"Ozgirl" > wrote in message
...

> Sounds pretty much like how I ate in high school. I ate the same sandwich
> for years also. In my case it was devon (cheap, cheap, luncheon meat) with
> tomato sauce on white bread. I'd open the sandwich and put a layer of
> potato crisps on it. The only veggies I ever ate until I was an adult was
> potato, canned peas and tomatoes. The tomatoes had to be very ripe and on
> a sandwich at least 2 hours old to make the bread a bit soggy. We used
> butter back then. The first margarine in Australia tasted absolutely
> disgusting.

My mom's friend puts potato chips on her sandwiches, but it doesn't sound
appealing to me. As a child I wouldn't eat them at all. Only Fritos, then
later when they came out with them, tortilla chips.

My mom always bought the big three vegetables. Canned peas, corn and green
beans. In my Jr. High years, specifically French cut green beans. I don't
know why but that particular type was on the Weight Watcher's menu. We
always had one of those vegetables every night will dinner. In addition she
bought canned carrots, asparagus (less often), hominy, black eyed peas,
spinach (thankfully not often), tomatoes, kidney beans, garbanzo beans,
whole potatoes, Shelly beans (green beans mixed with cooked dried beans and
a favorite of mine), and maybe a few other things I've forgotten about. I
ate all willingly except for the spinach and asparagus.

We had two cooked vegetables with every meal. In addition there was always
an iceberg lettuce salad. One of my parents came up with the bright idea of
cutting a head of lettuce into four wedges and calling it "Honeymoon" salad.
Lettuce alone. Har, har. The thing was danged hard to eat! When I got
older, I insisted on making the salad and it was always a tossed salad or
something more creative. I bought other types of greens (although much less
variety available than today) and other things like radishes, carrots,
celery, tomatoes, etc. In season, I grew these things in my garden.

By the time I reached high school, I shuddered at the thought of buying
lunch at school or bringing a lunch. So I made my own trail mix and kept
that in my purse. I subsisted on that quite a lot! We did find all sorts
of ways to legally cut class and we often went to the local shopping center
or other places. Funds were rather low though so we didn't get to go out
for an actual lunch very often. When we did though, it was never fast food.

Then in my Jr. year, we had the good luck of being able to use the "Foreign
Language Lounge". It was an extra classroom with basically nothing in it,
but it did have a kitchen complete with all appliances and a sink. We got
some furniture donated and a bunch of us took turns cooking lunch. Usually
the food was cooked at home and reheated there. We didn't have microwaves
in those days. They had been invented but were not yet a common thing. We
had to use the oven to heat the food. And the way it worked out, each of us
had to provide food for the rest about once every 2 weeks. That worked out
quite nicely. I can't remember now what we did for plates and silverware
and such. Perhaps there were some in the room and we just used those. I
vaguely remember doing dishes.