Chapter 11: Hot Lunch Hell
Did you know my Grandma was a hot lunch lady?!
My Grandpa and Grandma Allard and me, all set for my aunt’s wedding. Grandma would later be my school’s hot lunch lady.
Terrible school lunches are pretty much a running joke in this country. I haven’t met many kids who sing praises about their school lunches unless, of course, it’s pizza day. And even then the biggest complaint is that they can’t go up for thirds. But unlike today’s schools, in the 80s we didn’t have things like salad bars or pasta bars or anything else remotely resembling a choice. Therefore, I’m not too sympathetic when kids today complain about their school lunches. Oh, so you don’t care for the hot dogs they’re serving today? You poor thing; you need to go visit that fully stocked salad bar instead? It’s really quite ridiculous.
Despite the lack of choices, my school lunches were quite good. Besides, I’d take an average hot lunch over a cold sandwich and a mini bag of Doritos any day. I, too, looked forward to pizza day and burger day, and even hot turkey and mashed potatoes day. (Given a choice between a piece of chocolate cake and more mashed potatoes, I’d pick the potatoes.) However, there were a few days I would absolutely dread, namely shepherd’s pie day and something called Slow Boat to China. More like speedboat to a sudden death by onions and celery – two of my archenemies. However, nothing really conjured up as much fear and dread as hot tuna casserole day.
The thing is, I could handle having a shitty main course every once in a while; I was young and didn’t require many calories, so subsisting on the side dishes and carton of milk alone wasn’t too horrible. What I couldn’t handle was that up until sixth grade the lunch ladies and teachers would make us take a heaping portion of the main dish no matter how heinous it was or how much we’d told them we only wanted a little bit. Then the main teacher on lunch duty that day would come around and inspect each of our trays, making sure that we’d eaten enough. If it was deemed inadequate, we were forced to sit and eat more until we were properly dismissed and allowed to go outside and play with our friends.
Tuna casserole day was incredibly stressful for me. Even when I’d ask for only a little serving, down came a huge gelatinous scoop onto my plastic compartmentalized plate. I’d skillfully move the food around a bit, desperately trying to simulate a meal that had been at least half eaten. And I wasn’t even going to try the old “hide-the-food-in-the-milk-carton” trick because everyone remembers the day that Mike H. got caught doing that; shit hit the fan with Sister Jerome.
On the worst days, I’d sit in agony, trying to choose the bite with the least possibility of a hidden mushroom or piece of celery (yes, I know that I don’t like many of the vegetables that supposedly give things “flavor.” The only thing they give me is a gag reflex.) As luck would have it, though, one of those monsters was always hidden somewhere, and I’d quickly try to use my remaining milk as a chaser while trying not to hurl tuna casserole across the lunch table. Eventually the teacher would come around again and either take pity on me or simply give up on me, and I was dismissed.
Fortunately, hot lunch rules got better in junior high. Much to my classmates’ and my delight there were no teachers monitoring our eating habits once we hit sixth grade. In fact, if we didn’t want any of the main dish we didn’t even have to take any; we could actually refuse it!
Another thing we really had going for us was the bread. A new head cook for the entire Catholic school system was hired, and her specialty happened to be delicious homemade bread, drenched in butter and wrapped in tinfoil, then revealed to us each day in steaming deliciousness. Some days it would be homemade rolls instead of bread (my favorite). I always had a hard time deciding what to eat first: the doughy, buttery insides, or the baked-to-perfection crusts on the top and bottom. Not an easy choice when I was faced with the world’s most perfect food. It wasn’t unusual to see kids pile five or six pieces of bread or rolls on their plates. This was another reason to love the 80s: nobody had taken all of the fun out of carbs yet. I took great delight in pinching a corner of my bread and watching the buttery goodness ooze out onto my plate.
The other thing I had going for me was that my grandma (my mom’s mother) was a hot lunch lady at my high school. (And, yes, she, too, knew how to bake that fantastic bread!) That was the ideal job for my grandma since it combined two of her favorite things: cooking and gossip.
That’s not to say that my grandma was a mean-spirited gossip; on the contrary. I think she just genuinely enjoyed being around all of the high school students, hearing about their lives, and watching them grow up over the course of four years. She was one of those people who really sincerely wanted to know how you were doing when she asked you that question. She had a smile and a smart-ass comment ready for any student at any time; countless kids loved it when lunch lady Mary teased them and gave them an extra cookie.
Speaking of extra cookies, if you think there are advantages to having your grandma as the hot lunch lady you’re absolutely right. Some days if I was running late and didn’t have time for breakfast I’d sneak into the kitchen and nab some bread, jam, and juice from her. But mostly the advantage came on certain prime dessert days. Grandma knew what I liked the best, so when her boss wasn’t looking she’d quickly grab an extra chocolate chip bar and chuck it onto my tray as covertly as possible. I could tell she loved our little game of Operation Extra Dessert, as evidenced by the twinkle in her eye and the undeniable smirk on her face.
What I wouldn’t give to have another piece of Grandma’s homemade bread or to see the joy on her face as she joked with her favorite students. While she wasn’t a grandma who’d smother us with hugs and kisses and sentimentality, she’d gladly join her grandchildren in a good-natured snowball fight. What she lacked in money she’d made up in time and generosity; she’d spend days baking her delicious bread for school fundraisers. She cheered on students at their sporting events. What many of those students didn’t know was that she also spent a solid two years of her life at my grandfather’s bedside at the nursing home as he died from bone cancer. She never learned to drive (she always told us she was too anxious and fearful), so either my mom or my aunt dropped her off early in the morning and picked her up each evening. I don’t think she ever missed a day.
And God Bless her … she’d never make me eat tuna casserole.