Kids try 100 years of brown bag lunches 1900-2000 (restaurants, junk food, health)
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I've eaten plenty of tomato and cucumber sandwiches, but I wouldn't have wanted a radish sandwich when I was a kid.
Tomato and cucumber sandwiches are great on a flat bread bun with alfalfa sprouts and a low cal spread...vinaigrette, a smattering of low cal mayo, etc... not too spendy either.
1950s and 1960s - I brought my lunch from home (because it was cheaper than buying a lunch, which was 35 cents if memory serves) and bought a 5 cent half-pint of whole milk. But often my milk was poured into a small Thermos. Why did none of these lunches have a Thermos of anything? All the metal lunch boxes came with a matching Thermos.
Always a sandwich: PBJ, American cheese on bread with mayo, bologna. Occasionally a piece of cold fried chicken. Sometimes the Thermos held soup!
Carrot sticks, celery sticks, sliced green pepper. If I was really lucky a little sweet gherkin or two.
A small bag of potato chips or Fritos.
Maybe a cookie. But often, no cookie, no dessert.
No plastic sandwich bags - there were none! Mom wrapped everything in wax paper. Pickles were wrapped in a bit of aluminum foil, salvaged from another use. Foil was never just thrown away. Mom wiped it off, smoothed it and carefully folded and put it away.
Schools did not allow us to bring carbonated soft drinks. They'd get shaken up and explode when you opened them. Glass bottles - no way to open them plus there was a danger that the bottle would break.
In high school, we had a chocolate milk machine in the cafeteria. You could insert a nickle and gamble that you'd get a half pint of chocolate milk. About half the time, you did!
The only soft drink machine was outside the office so the principal could see who dared to try to get a drink. Only seniors were allowed to occasionally buy one.
I remember my dad, who grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, said his lunch might include a biscuit from breakfast, a piece of ham but usually a piece of fried fatback from the hog they killed last fall, and an apple from their apple tree, all packed into a metal bucket. Want a drink? You'd go to the school well, draw up a bucket of water and dunk the (single) dipper into the bucket to get a cold drink of water.
I don't really think those were representing actual brown bag lunches that kids took to school. It felt more like they were including foods typical of the time in a brown bag. Just because the wedge salad became a thing in the 1940s doesn't mean moms sent it to school with their kids for lunch.
My parents went home for lunch even in the 50s.
Re: sodas
We were never allowed to bring sodas in our lunches in the 70s. They were strictly forbidden by the schools because of the fear they would explode and make a mess in your desk, locker or cafeteria.
Field trips were a big deal because we COULD bring them then, and I remember everyone bringing a can of soda wrapped in aluminum foil "to keep it cold." LOL
I grew up in the fifties. In grammar school we went home for lunch. In high school there was a cafeteria, but most students brought lunch from home. Ham sandwiches, meat loaf sandwiches, and similar were typically the entree accompanied by pickles, olives, or sweet peppers along with grapes, abanana, or another fruit. I could buy a half pint of milk at school for 7c. That was market rate as I attended a private school.
There were no free lunches.
And I was a latch key kid in the 70's. My father became a miserable, abusive unemployed drunk so my mom kicked his a*s out and had to work as a secretary to pay the bills and raise 3 kids. Bag lunches were rare- she had to get ready for work.
We had little money and I was on the reduced lunch plan at school. 10c as I recall. On days where my mom worked overtime it was often the best meal of the day for me.
I started packing my own lunch in Jr. and Sr. High School.
I used to bring a bologna sandwich with mayo in my Scooby Doo lunchbox, and it would sit at room temperature for five hours until lunchtime, yet it never made me sick.
I used to bring a bologna sandwich with mayo in my Scooby Doo lunchbox, and it would sit at room temperature for five hours until lunchtime, yet it never made me sick.
Let's hear it again for preservatives!!!
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