt6645]

I went to a tiny rural school in the mid sixties and our lunch ladies were farmers wives and our lunches likewise were great. When we had chili there was chopped onions and cheese to put on it, when we had pinto beans we always had cornbread. The lunches only cost 20 cents. There were only 9 kids in my grade.

[@Firsona]

My grandma was a lunch lady, and she got up at 4:30 every morning to go to work and make biscuits and yeast rolls. There was so much more room for actual cooking back then.

[@lisaknox4257]

So did I! My fellow schoolmates of yesteryear and I still speak of one lunch lady in particular: Mrs. Earline Martin. You've made history when, long after you've gone, full grown adults still speak of your way with peanut butter!

[@Thatoneladywhodoesnotcare]

I went to a tiny school in the 90s and I still crave some of the things they served

[@hellsmyhome8979]

@@lisaknox4257 that's so cute

[@laureldevine]

As per my grandfather who actually ate this very soup; you're supposed to use the bread & butter to eat it. Either dip the sandwich into the soup, like a cookie in milk, or tear the sandwich up into small pieces, laying them gently on top (so they don't disintegrate into the soup) and eat the sandwich and soup together that way - tastes MUCH better (according to him).

[@tessaducek5601]

We eat tomato soup like that .

[@amandamsnyder87]

It makes sense

[@nahor88]

@@tessaducek5601 Don't understand why they didn't just make TOMATO SOUP, and have the sandwiches be peanut butter... would be healthier too than butter sandwiches.

[@thetapheonix]

@@nahor88 Well it was the depression and more calories was better. The butter is the only difference and when you’re lean because of a lack of food it isn’t about what’s healthy but amount of calories so it makes sense.

[@michelleboyle6497]

@@nahor88 I imagine that the peanut butter stretched further when put in the soup

[@fearjera]

the fact this looks better than my actual school lunch is actually sad.

[@arthas640]

Yeah my schools lunches were so bad I just didn't eat lunch as a kid, I'd rather go hungry.

[@libertyprime5777]

Spoken like people who've never went hungry. I was just thankful to have something to eat.

[@arthas640]

@@libertyprime5777 gotta agree there. This was also good eating for the time. Most working class people of the time didn't even eat hot lunches, a "plowmans lunch" style meal of bread and cheese or a dry sandwich of bread and deli meat was pretty common. Things like a boiled potato or turnip were also common lunch items. As mentioned no food at all was also common for poorer people, even adults, a but for a busy or poor parent it wasn't uncommon for kids to not eat lunch at all.

[@tenderandmoist5011]

⁠@@libertyprime5777Orrr we could not let kids meal be anywhere comparable to a meal from *The Great Depression* in the 21st century. I mean if we don't think our children deserve better than this then wtf are we striving for as a collective? This is not a suffering competition

[@libertyprime5777]

@@tenderandmoist5011 Where in my comment do you see me saying that this is what school meals should look like? I'm not saying that this is a good meal, far from it, but it's still better than what a lot of people get, and I do agree that we need to strive to be better not only for ourselves, but for our children. As for this not being a suffering competition, I'm well aware of that, my point was that if a kid that was actually starving got served this at school, they sure wouldn't complain. I didn't mean to make anyone feel bad, but the fact still stands that depending on someone's circumstances, a meal like this could either suck or be better than what they have at home.

[@Ristro44]

"These were the things I lost sleep about when I was 8" got me in the heart. A simpler time.

[@MetaSynForYourSoul]

The fact that Max comes from a family of teachers explains why he's so good at this.

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

Being a charismatic and at least outwardly confident man certainly doesn't hurt.

[@MetaSynForYourSoul]

@@HiddenEvilStudios for sure 👍

[@cam4636]

@@HiddenEvilStudios Yeah, a lot more than...being descended from teachers. Pretty sure "teaching" isn't a gene that gets passed down

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

@@cam4636 It's not, no...But it can affect your upbringing and development.

[@kindlykaren1313]

Have you seen bridge to terabithia? “You’re pretty good at art for a boy” you are who you are, not your parents

[@Nm_09]

My Aunt was my lunch lady in elementary school and let me tell you, she was the coolest lady in school. Every kid knew her as the lunch lady who would ALWAYS drop what she was doing to make a kid a snack. On test days she would put up her own money so every kid was given a free icecream. She's since retired, and some of my old friends growing up still reach out to ask how she's doing. God bless our lunch ladies, you take the slop you have to work with and turn it into a meal.

[@skyeblue5669]

AMAZING Auntie, your lucky ..

[@MartianAmbassador69]

I know how you kids like it nice and sloppy 👩‍🍳

[@DizzyBusy]

Yes! It's crazy how little money school cafeterias have to feed so many students, and yet they do.

[@samanthac.349]

Anytime I hear someone talk about walking “uphill both ways” to school, I think of my dad. He lived about 1/4 mile from his elementary and middle schools. There was a valley in the landscape between his childhood home and the schools, so it was absolutely true that he walked uphill both ways to school until he started high school.

[@1957jmhiser1]

We lived three miles from school and had to walk daily as our stepfather refused to get up and take us.

[@MrQuackthethird]

Yeah haha my school is a kilometer away but i walk anyway

[@MickeyMousePark]

my father would tell the same story..BUT he grew up in Oklahoma there are NO hills there!!! So he would have walked on flat ground both directions i guess that story just does not have the same punch hahahah

[@blakksheep736]

Okay, but no one who lived 400 meters from their school gets to complain about their commute. 😆 There are people with driveways longer than that.

[@Juleneifier]

I laughed at your reaction to the soup! I spent 6 months living in Ghana, W. Africa and one of the foods we ate regularly was Groundnut Soup. It was a peanut and tomato based soup, usually with some meat and then served over rice balls. I serve it fairly regularly in my USA home, especially to guests and everyone thinks it is the weirdest but most delicious thing. I bet you need my recipe instead of the school lunch version.

[@nullthenightcat]

May I please have the recipe?

[@PirateQueen1720]

Yeah, I've had THAT and it is good. But this version seems too...basic? Like it needs some spices or some other ingredients to tie the tomato and peanut together?

[@IHeartQuilting2]

When my elderly Dad wasn't eating, I made him Campbell's tomato soup with milk and peanut butter. He loved it. Veggies and protein. Kept him going when he could eat nothing else. Make any tomato soup you like and just add peanut butter.

[@Kitty-Cat]

Yes! I make peanut tomato stew all the time (the recipe from Budget Bytes) and I totally thought this soup would be decent but when I saw the gloopy texture oh no! It definitely needs to be thinned out a little and some spices and other stuff added to it!

[@AK-wj5yx]

totally agree, the recipe is so basic, it needs flavour bombing w spices. one of my fav chutney is Tomato & peanut one and gosh those 2 combined is genuinely so goood.

[@rhondawest6838]

Giving kids coffee is probably why "nobody in the old days had ADHD" Also, hermit cookies are awesome. My mom added chopped apples to hers which was even better.

[@isthiscereallife]

Yeah definitely. Caffeine is _known_ to help those with ADHD focus, lol!

[@punky19761]

@@isthiscereallife It puts my adhd self to sleep, so I would probably be napping after lunch.

[@awalkthroughtorah6897]

My kids have been using it for that reason. 5 of them, and 4 manage without meds. 1 doesn't have ADHD. It's also about teaching self control for kids with impulse issues, but it's not terrible. It's harder to prevent "I haven't eaten" 5 minutes after we finished lunch, than other stuff we had issues with. One if my middle kids, who is now 6'3 3\4, used to tell people all the time I hadn't fed him. And when you have Karen neighbors, it's a problem.

[@scaper8]

It would likely lower the ones with ADHD, and bump up the ones without; so, from the outside observer, most would look about the same.

[@rejoyce318]

Re giving kids coffee: I agree! Plus, if they had to walk two or more miles to school after already doing their morning chores on the farm, they were moving a lot more than many of today's kids who must ride a bus to school, then sit much of the day. No more hour-long lunch/recesses, either. Our state had to finally mandate recess because too many districts were using the time as extra state test-prep time, and/or disciplinary consequences.

[@fortheloveofchocolat]

My grandma went to a rural, one-room school house in Texas. She said her teacher cooked beans and if you wanted something to go with it, you had to bring it. Her mom usually sent her with cornbread... and you are right! We (teachers) still buy for their own classrooms.

[@rexsceleratorum1632]

Mung beans and rice, that was the standard at my schools here in India 30 years ago. Personally I always brought my lunch from home.

[@AngelaEscritora]

In Brazil, nowadays, school lunch is really nice. As soon as the kid get to school, they have juice, fresh french bread or cookies. Then, lunch time is a real meal, rice, beans, spaghetti, meat balls.. jello, juice.

[@Patchouliprince]

Depression era recipes are a life saver. The last few years have been awful as far as money and circumstances go so I really rely on the wisdom of folks from the era who wrote down all their useful hacks and crafty recipes

[@frenspanglify]

i actually really wanna find a great depression recipe book because of how hard the inflation on food has been, it would be a lot of fun probably too!

[@JaneAustenAteMyCat]

​@@frenspanglify I have one called Clara's Kitchen

[@frenspanglify]

@@JaneAustenAteMyCat I’ll have to see if I can find that one then!:)💕

[@shards-of-glass-man]

@@JaneAustenAteMyCat same Granma Clara that had a YT channel?

[@timesthree5757]

I’m like my great grandmother. She came down from the hills to pick up her tri monthly staples. According to her diary a costumer asked, Ethel what do you think of this Great Depression. She looked around. “I don’t rightly know what all the fuse is about. I don’t see anything any different from before.”

[@bbgdaryl]

The lunch you made is healthier and better balanced than any purchased school lunch I ever experienced. I remember having "pizza" which was just melted and hardened cheese on a shingle of flour/water dough, Salisbury steak which if you cut into the "meat" patty you could see the uncooked oats, and hamburgers which were literally the Salisbury steak with the packet-made gravy wiped off and shoved between two pieces of white bread. No vegetables were ever served in my school lunches. In elementary there might be unsweetened applesauce sometimes, but I didn't see fresh fruit in a cafeteria until high school. No soups, no pastas, no anything else. In high school I thought I'd struck it rich because my school had a deal with a local Little Caesar's so we could have real pizza everyday..... and that was it. And only cheese pizza. So.. every single day, Little Caesar's cheese pizza and a Pepsi, cuz ofc the school also had a deal with Pepsi to have their vending machines in every single hallway. Meanwhile, the last chapter of our history books talked about how "maybe someday man will travel outer space," at least once a month we had a student get mercury poisoning and nearly die and it was always blamed on the science lab (turned out the park next door had waste barrels at the bottom of the pond, but boy did our brand new state of the art track, football field, baseball diamond, and soccer field look great!

[@its_clean]

I thought my New Jersey public school lunches were bad, but compared to you I suppose I ate like a king! With Little Caesar's and Pepsi every day, I'd be shocked if any students lived long enough to drag their diabetic lardasses onto that shiny new soccer field lol.

[@rigues]

I'm horrified that schools might think they are doing good by serving high calorie, high sugar food to kids. "But, but... Kids don't like veggies and fruit!". Bullshit. Offer it! Make it look nice (i.e. not boiled to death or diced beyond recognition) and they will eat, and probably like it. AND if you involve them in a little gardening, showing where the food comes from and how does it grow, it is probable they will be even more interested in trying.

[@losj3020]

every bit of story in your comment feels so American I can hear the sound of bald eagle screeching and Whitney's cover of Star Spangled Banner blasting outside of my window

[@taste_is_sweet]

@@rigues I wish! I would attend my son's public school lunchtime here in Texas, and it was absolutely appalling how many perfectly good sliced oranges, apples or veggie sticks, or even entire meals, got tossed out because the kids wouldn't eat them.

[@rhov-anion]

My high school also had a deal with Little Caesar's and Pepsi. I went from cardboard pizza versus Lunchables, to middle school where meals that so expensive (despite being crappy) that it was a sign of affluence to buy a school lunch rather than bring your own, so high school which had no "meals" available, but it had a snack bar (pound cake, cookies, candy, nothing remotely healthy) and one little window where we sold Little Caesar's. If you spent $5 for the bag of crazy bread, you were balling. I was in the marching band, and we were in charge of selling pizza and bread sticks, and truly, this was something some kids SAVED UP to afford once a week, while others "bought" friends by buying a bag of crazy bread and sharing it with the in-crowd. It was the ultimate status symbol.

[@CeresAzalia]

My grandma was a life-long lunch lady, all the way from the 60's or 70's (not sure precisely when she started) until she retired from the school in the early 2000's. She used to bring home surplus of the items we grandkids liked from the school lunches. She would take requests for things we wanted her to bring. Those very specific French Toast sticks that the schools served for breakfast were a popular ask, as well as the cookies, and those strange rectangle pizzas which half of us liked and the other half hated. She picked up so many interesting cooking hacks from her time serving kids, too. And I remember that I was told she was really well liked by all the staff and children (I didn't go to the school she served at, sadly, since I lived in a different city 20 mins away). So well liked, in fact, that the newspaper ran a short article about her retirement and how the school staff and students would miss her when she retired. She just passed last year after a long battle with Dementia/Alzheimer's that set in much later. I miss her so much. This whole episode reminded me of her. Thank you!

[@Firsona]

Kinda funny, my grandma was a lunch lady about the same time period, and she practically fed my siblings and I with what she brought home, though she retired in the 90's. She had an award up on the wall commemorating 30 years of service in the living room after she retired. They used to actually make their own food then, packaged things were special. No one could turn out a pan of biscuits faster than she could. We lived with her for a little while, and when she went in it was so early no one else was there, and she'd let us play in their cooler. She passed away last month right after Valentines day after a stroke, but I'll never forget her in the kitchen making biscuits, giving us the little bits of dough left to keep us occupied. We have the same name, and I'm a lunch lady now, though only part time.

[@topherjoe1]

I worked as a school lunch lady "helper" after my divorce until I was work ready after an 8 year term of being an at home mom 20 years ago. Any leftovers were carefully wrapped and saved for the next morning and to be used as surplus for the next lunch. The purchase counts went up and up as moms went into the workforce. The planning, ordering and accounting for the food is complicated and we were not allowed to take food home. We made it work. I enjoyed the kids, they loved pizza, hotdogs, hamburgers. And chocolate milk. 2 years later the switch to healthier food occured and I'm glad I got out. I hated to see the food the kids wasted. I also disliked school politics as well.

[@francisdhomer5910]

@@topherjoe1 Healthy food is one of those things that sounds like a good idea. But it's not healthy when the kids throw it out. Like spinach. I remember getting it in elementary school but don't recall it in high school. We did have a choice in high school. We could get the "teachers" Lunch if we wanted. It was normally a chef salad. Many of us got that.

[@constancefaulkner9002]

OMG! I loved those pizzas. That was about the only thing I liked from the school I went to.

[@deannaatkinson3004]

In my tweens and teens I worked at a bakery in Mass. They made Hermit Cookies. They were one of my favorites. I have to admit it’s been decades since I’ve thought about them. I’d actually completely forgotten about them, till Max, the lunch lady, mentioned them. Now armed with 2 very different recipes, I need to work out my own recipe and make them.

[@RolloTonéBrownTown]

My grandma was a kid during these times. She was always extremely frugal the rest of her life. Never got her to talk about those times much before she passed peacefully maybe 10 years ago. This is a nice insight into a time I've always wanted to know more about

[@wildestsquirrelwildestsqui5020]

My granny was the same when she was a young girl in the Depression Era, morning & noon & night was a bowl a of porridge --- she hated that porridge with great zeal & refused to make it for anyone. It's been 20 yrs since she passed away.

[@LaurieLeeAnnie]

My Grama started craving weird things as she got older. So she told me about that time a little bit. Some of those foods became comfort food for her. So mustard sandwiches. Just mustard. And onion sandwiches. No mayo or butter just onions. Fried spam was a treat. My great grandparents were lucky to have a garden and did a lot of canning.

[@sparkysheep]

Same for my grandma! She used to wash her ziplocks and tin foil to use again! And had a whole cabinet full of takeout containers she’d washed and saved (though it’s not like I’m any better on that front, I still have about half a drawer full of margarine tubs I inherited from my mother when I moved out that we use as tupperware)

[@justrosy5]

Same. I think that generation had a hard time with the idea of talking about painful things.

[@jasonsummit1885]

I'm glad my grandma talked a bit about what they used to substitute certain foods with. She said they used to burn toast and grind it up as a coffee substitute, and it kinda makes sense.

[@Kingofredeyes]

When I was a kid and was first introduced to tomato soup, my parents offered cheese and crackers but made a comment about adding peanut butter. I never tried it, but they both had their "this is our inside joke" smiles, and now I know why, lol.

[@thebratqueen]

This was so interesting! I loved how it encompassed the whole idea of school lunches and not just the soup recipe. I'd love to see more episodes like this where it's the idea of a meal had by a member of society. Very cool.

[@giraffesinc.2193]

Me too, it's a great follow-up (of sorts) to the soup kitchen video. Perhaps in future he can make a poor rural teacher's lunch ... gah, what a nightmare. Teaching AND cooking?

[@TheModdedwarfare3]

That is oftentimes at least a part of the stories Max tells.

[@its_clean]

I'd love more military rations, although he already did WWII food recently so we probably won't see another one any time soon. How about airline inflight meals? Or train meals? A 17th-century farmer's meal, a 19th-century dockworker's lunch, that sort of thing. Love your idea of "what did this type of person eat?" And more contrasting of rich vs poor during the same era or circumstances, like the Titanic series. And off-topic, but please more of anything Japanese. History of Edo sushi, Western-style yoshoku, tempura, shabu shabu/hotpot, even the history of rice or miso or soy. Oh also- automats. I don't know why but I've always been fascinated by these things and I'm so bummed that they don't exist anymore except as ironic novelties. Maybe a whole episode on manual and later automated food vending. Also also, preservation methods. Like how did we go from air drying to dehydrating to freeze-drying, from salting and curing to sodium benzoate, from canning to pasteurization and retort pouches.

[@02LeSabre]

This episode's history made me smile. My grandmother was a cook for the school district. She ended up being head cook, and even with the school lunches, she went way over and made it taste good, at the school's budget. She also believed in no child goes hungry, so she started the breakfast club. It was all food she already had, and nothing was purchased extra, still keeping her within budget, like oatmeal, oranges, apples, orange juice, milk, and she made her own cinnamon rolls. (Everyone that went to my high school remembered those cinnamon rolls). She also had student's working in the kitchen, either helping serve the food, or handing out milk. They would be fed after the line was finished, and then they could go to their next class. If you didn't help serve, you got to do dishes. They still have the breakfast club after all this time, as well as students working in the kitchen. Her famous quote was "you can make anything taste better with a little spice. You can make great food with a little care." - Irma Ranum (1921-2001)

[@colleenuchiyama4916]

The depression gave my parents some interesting favorite dishes. My dad loved beef gravy on bread more than anything else, and my mom loved popcorn and milk, eaten like cereal. No sugar. And they both felt extremely lucky. They had shoes for school. Two sets of clothes. They could afford coal for heat. They had big Sunday dinners. And they didn’t have to work to help their families. And lots of love.

[@tomr3422]

I was raised by my grand parents who were depression era kids, My grandfater loved gravy and bread, and we grew corn and more then once I had popcorn and milk for breakfast. I actually laughted when I read your comment.

[@markmower6507]

" What's for breakfast?" "Leftover Sh-t on a Shingle and an egg." "What's for lunch?" " Leftover Sh-t on a Shingle and rutabagas." " What's for dinner?" "A salad of lettuce, Sh-t on a Shingle, and a cookie." Hahahahahahahaha 😂!!!

[@stephw1702]

My grandparents were born in the late 30s, both grew up on farms. One of grandpa's favorites is to cut up strawberries, sprinkle a bit of sugar on them, then put them in a bowl with milk. He also likes to put eggs on toast with coffee on it. Grandma loved mince meat pies which was a real treat growing up for her. Always bread and butter on the table every meal.

[@mcomeslast]

Love it! My grandpa relied on the Capone soup kitchen. My mom relied on school lunches when she was a kid in the 50’s. She said their food was great. They survived on canned vegetables from the garden and usually, whatever meat could be hunted. Mom ate a lot of squirrels. She recalls dinners of green beans and a tablespoon or two of meat. Those meals, grandma and grandpa would “be busy” and would tell the kids to eat and they would when they finished their task. They were waiting for the kids to eat because there wasn’t enough food. She found out when we were talking to grandpa when we were caring for him. Yup, they were in rural farm areas at the time. Watch videos about how the Japanese do their school lunches!

[@DavidHall-ge6nn]

I have deep respect for people like that. They are the salt of the Earth and their children were truly blessed to have been so loved.

[@WastedTalent-]

My father's family moved to Long Island, from Queens, back in the early 50's. They had chicken coops and raised rabbits for food and to sell because my grandfather was always getting laid off at the breweries in Queens. As little kids, my father and his brother would go door to door in the neighborhood with live chickens and an axe and they'd kill it on the spot. At one point, my grandfather was laid off and barely worked for 2 years and all they ate was chicken. They nearly starved when a pack of dogs got into the coop and rabbit cages and killed everything. His little beagle, Sparky, died trying to defend them. Poor thing was ripped to shreds and the coop was a bloodbath. It took over 20 years for my father to eat chicken again, and my uncle never ate chicken again. He still misses that dog. He named his brand new Hyundai Kona EV, Sparky. Not because it's electric. It's named after his childhood dog.

[@MegaKat]

This triggered a memory I hadn't thought of in I don't know how long. When you were talking about the pressure on mothers to send good-looking lunches-- before my mother went crazy and became a horrible person, she would get up at the ass crack of dawn to make us soup, put it in thermoses that fit in our lunchboxes, a sandwich, and celery or carrots with a little cup of ranch dressing. And always a piece of zucchini bread, banana bread, or whatever she'd baked that week. She really did put a lot of effort into our school lunches before getting them from the cafeteria was a thing a few years later.

[@k8eekatt]

Thank you for sharing that memory of her acts of love for you.

[@bonniebrown5102]

Wow! Your mom sounds amazing :)

[@MegaKat]

@@k8eekatt thank you for reading it. She was actually a very good mother until I was about 8. And while she packed those lunches, she was frying eggs up and making pancakes because school breakfast wasn't a thing yet.

[@MegaKat]

@@bonniebrown5102 she was until I was 8. Then she beat me daily with her fists and leather horse reins until I fought her back at 16. I went no contact with her 7 years ago. Get treatment for your mental health issues, y'all.

[@MsFitz134]

​@@MegaKat it sounds like you had a similar childhood to my husband, who's mom also went off the rails when he was about 8. My theory is the pressure (real or imagined) to be the perfect mom and housewife made her crack in an "if I can't be one thing I'll be the opposite" kind of way.

[@ERSwanger]

Thank you so much for doing this one. My great grandparents grew up in the Great Depression and food insecurity was a huge deal to them. Theyve always kept flats of canned goods in their closets. Something theyve passed on 5 generations down to me and my husband.

[@poolhall9632]

Inherited traumas for everyone 😅

[@taosholly]

Just saw your short on butter sandwiches. I am 71 and I still remember my mom telling me that when she was a kid during the depression she was eating onion and lard sandwiches. It is hard to imagine such tough times and I often wonder what those who are the poorest now are eating to survive in 2023.

[@lucydiamond123]

Obesity can actually be an indicator of food insecurity in today's society, since the cheapest options are high calorie with low nutritional quality.

[@patriciatinkey2677]

My Dad regarded butter as a luxury item his whole life after only having lard as a kid in the Depression. Miss you. DAD!

[@Lady_V_C]

We eat chili with meat donated by my sister! My grandma used to eat mustard sandwiches, and the generation before hers during the Depression ate tomatoes on bread. For a little while my husband's unemployment meant no more fruit, and a lot more canned things, and we cut back to one meal a day for us, the children still had 3 meals/day, a few mornings they had cinnamon toast which was a treat to them! But normally lots of peanut butter & jelly lol. Oh & as a kid I couldn't afford lunch so I usually ate a brown banana; when my lunches were made fun of, I started just eating in the library. Glad those days are over, & I've been inspired by this channel to come up with some classically poor man's food that can fill us up without being complete junk. A bit of creativity can go a long way!

[@goeticfolklore]

most data suggests impoverished people today that face food insecurity typically eat unhealthy foods low in nutrition and high calorie dense. blame the government for not subsidizing vegetables.

[@TitaniusAnglesmith]

I eat onion and butter sandwiches now... Sometimes with cheese after I get my student loan check.

[@ethelryan257]

Dried milk powder and canned milk were really important in that era. Not only because of their lower cost (hard to believe, today, in Wyoming, canned milk and dried milk powder are more expensive than fresh, liquid milk) but because their processing ensured that they were safe to drink and free of many of the diseases which plagued fresh milk. I would like to see Max do more of these school lunches.

[@ThunderStruck15]

Your dried milk is more expensive? Ours is still incredibly cheaper, when you take into account volume

[@rejoyce318]

My mom used to have milk-mixing day when I was little, so she could stretch that gallon of whole milk with the nonfat dry milk, partly for saving money, partly for making the milk healthier. She finally gave up when the price of boxed milk went way up & more bottled milk options were available.

[@GaryLiseo]

At least a few times when serving students meals after school at my former school, we had to deny milk to students because it was spoiled. I remember at least twice the gym teacher running into the cafeteria saying the milk had spoiled (again).

[@ethelryan257]

@@ThunderStruck15 Cheyenne, Wyoming is, at times, right now, the most expensive place to buy food in the contiguous states.

[@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger]

@@ThunderStruck15 Dried milk is also pretty pricey where I live. If you're looking at the unit cost then I think they're comparable to gallon jugs but you can only buy in large containers, so a single purchase of dried milk runs like $10 to $12. If you don't always have that much to blow in a single shot, a $4 gallon is the better option. How stuff is packaged for sale drives a lot of the issue in my experience. (I live in the southwest. Spam is also stupidly expensive for what it is - thank you preppers, panic buyers, and trendy food scene. Canned meats in general used to be dirt cheap and now they're a luxury product)

[@misspumpkin5412]

Canadian Cafeteria Lady here: we serve almost the same menu as french schools where I work. It's $2 a meal for those who can afford it, and free for those who cannot. Every day is a choice between a meat dish (beef bourginon, shepherd's pie, chicken a la king, etc...), or a vegetarian option (bean chili, potato and broccoli fritatta, tofu picatta, etc...). Every meal has a protein, a starch, and a vegetable (usually a choice of steamed vegetables or a salad), and comes with a carton of milk and a dessert of the day (cut fruit, pudding, cookie, etc...). I'm actually really proud of the food I cook and serve every day, it's all things that not only I would eat, but I'd happily serve it to my family with no problem or complaints from my kids.

[@mickiebigham8873]

damn that sounds nice the extent of vegan options where i live in the us was a salad and most of the time it had eggs chicken ect making it not vegan lol and after covid something in the food got almost in edible i never blame the lunch ladies tho you can tell they try so hard with what they give them most of the time they couldn’t even follow a menu duet to not having enough supplies to actually make it it’s really sad honestly i miss the old days of when you used to be so excited and try to nicely be first in line

[@Mark7limited]

My dad grew up in the depression he told me there was no school lunch. All kids went home for lunch. My grandmother would boil an onion for soup and that was their lunch.

[@interpretermom]

My mom talked about having ketchup sandwiches and reconstituted canned evaporated milk for lunch during the depression.

[@happycook6737]

My dad is 87. He also said there was no school lunch. His mom worked in a factory and wasn't home. They were poor. He and his 2 brothers walked home "for lunch" but they didn't have food until dinner time which was soup and meat only if they caught a rabbit or squirrel.

[@3810-dj4qz]

I make French onion soup and my family thinks it’s fancy. It’s literally butter, onions, beef broth, sugar, a few spices, a splash of wine if I have it and some crusty bread to go along with it. Peasant food. I would have LOVED that onion soup!

[@Mark7limited]

That was just an onion and water, no broth no butter. Just onion and water.

[@darlinrosado145]

Wow I feel so blessed of Puerto Rico's FREE public schools lunches! It was like eating at grandmas: rice & beans, sausages, chicken, fruit, milk, juice... man even full breakfast like french toast, oatmeal, eggs & toast, so much variety! Teachers also ate there & on summers they still have free lunch for kids 18 under!

[@Shadeadder]

The U.S. has free public school lunches as well, including during the summer. Whether or not those lunches are GOOD... I can't say.

[@ayannadivineempath]

​@@Shadeadder only in some states....

[@tessat338]

@@Shadeadder We live in one of the wealthiest counties in the US. In my son's middle school, the children were all entitled to free school breakfast and lunch. The food was terrible. He ate breakfast at home and brought his lunch to school. This was a shift from elementary school, where he went through a period where he bought lunch at school every day, in spite of the fact that I was a stay-at-home mom at the time and was perfectly able to pack a lunch for him. At the elementary school, he had a lunch account to which we deposited money. There were free lunches provided to families that participated in the free lunch program, but it wasn't universal for the whole school. Eventually, my son got sick of the school lunches and went back to bringing lunch from home.

[@tessat338]

@@Plasmacore_V Yes, I know. That's why I am glad that at least one territory has a decent school lunch program. Puerto Rico has other systemic problems. It is good to hear that this is an exception.

[@Stroggoii]

@@tessat338 Anyone who uses the interstates and has seen potholes and downed signage survive through multiple government shifts knows American taxes aren't spent on anything but the whims of the overnight millionaires in the senate and congress.

[@danyacain2241]

Thanks, Max, for addressing how teachers still fund our classrooms! Btw, this would be a hot lunch I would pass on.

[@laurelbeedle204]

Yes!! I just got my Amazon package of ... guess what? ... school supplies for students

[@YEAREAPIRATE]

Honestly, it looks better than what kids are served at school today

[@jillgross6232]

They sure do. They spend their own money to fund a lot of the less fortunate kids. So never complain if they ask for two boxes of tissues and three boxes of crayons. If you can afford to help, you should!

[@katelijnesommen]

Yes, that's a really incredible thing to hear as a non-American. Kudos to the teachers who manage to do this in a tough system but it really is quite shameful that they have to invest their own money and time outside of their job to get together the absolute basics of classroom supplies; that is the government's job, not any individual's.

[@kentspiano6206]

This seems similar to a traditional West African dish called Peanut Stew. I love it, it's usually highly spiced with meat and onions and served over starch (rice in Liberia, cassava or other starches in other countries). It's also usually not thickened with flour, that I would imagine would make it taste a bit like wallpaper paste. You might try that recipe and compare...

[@dawnjohnson7688]

I eat peanut stews regularly and they are good.

[@cheryl1338]

That's a good point about not thickening it, other than that peanut stew sounds yummy!

[@erikn.7540]

the ghanian version has a umami kick with dried fish

[@gingerfoxx1476]

African Peanut Stew is definitely delicious. The versions I made did not have meat, but usually included sweet potatoes, tomatoes and greens, in addition to the onions and garlic and flavorful curry spices. Anyone who likes things like peanut sauce on stir fry should give it a try.

[@heartofgoldfish]

It's like a groundnut soup that they heard about once and tried to make from a vague description through a wall? Fry that tomato with garlic and scotch bonnets!!

[@gregstephens2339]

I grew up in Eastern Kentucky in the 60's. When we visited relatives in the city they were astonished to seeing me drinking black coffee at 5.

[@mirandamom1346]

I love the way tomatoes and peanuts marry in West African peanut soup, but there are usually lots more other flavors in there, like ginger, garlic, much more onion, red bell pepper and chilies.

[@davidcheater4239]

My family is from Tunisia and we used to cook peanut butter soup under the name "African Soup". We'd add chick peas, ginger, cumin, harissa, cinnamon, carrots, and sweet potatoes.

[@RevolutionaryLiger]

Seriously, it sounded good until I realized there were no spices in that soup. :C that sad sad soup.

[@kateh2893]

Oh Max! I've had West African Peanut soup with tomatoes in it and it's been MARVELOUS! I'm so SORRY you had this as your first tomato and peanut butter experience!

[@trashcatlinol]

West African peanut soup is amazing! I fist got a recipe from a calorie calculator website. It seemed like such a strange combo of ingredients, despite peanut butter soup being something I was familiar with. But it was so good it was something I always looked forward to.

[@sachabacha101]

Indeed I’m west African peanut butter stew is one of my favorite dishes

[@Juleneifier]

Agreed. I lived in Ghana for 6 months and the people there called it Groundnut Soup. Served over rice balls is just the most filling way to eat it!

[@karlayork877]

Somehow this sounds SO much better! Same main ingredients, perhaps, but I imagine the end result is much more pleasant, both in appearance and taste.

[@mary-janereallynotsarah684]

How is it different? Maybe Max can try it.

[@joannshupe9333]

A couple of thoughts: your canned tomatoes were thick chunks of tomato with very little liquid, whereas "back then" canned tomatoes were whole tomatoes in a lot of liquid, so your soup would likely have been a lot more soup-like. Also, regarding hermits, sometime in the not so distant past, the recipe (at least in New England) changed drastically to a molasses/raisin/spice soft, chewy cookie that is made on a jelly roll pan in one very large panel with rounded ends. When cooked they are then cut into bars, but at an angle. This is very important! Also they are sprinkled on top with coarse sugar before baking. You can possibly OD but die happy eating a whole batch of these.

[@clararose1922]

I think the buttered bread was for dipping so that might improve overall mix of flavors .... maybe still sounds not great lol

[@melissasaint3283]

Yessssss, slab hermits all the way. I can't believe the rest of the country forgot about these! They're so delicious

[@chrystals.4376]

Are there any websites or books on differences between past and contemporary food items?

[@MichaelEdelman1954]

Add a lot of sautéed onions, some garlic, pepper, carrot, celery, bay leaf, and chicken stock, and you might have a good soup there.

[@gingerfoxx1476]

Yes, that's the style of hermit cookie we have where I live, in New England and they are delicious.

[@SaraO-fj8pq]

I grew up poor but mom kept all 5 of us well fed and happy. 36 years later favorite meal still goulash. She ALWAYS had homeade fresh Sun Tea in the fridge . Still my favorite beverage.

[@Chibihugs]

I taught in a South Korea for 7 years and their school lunches are fantastic. Freshly cooked delicious food everyday. My favorite lunches there were curry day and the fresh crab soup with half a crab in it.

[@wolfiesworld9361]

I wish that would work in America.

[@eliz_scubavn]

I’ve seen videos of those lunches and they genuinely look just as good as anything you’d get in a restaurant.

[@momkatmax]

I'm 65, and our grade school lunches were so much superior to middle and high school. EVERYTHING was fresh. We could see into the cafeteria from the playground and could tell what was on the menu, fresh potatoes and ham lined up then the stewed ham. Meat loaf ready for the ovens, a good day!

[@seanthegod4585]

KZbinr, Paolo From Brazil, showcases the inner workings of Japanese society. A middle school cafeteria worker was featured, and they really do a good job cooking and serving healthy and delicious meals to the kids.

[@Voingous]

@@wolfiesworld9361 It could, unfortuntely Republicans slash school food budgets too much and shoot down any free lunch programs.

[@kellywilliams5112]

I love these old depression era recipes, I grew up on my Grandparents Nebraska farm who lived through the depression, I was still introduced to many of these foods as a kid, I guess my grandma just felt why fix something that's not broke.. I would love to see you do more. Quick story my grandpa would collect a single egg from nests of wild pheasants, prairie chickens, and grouse, bring them home and incubate them and raise them, we had pheasant at least once a week, imagine our surprise when we found out how much pheasant cost in those fancy-schmancy big city restaurants. we felt like we ate like kings!😂

[@cameronspence4977]

Thats so crazy, your grandpa was badass haha

[@jessicaslater4243]

9:46 - Fun fact: It wasn't until I moved to a coastal bay city that I learned "walking uphill both ways" isn't an exaggeration. If there's a hill between point A and point B, then you end up walking both uphill AND downhill both ways, and I can assure you that you definitely notice that more than if it were uphill one way and downhill the other.

[@CharleneCTX]

I had a similar experience in high school. Except it was a valley so I walked downhill halfway then uphill the rest of the way. Worse because you hit the uphill part when you were already tired. It was a couple of miles oneway.

[@cantstopsinging]

One of the few desserts my mother made back in the 60's and 70's were Hermits. I was born and raised in New England. I still have her recipe. She used Molasses and spread the batter out into bar shape. Whole raisins. I remember them being chewy and moist ( almost fudge-like) while being fully baked.

[@conmckfly]

My father had to ride a horse about 5 miles to school every school day. Yes, and it included snow days. He was very young - in early grade school. Fortunately, his dad made sure he was in the saddle properly before he sent him out. Then, in town, Dad's uncle, who worked at the local garage would watch for him to ride in. One day his uncle saw him arrive, but not come out of the livery. He finally went to check and found my Dad hanging from the saddle horn by his suspenders. He was very young. However, because they lived on a farm during the depression, they always had food for his school lunch. Not every kid did. Food needs to be part of our school systems.

[@happycook6737]

Parents need to take responsibility for feeding their kids!

[@MissCaraMint]

@Happy Cook Sure, but only if the state and business owners take responsibility for making it possible for every parent to afford to.

[@xlerb2286]

Sounds familiar. My dad had about the same routine getting to school, though it was only a couple miles so he walked except in the coldest part of winter when his dad would give him a ride in the sleigh, with warm rocks by their feet. Much better than walking he said :) Our parents were tough folk.

[@bckroobnzi141]

@@happycook6737 My God why didn’t parents ever just think about that? I guess you’ve solved it

[@zonacrs]

@@MissCaraMint If you can not afford to properly care for children, do not have them.

[@therussiangamer6997]

Funny story, I'm the chef kid in school. Because of my cooking skills being popular, I was asked to design recipes using cheap ingredients found in our school free store. Using those recipes, I get to run cooking workshops after school some days. My first one was a curry, and the students loved it so much, they send my recipe to the district chef and now my Japanese beef curry recipe is on the lunch menu. And now I get to work with out chef once a month for those workshops

[@cthulusauce]

This is amazing, you should be proud! You can even put that on a resume if you wanted to go into a test kitchen of some kind

[@medievalsim]

that's a dream come true~ what the other person said; you should be really proud! keep on cooking bud

[@therussiangamer6997]

Thanks! I plan on it. And I will keep working on this workshop until I graduate. I want to really change the menu and make good food for my classmates while also teaching people the basics of cooking and affordable cooking

[@IreneWY]

Well done! Japanese beef curry is such a staple of Japanese canteens. It's the only thing I miss when thinking about our office canteen in Kawasaki.

[@PrincessJamiG]

Fantastic! Proud of you. 🙂

[@matts.8342]

The "up hill both ways" thing actually happened. My paternal grandparents grew up in rural West Virginia in the 20s and 30s, and the school was in the next valley over. The shortest way was over the mountain and down the other side. We visited my grandfathers childhood home when I was young. My grandfather said that they didn't have good shoes, and they would chase away the cows to stand in the warm spot the cow had been lying in to slightly warm up their feet. He had 11 brothers and sisters, no electricity or indoor plumbing, and they stored food in a cave in the side of the mountain (things like cured hams, potatoes, and other root vegetables all from their own small farm). His mother (my great-grandmother) had a hand dug well she had to draw water from up until some time in the 1960s, when my grandfather took a trip back down from his home in Ohio after she got electricity to install some sort of pump down in the bottom of the well. All it went to was the kitchen sink, and it drained out onto the ground outside. She had no hot water. I'm not sure when she left that house, but she passed on in the 1990s. I believe she lived with my great uncle then. That house never got hot water, sewage, etc. The property was sold to a logging company who still owns it today. I found a copy of the original deed from when her family owned it on the WV state tax site, and it lists things like trees, rocks, and the creek as property boundaries. Very interesting.

[@gwesco]

Yep, same thing in early grade school. We lived in a mountainous mining town in Arizona and I had to walk about a mile each way over a pass that had been cut into a mountain just for that purpose. It wasn't until we moved in 5th grade that my new school was only a couple of blocks away. And yes, we had snow. Lot's of snow, sometimes several feet deep because we were at 4,000 feet above sea level, so I can honestly say that some times I had to walk to school in snow and it was uphill both ways!

[@stewpadasso297]

My mom was the lunch lady at school. My brother and I always went to school early with mom and hung out before school. They actually cooked during the 80s and 90s. Fresh rolls and home made meals. Ice cream scoops were used to measure amounts for each part of the meal. Government subsidies and regs for each meal. It was better then what the schools have now. Those fresh rolls were awesome. Spaghetti day was the best.

[@jessehayes8052]

As a project kid with a single mom for most of my childhood free school breakfast and lunch was a godsend, and was my primary source of food throughout the day

[@sapphireblue222]

Presently, our government provides $281/person a month for those in poverty. If you do your own cooking, that's more than enough.

[@TitaniusAnglesmith]

@@sapphireblue222 My rent for a one room is 6 times that amount and can be outrageously higher in cities. I can imagine with only one income and a few kids that food will be pretty basic towards the end of the month.

[@SnideRemarks-gx3vq]

@@sapphireblue222 try it for yourself

[@mgb5170]

​@@sapphireblue222children can't buy, prepare, take to school until they are older. Children getting school breakfast and lunch is necessary for millions

[@thenovicenovelist]

@@sapphireblue222 I'm don't know which country you live in. I live in a rural area in the U.S. and near one of the absolute lowest income counties in the U.S. Even in rural areas surviving on less than $300 a month is extremely difficult even by yourself. And that's if you don't factor in rent/utilities.

[@mollybeee]

I remember when they actually cooked from scratch at school. We had homemade rolls, salad, and nothing unidentifiable. I grew up in the '70's and was in a rural school district, most items were surplus foods.

[@mirandamom1346]

My daughter’s school did the same thing in the early 2000s.

[@b212hp]

Man, those rolls were the best thing ever!

[@beachton]

@@b212hp I can confirm this report from the ‘70s. The yeast rolls at my elementary school were made from scratch. They brushed the tops with salty butter and served them hot out of the oven. They only made them twice a week, but on those days the whole lunchroom smelled so good.

[@krankarvolund7771]

I live in France, but going from the middle-school who used a central kitchen, to the high-school who had a real kitchen was a huge improvement :D

[@rejoyce318]

60s-70s kid: we had lunches cooked at school, too; however, it was more cost-efficient to bring bag lunches from home.

[@dazzledbystarlight17]

If no one else has suggested this...I'd love if you did a school lunch series for the meals served to children around the world. I think it would be fun & interesting to see what other children get for lunch.

[@roseanne74]

Most Australian kids have to take their own

[@tomface55]

Excellent idea.

[@ecitraro]

If you haven’t seen the Michael Moore movie “Where to Invade Next,” he covers a lot of school lunches from other countries.

[@demo2823]

South Africa here. While the schools you pay for generally expect you to bring, some of the free schools serve food, but it's generally just a maize porridge or a soup. No cafeterias. Kids who don't being food to schools take money to the tuck shop, which sells a selection of hot meals (mostly hotdogs and pies) each day if you order ahead, but mostly sells candy, chips and soda, leading to our child obesity crisis.

[@Wi-Fi-El]

I'm not big on tomatoes, but this looks better and healthier than most school lunches I ate as a kid. In my schooling from the early 2000s to mid 2010s, I could look forward to dry, tough bread, underripe, bitter fruit, wilted vegetables, no salt in anything, and my high school even tried to implement calorie and health restrictions on home lunches

[@tashajoykin5192]

Why the heck would they do that?

[@Schemilix]

@@tashajoykin5192 Obsession with thinness disguised as '''healthy eating'' as a means to control and shame people. Obviously eating fruits and vegetables and whole grains is great and we should do that if we're able. But a lot of the culture around food and 'clean eating' is actually more about control and monitoring, especially of kids.

[@queensmum]

We’re very lucky NYC provides free lunch and even breakfast for the kids, I think the majority of the residents in all the boroughs in the city are considered living below the poverty line. With my husband searching for a job right now (I’m working but it’s not enough) it’s been a big help to us and many families. Thank you for bringing attention to the importance of school lunches. Love your videos!

[@MegaMagicdog]

Some schools serve dinner as well. What annoys me is that I have yet to see anyone truly starving in the US!! Eating the wrong foods perhaps (fast food, etc.) because they're freaking obese!

[@iseegoodandbad6758]

So glad New Yorkers are returning back to foods like liver, oatmeal and brown bread. In the 1960s (so sorry for those who grew up then) it was all hamburgers, chicken nuggets and onion rings 🤮!!!

[@MegaMagicdog]

@@iseegoodandbad6758 From what I've read, back in the 60s, the cafeteria workers actually cooked the foods fresh daily!

[@marykeegan2606]

Actually, the “lunch ladies” in the school I taught at did cook some, but not all of the food. As a teacher, if I saw that they were making baked chicken, I would get on the end of the line and ask for the breast piece. Sometimes they had baked or mashed sweet potatoes and every once in a while, collard greens , which were very yummy! But one of their best dishes was the tuna salad. I would put up Ms Gladys’ tuna against any deli in NYC. I think she said her secret was pickle juice and sometimes bits of pickle relish. I would bring my own container on those days.😊 One day, during our unit on writing “how to” stories, I took my kid on a “field trip” to the kitchen, where they helped Ms Gladys make PB&J sandwiches. Ms Marlene (the lunchroom head) helped them put on hairnets, then wash their hands and put on gloves. They all had turns helping to make the sandwiches, and those that wanted to could taste a piece (we had no allergies-I checked). Then Ms Marlene gave each of the children a goody bag with some special snacks that we enjoyed later. It was a very special behind the scenes visit to the kitchen.

[@jijipoid]

@@MegaMagicdog when it comes to the poor more times than not it is the quality of the food that is the issue.. because here in the USA crap food is cheaper than fresh high quality food. When all you can afford half the time is basically a box of mac n cheese and a packet of hotdogs things happen to the wasteline if you are not super active all the time. So basically It isn't fast food, it is just the crap that is available for super low prices might as well be on the fast food level.

[@GizmoFan1]

One of my favorite dishes is an African peanut stew from Rachel Ama’s Vegan Eats, which is kind of like a peanut butter tomato soup. …but it’s also helped along by sweet potatoes and carrots and curry spicing and beans and a ton of other flavors. For anyone else, make that instead of the depression one.

[@siervodedios5952]

If you could please be kind as to link the recipe if possible?

[@crow-jane]

I’ve thrown together an ersatz version of this with added greens and it’s really good. Probably wouldn’t work as a school lunch staple, though.

[@Marispider]

I figured there had to be some way to put tomatoes and peanuts together and make a good savory-sweet meal, I was hoping the soup Max made would be better than it was but as soon as I saw the texture and heard how short of a time it was cooked for I knew I'd be disappointed. This sounds way better, I might try it someday

[@FlyingJaco]

That recipe is a mainstay for me. Helped me a lot through the pandemic lockdowns, as the ingredients are super cheap, it tastes good, and is incredibly filling. Pair this with some hominy and you have a meal that feels way more decadent than it really is. Helps that it freezes very well, so cooking it in bulk is always a bonus.

[@GizmoFan1]

@@FlyingJaco Same for me. It's my absolute go-to when I know I won't have time to make lunches for a few days for work, for the cost of ingredients you get a LOT of servings and it tastes just as good reheated as it does fresh. Not everything in her cookbook is a win for me but that one absolutely is.

[@dmckim3174]

I wish that Max's facial expression when he tries the soup can be reused and become the go to clip for "No Sir, I would not like some more." 😂

[@markmower6507]

Oh, that could be a Meme, Hahahahahahahaha 😂!!!

[@livingandthriving]

Re: school lunches in France, it really depends on the school. The high school I graduated from was a highly-ranked (top 20) private school, but it was not a particularly high-budget operation, and it showed in the cafeteria. The food was generally good, but fairly basic. And I discovered my senior year that the head cook liked to cut corners: Wednesdays were a half day for everyone except the seniors, which meant he only had about 100 people to cook for. You'd think we'd get nicer food or at least the same sort of thing as the rest of the week, but nope. We generally got some variation of Cream of Leftover, which we grudgingly tolerated for the first 2 months or so. And then one fateful week we got served a mystery meat casserole that made us all sick. The head cook was promptly fired and replaced with someone who made sure to prepare edible meals every day.

[@Raycheetah]

When I was a kid in elementary school, all students were required to work in the school kitchen on rotation. That meant working there mebbe once or twice a year, and your lunch that day was free. Students didn't have to do anything particularly laborious or onerous, nor did they have to do anything involving knives or hot appliances, but it was an interesting change of pace. I think the idea was to instill an appreciation for what went into preparing and serving the meals, as much as anything. =^[.]^=

[@keolas6916]

My elementary school did that too. And we would fight over who got to do it when because you could also get extras-like two rolls instead of just one or two scoops of mashed potatoes.

[@E_LithaBeth]

What a great idea! The closest I came to this was getting to take the milk money down to the office when I was in kindergarten.

[@Raycheetah]

@@E_LithaBeth I still have some old Aluminum Lunch Tokens and paper Milk Tickets from that school (a great and obvious way to prevent theft of lunch money by bullies). =^[.]^=

[@atsukorichards1675]

​@@Raycheetah oh, I like that system! We have our students take turns to serve their classmates in their classrooms at the most of public elementary schools and some middle schools in Japan.

[@Raycheetah]

@@atsukorichards1675 It wouldn't surprise me if the system had been adopted from the Japanese model; I went to school in Honolulu, Hawaii, and there are some Japanese habits and customs in use there by many people. =^[.]^=

[@pmberkeley]

I just realized you're carrying on your family career path. No wonder you're such a great teacher!

[@nancymcnafferson3192]

Lol and he makes better money than actual teachers 🤣

[@RacecarAnimated]

If you want a good peanut butter/tomato combo, try an African peanut stew! There's a lot more spices that help to combine the flavors better, and also chicken so you have something more substantial to bite into. :)

[@hadriandwyer2191]

Can confirm, my boyfriend's family is from Ghana and the peanut butter stew they make is delicious. I think they use oxtail instead of chicken though, but I might be wrong on that

[@Paidamoyo-JanetAzehko]

Agreed, Nigerian/Ghanian/Zimbabwean here…any peanut dish from Africa is gonna be AMAZING

[@Yammerzaki123fr]

Karekare rise

[@MoultrieGeek]

Oh yes, peanut stew is crazy good and my whole family goes nuts when we make it.

[@andieinthecity]

I’m from Malaysia and our school lunches here are delicious (at least mine was, my former school is located quite close to the capital city). The food served are smaller kid sized portions of what you’d eat on a daily basis. Noodles, curries, roti, Nasi lemak, mixed rice (which is rice and various local dishes to choose from). My cafeteria even had ice cream and waffles on some days! I still crave my school cafeteria food cause it was affordable too. The best part is most schools have ice cream or snack vendors parked outside the school at the end of a school day, so we can buy something before we get on the school bus to head back home.

[@kylegetz4917]

This honestly looks better than some school lunches served today

[@spcecicles4502]

I mean we are under a Great Depression now 😂

[@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980]

Honestly this is the kind of recipe I'd expect Dylan B Hollis to make not Max Miller.

[@LazykidsWorld]

​@@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 Faiyah!!!

[@pallidhand9756]

I think “some” is an understatement

[@Teeaboo]

What, you don't like wringing the grease out of your pizza like a towel?

[@Just1Nora]

Japan has a national school lunch program, and the kids serve each other, servers wearing aprons, gloves, masks, and hair nets, and eat together in the classroom every day. It's often miso soup, fish, vegetables, and rice, but there are plenty of other options. There should be a little extra set aside for seconds should a student be particularly hungry. You really don't want to be last in line though because if the classmate serving soup (or whatever) isn't that good at measuring, the last few students won't get much, or might not get any. Each school usually has a dietician who is tasked with creating nutritious and tasty lunch menus for every day. Even kindergarten age children serve each other, with the teacher looking on of course.

[@rebeccakoch9203]

At least once a week, at least in elementary school, you get curry. Curry day is the best day :D Also Japanese miiddle school has to be the only place I've had packaged, tiny, fried fish...as the meal finish (dessert??).

[@hereniho]

Was half expecting to see an American in here calling that evil and unfreedom, somehow 😂

[@Brickkers]

​@@herenihothis is evil and unfreedom

[@Yammerzaki123fr]

@@herenihosame

[@tempestsonata1102]

Sadly, in my kids' school (also in Japan) cheap carbs were the main ingredients in their school lunch. Their school was known for offering the best education in town, but also the worst school lunch.

[@nancyreid8729]

I have a recipe for hermits in my old 3X5 card file, cut out probably 30 years ago from the back of a box of Sun-Maid raisins. The text on the box fragment says “this sweet memory dates back to Sun-Maid’s 1923 cookbook. It’s said to be the original spice cookie, loved by families throughout the country.” It obviously has raisins, but no mention of chopping them, and includes cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

[@maydaygarden]

I found a cookbook at a yard sale and all the recipes in it were from the backs of cans and boxes. Think Bisquick and Campbell's soups.

[@rejoyce318]

@@maydaygarden I have the family recipes & cookbooks, and a great many of them are clipped from magazines, labels, plastic bags. I was definitely a Bisquick & Campbell's soup kid

[@jennifershappyplace6938]

That sounds more like the ones I can buy in the grocery stores in Massachusetts. A spice cookie with whole raisins. It also seems like it has molasses in it. They are so delicious.

[@thecinder4608]

Its honestly really fun seeing the history of this because I currently work as a kitchen manager in an elementry school.

[@Pandorash8]

A school-provided lunch isn’t really a thing here in Australia. You can buy food from the school canteen but it’s expensive and often rubbish (some canteens are really upping the quality though). But we do have “breakfast clubs” at schools where there are a large number of students below the poverty line. My amazing primary school teacher was actually the one who started it. As a junior teacher she was assigned to a “rough” area in Sydney. She saw so many kids coming to school hungry. Aside from it breaking her heart to see, she noticed that they just couldn’t learn. So, she would bring food in for them out of her own pocket. This actually lifted the behaviour and academic success of the cohort and the government picked up the idea. Wish we had a universal, cheap, healthy food system in our schools nation-wide. And I had to laugh at the mum-shaming. Schools here still use it. Many of them have warning cards (similar to the football yellow and red cards) they issue parents if their child’s lunchbox isn’t healthy enough. I appreciate that teachers want their students to be healthier and more stable if they consume less sugar, but rather than parent-shaming I think we could do it a better way. Thanks for a wonderful video as always, Max!

[@its_clean]

Just trying to imagine the absolute chaos that would ensue here in the US if our already-touchy school parents received a notice informing them the lunch they provided their children was in any way unsatisfactory. We have enough instances of uppity parents scolding schools and teachers for every conceivable thing (not enough attention on my kid, too much attention on my kid, curriculum is too woke, curriculum is not woke enough, just give my kid an A because I'm an asshole and I said so), I shudder to think what would happen if a school scolded them back.

[@bec9696]

I watched a UK series called "Back in Time for School" where they ate the meals over the course of 100 years that would be served to them. It really showed how everyday food has changed. And of course how life has changed! We don't have anything like school dinners or cafeterias in Australia so I found it pretty cool.

[@pm2886]

I was just commenting on that. For some reason Australia has never done it, which I think is a good thing. It keeps parents honest, and preserves limited resources for academics.

[@solaryard5351]

@@pm2886 Same in South Africa. Your kid would need to eat at home too, it's beyond me why a school is somehow supposed to provide food

[@MrInuhanyou123]

​@@solaryard5351 because as stated in the video, many times kids didn't, and dont have parents able to provide nutrition. And starving during the day isn't good for mental health or concentration

[@Robdc89]

My mom and dad told me that the usual fare for school lunch, in the 60s and 70s, was Spam fritters with lumpy instant mash potatoes and boiled cabbage, and tapioca pudding for dessert, if you were lucky it was a roast dinner.

[@bec9696]

@P M Seeing what some were pretty much forced to eat, I'd happily have chosen a Vegemite sandwich, some fruit, dry biscuits and cheese, and a little treat. Pretty much what my kids also have now.

[@nearthings]

Peanut and tomato is a pretty common mixture in other parts of the world although it's usually spiced more flavorfully. This soup probably wouldn't be bad with more seasoning.

[@telebubba5527]

And much thinner. This looked like a heavy paste on it's own. Nothing like a soup. So, more water and some spices (garlic, ginger, soysaus, sambal, lemongras, etc.). Would make a wonderfull soup!

[@trashcatlinol]

I mixed peanut butter in with canned tomato soup, which is basically this recipe. It's not terrible if you get the right balance between the tomato and pb. I adore it with a few saltines. However, I prefer peanut stew with rice or quinoa to pb soup. The greens, garlic, and spice make it outstanding

[@valentinewiggin7782]

Yeah, I was thinking that it could be remixed into something Thai-ish.

[@CaptainPancake1000]

I wonder if it's origins are rooted in slavery. Peanut soup is an African meal, which makes me wonder if was passed along through slavery and later on as a cheap meal for the masses.

[@trashcatlinol]

@@valentinewiggin7782 oh man, a little gochujang for some Korean influence.... yum!

[@billgrandone3552]

I can remeber my grandmother telling me that soke of the parents would put two baked potatoes in a kids coat pockets. This was more to keep their hands warm in the winter as well as thier lunch.

[@GothicPoet]

Several of my teachers had microwaves in their classrooms. My math teacher had a private coffee maker. When I had a migraine she helped me feel better by making me a small cup of coffee. I am very blessed I had such a great school district. They made sure everyone was fed and got healthcare at the school. My art teacher had a loung chair that she let me use when I had seizures. It had a heating sit and it vibrated muscles. We watched movies on Fridays in science class. 😊

[@joyfullyplantbased7663]

You had some super kind teachers!

[@xessenceofinsanityx]

Can confirm, I had three course meals for school lunches in France - there was even a cheese course, along with copious amounts of bread 😂 Oh, and this was in primary school I miss those lunches...

[@terminator3000]

that sounds very french to me.

[@LaurentFlint-g5w]

Not only that, but the kids sit at tables of 8 or so, and the food is brought to each table on platters. Then one designated child serves the others. Yes, even 8yr olds! (some adult supervision required 😁)

[@christopheferraux2864]

With us in France, the school canteens are obliged to vary their menu each week and to include vegetables several days a week so that there is not always pasta, rice or fries. several times a month there is also fish instead of meat

[@Your-Least-Favorite-Stranger]

My school always had the same items: Pizza, burger, nachos. Occasionally we'd have taco salad (great because they brought out all the fresh toppings for it, as well as pressure cooked pinto beans), chicken nuggets,, we might have chicken and gravy over mashed potatoes, but majority of the days were those three items. We had fish sticks once I think but they were 90% bread, maybe 10% fish? I say maybe because I remember them being so overcooked they crunched and crumbled. All main items came with fries, you had the option of getting some sickly looking boiled vegetables (they were canned and boiled without seasoning), and then there was the "salad" bar. Apples (underripe), oranges (underripe), bananas (cut into chunks, peel and all, and already brown and slimy), iceberg lettuce (basically crunchy water), and fruit salad (canned in syrup. Sickly looking, very wet, never touched it). Ketchup, Mustard, and unpleasantly sweet ranch dressing. If you had extra cash you could buy a decent salad off the lunch ladies; regular lunch was $2.50, a good salad was $5 - I used to skip lunch multiple times per week so I could save up my money and get the salads I liked. They were usually shredded iceberg lettuce with carrots, cucumber, diced ham, a couple cherry tomatoes, and cheese; sometimes they'd have caesar salads with a nice vinaigrette, black olives, pepperoncini, sliced deli chicken, and again tomatoes)

[@Monaster01]

You know that fish is a type of meat, right? It's still animal protein. Saying "fish instead of meat" makes no sense.

[@kimferzoco6755]

Meanwhile, I used to read to kids at a local school, and this lunch looks amazing compared to what they were served. They were usually given either mystery meat that most threw away or a sandwich that was wet from being prepackaged in plastic and thrown in the refrigerator. The sandwiches were also usually thrown away. It was sad.

[@KeitanKetsueki]

Japan's school lunches are also amazing! The students help cook and serve the meals and apparently the food is really good. I'm not sure if the students are charged for lunches but I've always thought it was cool that the kids got to learn to cook at school!

[@Nezuji]

I've never heard of students actually making the regular school lunches (they sometimes make something simple like curry and rice when they go on field trips), but they definitely serve lunch to each other, and the food is usually quite good (some days/areas are better than others). The students don't pay for lunch directly, but I don't know if the cost is covered by household taxes, or bundled in with other annual school costs. I believe that students from low-income families can get lunch for free, but we teachers have to pay and I've gotta say that it's really cheap for the quality and convenience. I think that only elementary and junior high schools have lunch like this, though. In my experience, high school students take their own lunches to school.

[@JRiddelle]

That's going to be school by school. When I was in Japan, pretty much everyone brought their lunch. I don't remember the class ever having to make lunch for the whole school. We did have a field day when we made mochi in the old-fashioned was (via mallet), but yeah, you bought bread and vending machine coffee, or you brought your own food. (This was high school, to clarify).

[@mishaa7263]

I love watching those school lunch videos from japan and south korea, they eat so much better than us

[@celieneohara521]

Japan is WAY more advance than the US in a LOT of ways! I've seen that documentary about Japanese school lunches! Fascinating!

[@catholicfaithofmine2664]

Yes 🥰

[@jenniferpeters6298]

I went to a very rural school in the mid '70's. My aunt was the lunch lady and everything was made from scratch. We had really good meals. Imagine my disappointment when I saw the quality of school lunches when my kids were given in the 2000's

[@BC25citizen]

Ever seen a channel called Whippoorwill Hollow? It’s run by the world champion rural school lunch lady . 👵🏻 Someday when all my chores are done I will make the effort to bake her cinnamon rolls.

[@grizelda42]

I went to two tiny rural schools in Maine for kindergarten (I moved halfway through) in the mid 70s. We're talking maybe 20-25 students each in two-room schoolhouses. Mothers and grandmothers in a rota cooked the lunches from scratch, which were served family style and we ate off china plates with real silverware, drinking our milk (poured from large tin pitchers) from real glasses. Many of the lunches were delicious, some of them were appalling (I'm looking at you, creamed tuna and canned peas on toast), but they were all hot and filling. It was quite a shock when I moved again and went to a large urban school for first grade with institutional food for lunches.

[@reneeallen3569]

Same!

[@Shayna11NM]

@grizelda42 lol you cracked me up with your message. Now, prepare to be shocked. My favorite dish as a child was my Grandma's creamed chicken with frozen peas (still nice and green) on puff pastry. She called it Chicken a la King. I do despise anything made with canned tuna and mushy, brown-green peas.

[@grizelda42]

@@Shayna11NM a well made chicken a la king can be a thing of beauty. I actually like bechamel, just not with canned tuna and squishy khaki peas.

[@violetopal6264]

Wish could share some of this video with my great grandma and ask her a few things. She was one of the last to teach in a one room school house (beginning of her career) and went right on into the 60s. She was also quite put out when the school board insisted that she couldn't be riding her horse to school every day anymore. Retired soon after that and took up painting full time instead. Mostly including her horses 😄

[@paulag4955]

What a wonderful name....Violet Opal- I love that!

[@tessaducek5601]

What a wonderful story. Beautiful legacy to pass down... 🌷

[@fredfredburger5150]

I have fond memories of the British school lunches I got as a kid back in the 80's and 90's. There wasn't much processed food, usually it was some combination of potatoes, meat, other vegetables with a gravy or sauce. We always got a dessert too which was either a cake, big biscuit (cookie for you yanks) or pastry all served with custard. It was very rare they made something that wasn't nice to eat.

[@tanyacoulombe622]

My mom went to school in a one room schoolhouse and talks about how kids would have to bring 1 ingredient for the pot a day. 1 onion or carrot or whatever and the teacher would make soup or stew. Her favourite memory was a teacher who would buy a package of hotdogs and marshmallows and to their reading time outside beside a fire and they would get to eat roast their lunch.

[@bonniemoerdyk9809]

Had she read the story of "Stone Soup" just prior? I also went to the last remaining one-room school house in my area. I was very young (1st grade), and the following year they opened the brand new Elementary School 3.5 blocks from home. That was 1961.

[@DeadBoyHK1]

I was poor enough not to be able to bring lunch…not poor enough to get the financial assistance plan for school lunch either. I kinda just got what other kids didn’t want to eat from their lunches. Surprisingly good tactic to make friends, and socialize.

[@camelpimp]

As someone who used to work as a lunch lady this took me back. I worked when Obama was in office and that administration (mostly Michelle, i believe) really pushed for more nutritional school lunches, mostly by stressing that kids get more fruits and veggies (the main dish was still atrocious, shit like nachos) although, when i was there, the high school kids went from being able to take two fruit sides to only one, so :/ also peach cobbler counted as a fruit side. I haven't worked in a school kitchen in a long time but i did work at an elementary school last year and i don't think school lunches got any better

[@HoosierSHU]

I'm a lunch lady. I absolutely agree with this. But we do serve 3-4 servings of veggies/fruit daily at our elementary school. But it really varies from districts to states.

[@jlan123]

I went from eating most of my school lunches to eating almost none after the changes Michelle Obama made to lunches. Nutrition is important but so is keeping the lunch actually palatable.

[@donaldwert7137]

This reminds me of a video clip I once saw from Samantha The Teenage Witch. It was her birthday and her powers were out of control. At lunch time in the cafeteria one of the boys brought his tray to the table and she asked what they had. He examined the plate and said: "Meat glop, vegetable glop, fruit glop and..." he stared hard "glop glop." She decided she didn't want any of that and witched herself a baked potato (inadvertently stealing it from a Russian who mourned that he had been waiting for it for six months). When ask where she got it, she replied "I ordered kosher." I do recall the meals being pretty edible when I was in school, on those days I didn't carry my lunch.

[@RomanvonUngernSternbergnrmfvus]

Obamas wife was hands down one of the worst things to happen to school lunches, really made me wonder why a unelected person gets any say in how a nation is run.

[@theKashConnoisseur]

@@RomanvonUngernSternbergnrmfvus You think that's bad, just wait till you find out how much influence Nancy Reagan had in perpetuating the War on Drugs.

[@IttyBitty37]

Try west African Peanut Stew or Groundnut Stew. Absolutely delicious! Tomato as base with added peanut butter acting as a roux. Definitely works together.

[@suzannekirkwood6392]

My son went to a small rural school(12 students). Once a week the kids decided on a menu, the senior kids would go to the local town and buy the ingredients, then on Wednesday the kids would cook lunch. The youngest ones did the simple prep while the eldest used the oven or stove top(under supervision). Kids ate for free and parents could join in for $5. If there was a birthday that week the kids would also make and ice a cake.

[@d0vahhqueen]

My grandfather born in 1930 used to make me "butter bread" when I was a kid. Never really thought too much about it because it was so good 😂

[@jendyson6729]

my mom was born in 1930 and when we were little kids if we were craving a sweet snack she would make us an open face brown sugar sandwich. So a piece of white bread with butter and brown sugar on top. It was messy so we ate in the front yard, lol. It was yummy though.

[@phoebe5114]

Yeah, I often ate buttered bread as a cost effective snack as a kid lol, Country Crock vegetable spread and everything. Honestly, I liked it a lot, simple and reliable.

[@toffeelatte6042]

My grandfather born in the 30s did the exact same thing.

[@nickm9102]

in my family this lasted well into the 90's the staple meal (probably 4 times a week or more) was Hamburger helper, corn, another vegetable, and buttered bread. I also remember the go to food when you were recovering from a stomach bug was buttered toast with cinnamon and sugar.

[@GrandHighGamer]

@@jendyson6729 That's basically just a buttercream pastry with less mixing and bread instead of pastry, so yeah that ought to taste pretty good.

[@MzzzNettie]

The look on your face when you tasted that soup was priceless. You didn't have to say a word. We all knew what you were thinking.

[@sylviapesek5193]

My favorite school lunch dish, as well as the one most often listed as first among those with whom I went to school (1952-1964), was the wonderful rolls! Mrs. Mildred Bevill and her staff were so under-appreciated by us at the time, but I have since grown to comprehend just what a terrific job she did. Oh, and I have long added crunchy peanut butter to my tomato soup, along with smoked Spanish paprika. It gives it a flavor reminiscent of West African dishes, to me. And now I want some hermit cookies. Thanks for yet another wonderful video!

[@afinoxi]

The hell, that actually looks better than most things I see in school canteens today

[@bobpope3656]

This is cap lol 😂😂😂😂

[@shinyprisma6085]

I do not think this is cap I have seen some things...

[@jayhollows5729]

@@bobpope3656 are you saying this is lying? what school did you go to because my school lunch looked pretty scant too

[@jayhollows5729]

@@bigmoniesponge Good on you then. I still ate the lunch because my parents were really struggling after the subprime mortgage crisis. Plus I was doing sports so I needed the energy. The "taco meat" looked like cubes of dog food, an apple, and some sort of bread usually a roll that came with lunch and a milk.

[@dragonfelgrand9304]

I'm from Argentina and our elementary school lunch was a cup of milk with chocolate and bread with marmalade. This looks pretty better honestly haha.

[@kumonoameai]

Your comment about how teachers still have to buy their own supplies today really struck me, since that was something my sister had to do when she was a teacher. It's especially insane seeing how teachers in some states are paid so little they have to rely on food stamps to survive while most administrators (who don't educate our kids or instill the values that help them grow to be good people) make up to 100k salaries. It's depressing how little things have improved. Regardless, excellent video as always. I always look forward to learning whenever I see your content.

[@tessaducek5601]

Those who do the work are low man Those who supervise are paid the highest. I learned a lot working in the hospitality industry... And it is completely bassacwords!

[@lauradees4625]

It's crazy because we spend a small fortune to send supplies to the classroom and are asked to send extras because others won't bring them. We are also given a wish list. I don't think all teachers have to. But I'm sure there are some areas that have to.

[@francisdhomer5910]

What don't help the public view is we are told that the school spends $15.000 to $25,000 a student then want the parents to buy all this stuff for their kids. And certain teachers insistent that the children have certain tablets and such. familes of 2 to 5 school age children that adds up. The parents can't buy what they can afford. And then you have the teachers buying what they can for the children. And yes the Supervisors are making a lot. In the one small town the supervisor makes over $200,000 a year. Rural area with a lot of people below the poverty line.

[@constancefaulkner9002]

My mom and I always hit the REAL back to school sales when my kids were in school. We always managed to get enough to last the school year. Every year, we forgot where we put the left over from the previous year, so we started a new supply place. After my youngest went to college, we found all of those school supplies. We took them to the elementary school my kids went to. The staff was ecstatic.

[@TheGamingSyndrom]

small correction: teachers in the USA* most other coutnries invest in their childrens education.

[@manicmuffin]

I'm glad so many people also have square pizza as a core childhood memory, lol. They were simultaneously so soggy, yet soooo good. Also, the hamburgers, which even back then I could tell were kinda rubbery and processed with like grade c meat, but were still delicious somehow. School cafeteria chocolate milk was bomb, too. Something about being a kid, playing around with your friends, enjoying that new handball smell or the shimmer of a holo Pokemon card while chowing down on the cheapest food the government can legally serve you...we had it good.

[@lydias2012]

I liked the hamburgers too!

[@Barakon]

I got square pizza as a kindergarten lunch memory.

[@joannelee5574]

The borderline disintegrating sogginess is a must, doesn’t hit the same otherwise 😔🤌🤌

[@Clancydaenlightened]

nothing beats cinnamon rolls, chicken biscuits, and breakfast pizza

[@yamiblue990]

the square pizza is definitely a core childhood memory and it was delicious along with the chocolate milk.