LAWS, REGULATIONS & GOVERNMENT REPORTS

"In many of our large cities and industrial centers the elementary school luncheon has long since passed the experimental stage and is regarded as a valuable part of the school training as well as a safeguard for the health of the child. Very often the pioneer work has been done by women's clubs or philanthropic organizations which have assumed the task of demonstrating to school authorities the practicability and value of such feeding. The expensive machinery of education is wasted when it operates on a mind listless from hunger or befogged by indigestible food. Whether the cause be poverty, ignorance, or carelessness, the child is the sufferer, and the painstaking work of the school lunch supervisors to secure wholesome and adequate noon meals for the school children at a minimum cost not only brings immediate benefit to the children, but exerts a widespread influence upon homes and parents, as the children carry to them reports of these concrete lessons in the science of proper selection, preparation, and hygiene of food. The school luncheon must be simple, easily served and economical. It may consist of a hot dish, with some form of bread, and a choice of about two sweet dishes; milk or cocoa should always be obtainable. A week's menu as actually served by the School Lunch Committee of the Home and School League in Philadelphia is given below:

Weekly menu in school with penny lunches and five-cent noon dinner
Monday: (1) Baked beans and roll, 5 cents (2) Cocoa or milk, 2 cents; crackers or ice cream, 1 cent
Tuesday: (1) Vegetable soup and roll, 5 cents (2) Same choice as Monday
Wednesday: (1) Creamed beef on toast and roll, 5 cents (2) See Monday. Dates 1 cent
Thursday: (1) Macaroni with tomato sauce and roll, 5 cents (2) See Monday. Jam sandwich, 1 cent
Friday: (1) Creamed salmon and roll, 5 cents (1) See Monday

At 11:45 in each of the seventeen schools squads of picked pupils set up the portable tables in preparation for serving the lunch. The children come from their classrooms, form lines, usually in the interior play yards, and as they pass a given point take up a try, spoon, and whatever other utensils are necessary. The line goes by the large containers of soup, which is dispensed in half-pint portionstot the children. The rule has been to have each child purchase first a half-pint bowl of soup, after which he may purchase any of the other items prepared that day. After buying the soup the child passes along the table on which the other foods are displayed, choosing those which appeal to him. Behind these tables the picked pupils, in white gloves and aprons, and, in the case of the girls, caps, hand to the children the desired articles. At the end of the line the associate manager stands to receive as many pennies as there are items of food on each child's tray. The child carries his lunch to one of the tables which have been set for that purpose, where the food is eaten. After finishing the meal, the child takes the tray and oiled dishes to a designated place, where any remaining food is scraped into a pail and the bowls, trays, and utensils are neatly placed in piles ready to be washed. This affords an opportunity for a lesson in practical domestic science...If the noon meal is served at home, it may be somewhat more elaborate, provided the child has time to eat it in a leisurely fashion. When he has to hurry back to school this fact must be taken into account, and no extra tax put on his digestive powers."
---Feeding the Family, Mary Swartz Rose PhD, assistant professor, Dept. of Nutrition, Teachers College, Columbia University [MacMillan:New York] 1917 (p. 154-7)

"Many high school children do not go home for the noon meal. In fact, the custom of providing meals at school began in America with the high school, and most city schools have lunch rooms. Sometimes these are let by contract and there is no skilled supervision of the food supply. But with the spread of the carefully supervised elementary school luncheon attention has been directed to the real needs of the high school youth and the opportunities for education in good eating habits. An interesting attempt to help the pupil to choose wisely is shown in the Menu Bulletin of the Julia Richman High School in New York City:

Soup:
Split pea, bread and butter...Calories: 310; Price, 5 cents
Hot dish:
Veal stew with vegetables, bread and butter...Calories: 350; Price, 10 cents
Vegetables:
Lima beans...Calories: 125; Price, 3 cents
Sandwiches:
Date nut on graham bread...Calories: 245; Price, 4 cents
Chopped egg...Calories: 200; Price, 4 cents
Desserts:
Raisin layer cake...Calories: 300; Price, 5 cents
Horton's ice cream...Calories: 200; Price, 5 cents
Bread pudding, chocolate sauce...Calories: 275; Price, 4 cents
Baked apple and cream...Calories: 120; Price, 3 cents
Apple...Calories: 50; Price, 1 cent
Crackers:
Cecilias...Calories: 100; Price, 3 for 1 cent
Fireside peanut jumbles...Calories: 110; Price, 2 for 1 cent
Candy
Sweet milk chocolate, large bars...Calories: 500; Price, 5 cents
Almond bars...Calories: 600; Price, 5 cents
Assorted penny candy...Calories: 100; Price, 1 cent
Beverages
Milk...Calories: 140; Price. 3 cents
Cocoa...Calories: 110; Price, 3 cents
Breads
White or graham, with butter...Calories: 185; Price, 2 cents

The result of the educational work done here is clearly demonstrated in the change of demand for food. The first few days of the service, the candy and pastry tables were the chief points of purchase, more than half of the receipts coming from that source. About 30 bowls of soup were sold and 15 to 20 other hot dishes. Within four weeks from the commencement of the service were selling an average of 80 to 90 bowls of soup and 40 to 60 other hot dishes.

The high school luncheon will usually offer a greater variety of foods than the elementary school meal, but these should always be presented with the fact in mind that the young people are going back to brain work, and heavy dishes are out of place. The daily menu list may well include such dishes as the following:

1. Soup, as tomato, green pea, split pea, white and black bean.
2. Two or three hot dishes, as spaghetti with tomato sauce, mashed potatoes with green peas, baked beans, corn pudding, a stew with vegetables or a hot roast beef sandwich.
3. Salads, as potato, egg, fruit, or green vegetable.
4. Sandwiches, one or two varieties each day.
5. Fruit, as apples, bananas, stewed fruits of various kinds.
6. Milk and cocoa.
7. Plain cake or sweet wafers offered only in combination with milk or other plain food.
8. Ice cream, charlotte russe, simple baked pudding, sweet chocolate."
---Feeding the Family, Mary Swartz Rose PhD, assistant professor, Dept. of Nutrition, Teachers College, Columbia University [MacMillan:New York] 1917 (p. 167-168)

[1915] Menu making for the luncheon box
"A luncheon box may be made a source of pleasure to the school child or everyday worker. To bring this about, the foods must be varied on successive days. It is not necessary that each luncheon consist of various foods. Indeed, many kinds of food or foods in great quantity are not desirable for a child who sits quietly at study much of the day...It is both possible and necessary, however,--if the luncheon box is not to become monotonous--to have different foods for each day of the week. As in any meal, all of the foodstuffs should be represented in the food of a luncheon box.

"Foods for the luncheon box. --(1) Sandwiches.--Bread is the basis of almost all box lunches. Since sandwiches furnish the most convenient way of carrying foods that are to be eaten with bread, they invariable form a part of every luncheon...Variety may be had by serving bread sometimes in the form of muffins or rolls. The slices of bread may be cut thick or thin to suit the appetite of the eater. It is often desirable to leave the crusts on the bread...If sandwiches are prepared some time before they are served, they can be kept moist by wrapping in a dry towel, covered with a towel wrung out of hot water. The fillings for sandwiches offer many variations. They may be divided into two classes, seasoned and sweet. Seasoned fillings may include: meat, eggs, cheese, vegetables. If meat is used, it may be cut in slices, or chopped and mixed with a sauce...Either Salad Dressing or White Sauce may be combined with meat...Sweet fillings for sandwiches include: preserved or dried fruits, bananas, nuts. Sandwiches made with sweet fillings are most popular among children. Some of them make good substitutes for cake, and are much more easily digested...

"Relishes.--celery, olives, and radishes serve as relishes for the luncheon box. Celery and olives (especially those stufed with pimentos or nuts) are pleasing as a sandwich filling...Desserts.--Cake is a common constitutent of the luncheon box. Not all cakes, however, are suitable for luncheons. For children, only plainer cakes, i.e. those containing little fat, should be used. Plain cake and cookies, sponge cake, lady fingers, and gingerbread (if not too highly spiced) are also desirable for the school luncheon...Most fresh fruits can be easily packed in the luncheon box. As has been mentioned, grapes, the small fruits such as strawberries and raspberries, sliced pineapple, or fruit sauces may be carried in jelly glasses...If a child is permitted to have sweets, a little candy may be placed in the luncheon box; it is better for a child to have candy at the end of a luncheon than after school>"
---A Text-Book of Cooking, Carlotta C. Greer [Allyn and Bacon:Boston] 1915 (p. 328)

"The sandwich is undoubtedly the easiest way to combine a variety of foods for the school luncheon. For this reason, sandwiches of some sort are usually included...Remember that the sandwich acts in the menu as a starch because of the bread; a fat because of the butter; a protective because of the butter; a mineral, when a whole-grain bread is used; the rest of it is made up by the filling, which may be of protein nature, as meat, cheese, nuts, or egg, or a sweet, as jelly, jam, fruit, butter, etc. In selecting sandwiches, choose those that will balance the menu; remember that as much filling, proportionately, should be provided as the child would eat of that particular food were it served to him at home upon a plate. The bread should be cut thin as otherwise he will have too much starch. Sometimes a custard baked in a jelly glass, a cornstarch pudding, bread pudding, fruit Betty, or gelatine--carried in a jelly glass--may be provided, or these foods may be put up in paper jelly cups, which may be discarded after the food is eaten."
---Mrs. Allen on Cooking, Menus, Service, Ida C. Bailey Allen [Doubleday, Doran & Company:Garden City NY] 1924 (p. 44-6)

[1926] Children's school lunches
"Brown bread sandwiches, jelly sandwiches, fruit-nut sandwiches, prune and peanut sandwiches, lettuce sandwiches, celery sandwiches, cream cheese sandwiches, stuffed dates with peanut butter, deviled eggs, date sandwiches, peanut butter sandwiches, tomato sandwiches, egg sandwiches, turkey or chicken sandwiches."
---Every Woman's Cook Book, Mrs. Chas. F. Moritz [Cupples & Leon:New York] 1926 (p. 690)

[1927] School Lunches and Picnic Baskets
"Lunch boxes go picnicking in the summer and return to the school in the autumn. School lunches and picnic meals have much in common, as they must both lend themselves to easy packing and both should hold pleasant surprises for the lunchers. School lunches are closely associated with child health. Uninviting paper-bag lunches, prepared wtihout much thought for the interest of which a variety of food brings to children, should be a thing of the past. An attractive box and paraffin paper for wrapping take the place of paper bags, while a vacuum bottle for carrying milk, hot cocoa or soup is most useful. Fortunately, many schools now served good well-balanced hot lunches and mothers of the community should support all such undertakings through every possible cooperation with the school . These lunches may or may not be supplemented by a box lunch from home. Sandwiches are the great staple for the lunch-box and Graham or whole wheat bread should be used freely. Many delicious fillings can be evolved from such foods as cheese, peanut-butter, jam, raisin, lettuce, dates, crisp celery, figs and chopped nuts, shredded cabbage, sliced tomatoes, hard cooked eggs and cold sliced or minced meat. These can be made into "spreads" with some mild salad dressing or a little cream when suitable to the mixture. Oranges, apples, pears and other fruit and whole tomatoes in paraffin paper carry well. Glass and china individual baking dishes and paper cases make possible the baked custard or pudding, the plain cake or gingerbread and small molds of pressed jellied meat, in a wy that pleases the young luncher. All lunches should of course consider the age of the luncher. Here are some suggestions for the lunch box:

Lunch-box menus for the elementary school
Egg and celery sandwiches, little sponge cakes, dates, milk.
Chicken and tomato sandwiches, gingerbread, milk, apple.
Graham crackers with peanut butter, baked cup custard, apple, milk.
Egg and lettuce sandwiches, caramel cup custard, milk.

Lunch-box menus for the high school
Cold sliced chicken, cleery, graham bread and butter sandwiches, date blanc-mange in cup, plain cookies.
Tomato soup, slice of beef loaf, lettuce sandwiches, caramel cup custard.
Nut and cheese sandwiches, tapioca cream, celery, raisin cake.
Salmon salad, bread and butter, grapes, milk, cookies."

[1936] Box Lunches that intrigue both eye and appetite
"With only a few days left before your young hopefuls go off to school again, I can see all you mothers, from Maine to California, getting down the lunch boxes you put away with such relief in June. And when I read the letters that come to the Institute asking for help in planning box lunches for grown-ups of the famly who carry lunch to work each day, I realize how many of you never get that summer breathing spell. Yours is a year-round problem, and I am sure you often feel as if you had run out of ideas when it comes to thinking up something new for those lunches. What to put in these boxes, that's always the question! First, last, and always, you wish to make the lunch suitable, and you knwo well that a few snacks gleaned from yesterday's dinner are not a meal for any one, young or old, who puts in a good day's work. Each meal should provide its share of calories, vitamins, and mineral salts. Sometiems it is a question, too, of coaxing tired appetites, especially for indoor desk workers. Food, as you know, gives them the mental lift they need and builds resistance to colds and other ills...In planning box lunches, I always keep the evening meal in mind. As the children's supper is usually a lighter meal than the family dinner, I plan a farily hearty noon lunch for them, with a nourishing soup, or meat or eggs in the sandwich mixture. Something raw and fresh like a tomato, or shredded cabbage and carrots, rounds out the day's needs...If your family is anything like mine, they will be brutally frank in letting you know what they like and what they don't. Let these criticisms be a warning to you and profit by them. It's so easy to be smug and assume that what we ourselves want the rest of the world ought to like top...I'm not going to try to persuade you that packing lunches is just fun...But I do say that it can be made an interesting job if we approach it in a spirit of adventure...In box lunches particularly it's the sameness that gets you down, whether you eat them or pack them. Don't waste time lamenting that Mother Nature doesn't produce a brand-new foodstuff every day. Sit back and consider how shortsighted you've been in the numberless things you've overlooked...Just because there's a cafeteria in the school is no reason for dropping all lunch responsibility. Any mother who hears that Johnny is turning up his nose at the soup or cocoa can be pretty sure that he's leaving most of it in the cup. It may really be poor, or only unattractively served, but why not see about it?...

suggested lunch box menus
Cold lamb and lettuce sandwich, currant jelly sandwich, carrot sticks, celery, orange layer cake, milk

Mixed vegetable salad (in container), pimiento cheese sandwiches, gingerbread, banana, milk

Vegetable chowder, crackers (canned vegetable soup with milk), peanut butter and marmalade sandwiches, packaged cookies, pear

Cream of celery soup, bacon and egg salad sandwiches on whole wheat bread, tomato, oatmeal cookies."
---Good Housekeeping, September 1936 (p. 84-5)

[1940] Suggested School Lunch Box Menus

Egg-olive sandwich, cheddar corn muffin, tomato, baked apple, milk.

Chicken leg, watermelon pickle, whole wheat bread and butter, cheese-onion sandwich, fruit salad, cooky, cocoa.

Hot consomme, cheese crackers, salami sandwich, carrot straws, fruit drops, milk (school)

Meat loaf sandwich, lettuce wedge, peanut butter sandwich, dill pickle, meringue coconut tart, milk.

Potato salad, hard-cooked egg, ham sandwich, jelly sandwich, celery, chocolate cake, lemonade.

Cream of pea soup, crackers, egg-bacon sandwich, spiced pears, brownies, milk."
---Young America's Cook Book, Home Institute of the New York Herald Tribune [Charles Scribner's Sons:New York] 1940 (p. 222)

[1944] Pointers on packing lunch box meals
"It's day to day sameness in his lunch box that's apt to get a luncher down. So, if you would keep your...school children always eager for the lunches you pack, put these few good pointers into practice...Be sure to choose foods which the luncher can handle easily and and eat quickly--particularly if his rest period is short...Because sandwiches are so often the mainstay in the lunch box, coax tired appetites by varying the bread you use...Be generous with sandwich fillings, then the sandwiches will be far more tempting...Avoid putting lettuce into sandwiches--it may become limp and unappetizing...Keep a supply of canned meats on hand for lunch box use. Any leftover can be worked into the family meals...Such hot hearty dishes as baked beans, chili con carne, beef or lamb stew...may be carried in the vacuum bottle, especially if it is a wide mouthed one. Something hot in the lunch box is always welcome...a few crunchy, raw vegetables...are delicious for the lunch box."

[1947] School Lunches
"If you have a lunch room in your school, practice selecting combinations of foods that are appetizing, inexpensive, and nourishing. If you take lunch from home, it should be appetizing and nourishing--not all jam sandwiches and cake. A well balanced school lunch or picnic lunch includes at least one thing chosen from the following:

Bread: brown, date, graham, nut, oatmeal, raisin, rye, white, or whole wheat.
Butter or butter substitute: at least on one slice of each sandwich.
Sandwich fillings: chopped eggs, cheese, peanut butter or other nuts ground to a paste; meat, sliced or chopped; jelly or marmalade; dried fruit paste made of chopped dates, figs, or raisins; fish. Each sandwich should be wrapped separately in waxed paper.
Fruit: apples, grapes, oranges, peaches, pears, plums, bananas, tomatoes. Stewed fruit in small jars with tight-fitting covers may be carried safely.
Sweets: cookies, gingerbread, cake, candy.
Beverage: milk, a hot drink, or fruit juice. These may be carried in a thermos bottle or tightly covered container.

Pack a lunch neatly with the heaviest articles at the bottom. Include two napkins--one to be used as a tablecloth or lap cover."
---Girl Scout Handbook: Intermediate Program, Girl Scouts of the United States of America [New York] 1947 (p. 165-6)