Mystery meat on Mondays; pressed turkey slices on Tuesdays; square pizza on Wednesdays; hamburgers on Thursdays; fish sticks on Fridays. Some school lunches were better than others, but you could just about guarantee that somewhere around the lunchroom, someone would be willing to trade what was on his or her hard plastic tray for your homemade peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Some days, the thought of an achievement test was more appealing than what was on the school lunch menu.
“Spinach day was the worst,” remembers Susan Palmer Pierce, adding that there was often some little boy or girl who would revisit that spinach later in the day. All was not bad, though, says Pierce, an alum of Woodmore Elementary School.
“The day the ladies made sugar cookies was the highlight of the week. The warm aroma would fill the halls at Woodmore.”
Kristen Nauss, director of nutrition for Hamilton County Schools, is originally from Pennsylvania, so when she moved to Chattanooga, she says she quickly had to learn about Southern food staples.