2104 PBJ Crunch

Back when I was growing up, we didn't get to eat in the school cafeteria. It was reserved for kids who could afford it. "Hot lunch" it was called. As in, "Make sure you get your tickets for hot lunch." The teacher would sell them in the morning or, later, kids would go to the office on their first recess to buy tickets or a monthly pass.

Kids in our economic spectrum had lunch boxes or, at my even lower end, brown bags. At least we had lunch. I was grateful I had something; even though youthfully resentful I had to pack it to school in a random grocery or product bag. It would have been nice to have one of those actually brown lunch-sized bags instead of an old bread or drugstore bag but, what the hey, at least I had food.

The food was problematic sometimes. I had two main meals: Boloney sandwich with ketchup on it or peanut butter and jelly. Both were always on brown-colored bread, what my dad called “wheat bread,” although it was really just cheap white bread dyed brownish.

Our sack lunches were stored at room temperature in the back of the classroom so baloney-and-ketchup got a little warm by the time lunchtime hit in the non-air-conditioned rooms. Did I mention we lived in a small desert town where the temps typically got up past 100 degrees?

That also made the ketchup soak through the top piece of bread. Ick. And jelly did the same thing. Peanut butter and jelly on soaked-through bread. Yum. We had a remedy. Lift up the soaked-through side and insert potato chips. Crunchy and delicious. Resourceful Poverty-Repaired PB&J. 

They now have them on Food.com and other epicurean websites.  

Gourmet, inspired by poor-met.

America, ya gotta love it.