Mrs. Essie Roberson and Mrs. Ruth Crutchfield were two ladies held in high esteem during my childhood. Why you may ask? Because they cooked and fed me some of the most delicious food outside Mama's kitchen. The two of them were the only two that ever cooked at A. D. Kelly School in Wallace Alabama as long as I was a student. That was from fall of 1947 until spring of 1956. I don't know when either of them retired from lunchroom cooking, but it was surely a loss for our beloved "Wallace".
Lets look back through the memory of this farm raised child and remember those meals that the lunchroom ladies cooked and served us.
To be authentic in this recollection I have to call them Miz Essie and Miz Ruth. The term "lunchroom ladies" didn't come into my usage until years later and then only from television commedians.
So Miz Essie rode the same bus as me and my siblings. She, her son Cleve and twin daughters, Jeanette and Geneva lived on the same route as me during most of those years. Miz Ruth rode the bus her Father-in-law Jack and later her husband Miles drove. Both Miz Essie and Miz Ruth attended Canaan Freewill Baptist Church where my family went. To tie us together a bit more, Miz Essie and my Daddy were cousins through the Simmons side and Miz Ruth was cousins with Mama on the Grissett side.
That had nothing to do with lunchroom cooking, but I wanted to say perhaps good cooking skills are in the DNA.
Now, our school lunches were cooked from scratch and served piping hot everyday unless we had early dismissal which was when we got things like PBJ sandwiches, milk and a fruit. The peanut butter and jelly was mixed together and spread between slices of Sunbeam bread.......no mess for a kid to deal with.
On full out cooked from scratch days, we may get things like dried lima beans ( the best in the world), a sausage link, cabbage slaw, mac and cheese, two slices of Sunbeam or a square of cornbread, a pat of pure butter, an orange or apple or banana or a square of gingebread along with a carton of 100% milk or sometimes orange juice.
Other things I remember is peach halves, doughnuts, fruit cocktail, mashed potatoes ( peeled and boiled, no instant) tomatoes and macaroni, english peas, blackeye peas with ham hock, baked chicken, some kind of government commodity canned meat ( spam ?) that was fried, so many delicious foods, but best of all was the homemade soup made by a lady in the community from the vegetables she grew in her garden to suppliment her family's income. She sold the soup to Mr. B. G. Tew our principal, Miz Essie and Miz Ruth added corned beef hash to the soup and we went back for seconds if they had extra. That was one of the best soups I ever tasted. I truly believe every student at Wallace school remembered that dish as the best ever. I cannot imagine having food cooked in the kitchen of a community lady being allowed inside a lunchroom today. Government intervention took the joy of school lunches. That is sad.
I did have one specific food served that didn't sit well against my palate. Mackerel loaf or patties. Salmon was grand, mackerel was a waste. Mackerel was a government commodity smelly and strong tasting..............in my opinion.
We ate many government commodities at school. Cheese, peanut butter, powered milk, butter, prunes. Oh, those prunes.
