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Philip Spiess
Following hard on the heels of the many reminiscenes (the good, the bad, and the ugly) of WHHS food fare in our dear old school days of yore (yo're either likin' it or hatin' it), we bring you now selections from today's The Washington Post Magazine, which, as luck would have it, has a pictorial feature section on "A Sampling of the Lunch Options at [Washington] Area Elementary Schools." Herewith are some of the options:
Alexandria, Va. (city just south of D. C.): "Apple cinnamon Texas toast; baked potato wth queso blanco sauce and turkey bacon; strawberries; mixed salad; 1 percent milk."
Loudon County, Va. (horse and wine country west of D. C.): "Sunbutter (made from sunflower seeds, hence, peanut-free) and jelly sandwich; tomato soup; vegetables; fruit; fat-free chocolate milk."
Prince George's County, Maryland (southeast of D. C., a largely African-American community): "Oven-fried chicken; tomato; cucumber and onion salad; applesauce; fat-free chocolate milk; dinner roll."
Prince William County, Va. (a somewhat Southern conservative community, just south of D. C., where my son is a firefighter): "Baked ziti with garlic bread; yellow [!] and orange carrots; kale and red cabbage with blueberries, sunflower seeds, and cranberries; pears; fat-free milk."
And last, but not least, Washington, D. C., itself (where the public schools are largely African-American, and definitely under-funded): "Barbecue chicken drumstick; Spanish rice; jerk lentils [?]; garden bar vegetables; apple; 1 percent milk."
Nice, huh? And, yes, somebody's making a mint on sunflower seeds! (Anybody know what is served to the WHHS students these days?) In the eight years I taught at Browne Academy, a private school just outside of Alexandria, Va., in Fairfax County, I was required on occasion to help serve on the lunchtime food line. The outside-catered fare there was not unlike some of that listed above; the students had a choice of salad bar, sandwich bar, and hot food bar (or all three), as well as snack chips, fruit, and milk. The caterer, who provided beautiful-looking apples, could not understand why no Middle School student took any. "You need to pay attention," I said; "at their age, they are all wearing dental braces!"
I have not mentioned in these pages my own memories of lunch at WHHS, other than remarking on the foibles of others. I believe I took a packed lunch from home most of the time. On the occasions that I did go through the hot lunch line, I studiously avoided the soup, which was first in the lunch line and into which the shop-class boys, always first to go to lunch, would drop nuts and bolts and such; at least once someone found chewed chewing gum in their soup (does that make it "gumbo"?). I also remember that throughout my 9th- or 11th-grade year (or maybe both), I would spend my lunch money, instead of on lunch, on paperback books which we could buy, and curb my hunger by buying and consuming boxes of "Turtles," that confection of pecans, caramel, and chocolate, that someone or some organization was selling. It's a wonder that I survived to the ripe old age of 72, which I turn on Tuesday, along with my son Philip, who turns 27.
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