My school lunch ladies were rural moms who knew how to cook. You couldn’t concentrate in the class before lunch what with the homemade yeast roll smell floating through the halls. Government real butter, too. Real pieces of chicken fried or lemon peppered. Big homemade pb cookies with government pb. Real apples to dip into pb and government real honey. Mac and cheese with government real cheese. OMG, everyone loved that cheese, yummmm!
In all my school years from 1952-1964 we had really good meals at school, EXCEPT at AZTEC,NM in 1956.
That was the worst I ever tried to eat, everyone was throwing it back up. It seemed to be some kind of horrid mac and cheese slop which sickened all the kids every day. I finally convinced mom to make me a lunch to take for school.