Words and Pictures - School Lunches

"It was early in Grade Three that I developed my infallible Look at the Lunch method for telling which part of Manning my classmates came from... Children from Como always had totally different lunches to children from Manning. They had pieces of salad chopped up and sealed in plastic containers. Their cake was wrapped neatly in grease-proof paper and they had real cordial in a proper flask..By contrast kids from Manning drank from the water fountain and carried sticky jam sandwiches in paper bags."

Sally Morgan, My Place, 1987

Class is a dirty word these days. But whether we like it or not it is alive and well in our children's lunchboxes. The battleground may have shifted from salads and sticky jam sandwiches to biodynamic nori rolls and, (godforbid), white bread sandwiches, but the game plan is still the same. Lunch says a lot about who we are and where we're from.

Before moving to Canberra our daughter attended a private school in Sydney. The school followed the glorious French tradition of 'La Cantine'. As we entered the school of a morning, the menu of the day was posted up for parents' scrutiny and salivation. Four glorious courses were eaten at a communal table with crisp checked cloth napkins. I used to imagine the gentle hum of conversation and the refined crook of the children's little fingers as they lifted their glasses.

Fast forward a year and we are happily returned to the public school system, albeit with a French slant. I am, have been and always will be a passionate supporter of public school education, but the return to the lunchbox in the dust of the playground has been a bitter pill to swallow. All those class subtleties re-emerge in the lunchbox, I listen to the small person's tones of middle-class horror as she recounts the contents of the 'naughty kids'' lunches.

"It's all just lollies. No fruit at all."

I shift uncomfortably in my seat and listen to my pompous explanation that all kids have naughty moments and it's not ok to label people as 'good' and 'bad'. I wonder what, if anything, has changed from the last time I was sitting in the playground dustbowl.

The school tuckshop provides the classic Australian public school meals, oily pizzas, 2 minute noodles and the token fruit salads sitting dustily in the corner. When I was at school our canteen was run by the P&C and staffed by some devoted Mums who truly did justice to the term, 'tuckshop arms'. The food was ordinary at best but you knew that Lachlan Hanar's Mum was the one to go to for a generous splat of tomato sauce on your meat pie. Today it is a rarity for P&C's to run the school canteen, there are simply not enough parents to staff them. My daughter's school is no different, the canteen has been outsourced to a 'provider', I was horrified to learn is Sydney based. Much of what is consumed in the canteen has been purchased and in some cases prepared there before being shipped to Canberra. Talk about food miles!!

I know there are movements afoot for change. Some schools are reforming co-ops of parents to produce simple, healthy yummy food, a la Jamie Oliver. For me this is not quite enough, good simple food eaten in the dirt is still not an edifying food experience. The French model where children are seated in a warm, pleasant environment with cutlery and napkins is one of the cornerstones of their education system. Food is central to French culture as is civilised conversation, etiquette and good manners. This is the message the French give to their children when they are seated together eating good food at school. What message do we give our children here in Australia? That we should eat like animals in the dirt, shovelling food into our mouths for two minutes before dumping the remains in the bin?

I think our children are worth more than that.

Thanks to Pip for the assignment. I didn't mean for it to become so heavy - for some more enjoyable reads check over here. And you have to look at this hilarious discussion of school lunches by the inimitable Heather Ross.

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Comments

[Stomper Girl]

Great piece. Although as I read it I imagined my fusspots sitting at La Cantine and turning their noses up at everything offered. *sigh* And I agree about the eating ritual here, my oldest can't wait to use the precious lunch hour for playing, not eating. Our shcool actually has a 10 minute eating session time before the kids are released to the outside.

[cyndy]

Wow. Just wow. A big "A-Men" to you, Lady-for approaching such a deep (and often sticky) subject. I live in the US and I am a public shool (high school) teacher. This is often something I've thought about. Very few will dare to approach the class issue here. I am an advocate of educating the "whole" individual, and sadly--public school is ignoring many important parts...at least where I'm from. Thanks for the thoughts this evening. You've lit a spark over here in Staten Island, New York.

[angelique]

My kids don't go to 'la cantine' here in Noumea( they come home for lunch)but I can whole heartedly understand the concept of it. I think if is a fabulous idea and sometimes wish I could go in and have lunch with them when I have seen the menu du jour.

[pip of meetmeatmikes]

Oh that's so true, Nan. I love the way your write. Yep. I do. So true about judging other kids lunches. I always read those 'my life in france' books and think how lucky those Frenchies are to have a DECENT HOT LUNCH! I wish that the food-ethos was as committed here, but I'm lucky one of my kids goes to a great school with a kitchen garden and a vego canteen! He, however, still choose my packed lunch over the canteen food! Go figure! Must be my meatball sandwiches and flourless chocolate cake?!