Tribal school lunches - Montana

[peacetraveler22]

There's a certain childhood rite of passage I never experienced - eating cafeteria lunches. I attended a small, religious school from 5th - 12th grade, surrounded by the same faces until graduation. There were rarely new students who transferred to the school, no new boys to flirt with, or mysterious strangers who suddenly appeared at the desk beside me. In one word, I would describe my school experience as boring. The same can be said of my daily lunches, which my mom diligently packed every morning. Usually, the lunchbox consisted of a peanut butter or ham and cheese sandwich, some type of chips and a piece of fruit. I always envied kids who had the joy of entering the canteen each day to have old ladies with hairnets shovel different food onto their tray, sometimes completely inedible and sometimes a fun game to guess what the mystery meat or slop was. It all seemed very exotic and exciting for someone who was insanely bored being around the same kids and learning environment for so many years.

During my visit to the Native American reservation in Montana last week, I met with a teacher at the local tribal school and ate with the young kids in the cafeteria. The tribe would not let me photograph the students for privacy reasons, but you can see they are eating healthy and tasty lunches. Salad with tomatoes, two servings of fresh fruit, a roll and some type of spicy soup with black beans, corn and ground beef. Btw, last week someone scolded me for using the term Native American "reservation," implying that this is a derogatory term. Perhaps this is the case in Russian, but in English this word has no negative connotation. It is used to refer to the sovereign lands upon which Native American tribes now live in various parts of the U.S., and the Indians I met also referred to their home as "the reservation." Next week, I will write a big report about their lives.

What was your favorite meal? :) Do most Russian children bring packed lunches from home, or eat in the school canteen?

Comments

[genka8.livejournal.com]

Soviet propaganda always implied that the Indian reservations were akin to the concentration camps, and that the Indians were forcibly moved there and prohibited from living anywhere else.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

That's why I went to visit the reservation, to understand for myself and show others how Native Americans now live. I learned a lot. :) Hopefully I can write the report this weekend. They can live, or work, wherever they want. Same as all Americans.

[creaze.livejournal.com]

> Perhaps this is the case in Russian, but in English this word has no negative connotation

Oh really? Can i call negroes negroes then in your comments?

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

You can call them whatever you want, but you sound like an idiot if you use this term in America. Like you're still a slave master on the plantation. :)

[logofilka.livejournal.com]

Looks like a decent food, but I doubt that kids in reservation enjoy it. From my observation, public and Indian schools usually offer fries/burger/pizza/pasta kind of meal, especially, if they provide subsidized lunches. My kids are attending a charter school now, and it is slightly different: they have ethnic food assigned to each day of the month, with some repeats. Chinese, Greek, Mexican, Japanese, Italian, Indian, All-American (meaning bbq chicken and burgers, usually), etc. These lunches are catered by local restaurants, so school does not cook anything. We pick up the days and pre-pay on-line, and on other days 9let's say, if it is "taco Tuesday") they bring their own lunches. We are blessed with a very diverse student body, so nobody treats you like a weirdo, if you eat buckwheat or pirogi.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

I guess the menu varies each day, but on this reservation that had a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables. This is true even of the commodities building I visited, where they ration out food for the tribal members each month. I need to visit my nephew's school one day for lunch. I think healthy options always exist, it's just a matter of whether a kid will pick them. If they are faced with pizza, burgers or some other junk food, most will pick that over a salad.

[j1980.livejournal.com]

Иногда в столовке разнообразней питаешься, чем дома.

ава ок

[creaze.livejournal.com]

-

[romanklimenko.livejournal.com]

My school cafeteria memories are horrible. In a last decade of USSR existence we had disgusting cold sweet tea and two days old bun with piece of some pastrami parody. Most of my childhood memories are clear from negative episodes. But I still recall with disgust that cafeterias.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

This does not sound tasty. You did not have hot soup or buckwheat? :))

[ksiuniko.livejournal.com]

Hi, Russian kids don't bring lunch to school. There are healthy food in Russian schools. But in NYC OMG, only junk, maybe once in week kids get something about healthy. Fried potatoes, nuggets, burgers. All go to garbage. They call that healthy food)))

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

What do kids eat in Russian schools? I've seen some photos online. This food does not look healthy or tasty either. Some type of mystery meat and sweet juice, with buckwheat on the side.

Купер, Джеймс Фенимор

[andrey-kaminsky.livejournal.com]

The ancestors of these Indians were disgusting commies, who had no private ownership of land and had universal suffrage. Hopefully now they abandoned these delusions and replaced them with more advanced ideas - to vote for Republicans and to build aircraft carriers. That's what progress is.

Re: Купер, Джеймс Фенимор

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

No, now they live under a sort of socialist scheme with the Tribal Council as leaders, and U.S. government to a certain extent. Not so bad. They can sit all day on their asses, and still collect food, or loiter in the alley and drink their lives away. But there are many good people there, trying to preserve the Native traditions with the youth and make the communities better.

[mybathroom.livejournal.com]

My son eats in the school and also we give him some food like yogurt.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

I love yogurt!

[inescher.livejournal.com]

I don't know what's going on in Russian school now. During my childhood, in USSR, we didn't bring our own lunches in school. It was prohibited. Kids could bring the snacks only. But sometimes it was the sandwiches with different type of meat products (bologna typically but some kids from richest family could have salami), or cheese+ fruit (apple 90% of time). This snack could cover the lunch for some kids. But little kids had to use school lunches (in my school it was mandatory).
The typical school lunch contended soup (I hate it. I like homemade soups but what they did in cafeteria... :(((), some kind of "meat" portion (kotleta, meatball, frankfurter, etc. Interesting, but boiled chicken was available for our teachers only.) or fish (fried fish, like pollock with bones, or fish kotleta), some garnish to this (pasta, mashed potatoes, barley, rice, wheat), and "salad". In my memory there were only 2 types of salad. One is sour cucumbers/pickles with onion and sunflower oil; another one (my favorite) fresh cabbage, cucumbers, sunflower oil. Also the meal offer a drink. Sweet tea, or kompot (the drink similar to fruit punch but sometime made from dry fruits). Also sometimes we had kisel (the drink with potato starch in). Oh, yes, I forgot about 1 or 2 pieces of gray bread. This is typical school meal from my childhood.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

What do you mean? Rich kids ate different foods than the ordinary students in the school? Fresh cabbage and cucumber salad sounds tasty! I'm very picky with meats, so I would probably avoid them in school cafeterias.

[theodorexxx.livejournal.com]

It's not a salad if vegetables aren't chopped, And knowing you hate the mayo I don't dare to mention it
Ha! You already wrote about school lunches a year ago.
Perhaps my english fucks me but what you called a roll looks like a typical булочка I ate in school. Lots of bread and 1(one) raisin in it

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

There is no raisin in this bread. It's just a typical American dinner roll. I can't imagine putting mayo on any of the items on this tray, and yes I hate it. I eat everything plain. I don't like salad dressings, or any condiments like mayo, ketchup, mustard...

[notabler.livejournal.com]

I did work in English school canteen once, just 1 week. I've found this job very enjoyable. I made 100 sandwiches in 20 minutes. I liked also how high were standards of hygiene there, just perfect. But kid liked fast food and sweets much more than healthy options. Now Jamie Oliver is campaigning a lot for a changes in schoolchildren meals, for new tax for fizzy drinks. In Soviet time all children used to have the same meals in school canteen, no lunchboxes whatsoever. And almost no choice

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

100 sandwiches in 20 minutes - impressive! :)

[kremlin-curant.livejournal.com]

Soviet school canteens were the most terrible things in Soviet schools. Except for the political information regarding the vicious West and gore-thirsty United States.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

I don't want to know what they told Soviet students about the West...I remember almost no discussions about the Soviet Union or Russia during my school or university days.

[rina-grant.livejournal.com]

I used to study at several Soviet schools - most had hot lunches, but one only had a stall where students could buy snacks and hot drinks. But normally, even though food was of, well, institutional standard, it adhered to strict health and nutrition standards regarding the meals' caloric and nutritional content (% of carbs, fat, protein, etc.) It was boring but hey, don't get me even started on French hospital food (I had a few quality stays in French hospitals) - it's absolutely _abysmal_ .

Normally, Soviet-time school meals consisted of a soup (cabbage soup, borsch, chicken noodle, whatever), a second course (usually meat patties, gulash, stroganoff with buckwheat, potatoes, pasta, etc, on the side); sometimes it was - oh horror - fish, always fresh-water with lots of bones in it; I still can't stand fish and it takes all my willpower to eat it when I absolutely have to. It was followed by a very primitive "dessert" - normally a sweet drink like "compote" (a drink of stewed dried fruit) ot "kissel" (runny fruit jelly). No fresh vegetables, but then again, not many Soviet Russians had them out of season, anyway: they simply weren't available. Lots of black and white bread for students to help themselves. The food was extremely basic and tasted bland and institutional but it was sufficient and definitely not as junky as all those horrible deep fried school meals I saw in Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. The meal on your photo actually looks very healthy. Which is a very good thing, considering the obesity epidemic among Native Americans.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the detailed answer. :) Yes, there is an obesity epidemic amongst Native Americans, and a lot of prevention measures and propaganda to avoid diabetes. I saw it on the reservation.

[leo y (from livejournal.com)]

In my school in Moscow during the Soviet days, we had two types of lunches. "Student lunch" cost 28 kopeks. You could also buy supposedly much better "teacher lunch", which cost 32 kopeks. I don't recall much difference, other than the portion being a bit larger in the case of the latter.
Typical menu was some kind of soup (schi or borsch) with sour crear and grease floating in it. Rye bread was also available. Then "kotleta" made out of mystery meat with a spoonful or two of mashed potato. And then "kompot", a fruit drink. Not terribly tasty (except for kompot:). And probably not very healthy, either.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

I love kompot - tasty. :) Greasy foods are disgusting, so if it is floating on top of the soup, I could not eat it, unless I had to for survival.

[irisha8787.livejournal.com]

I love Starbucks' protein boxes. I think if I was still going to school I would have preferred to eat something like that. In my school in Russia we used to get food stamps every month, that would allow us to buy a kotleta or a hot dog wrapped in dough and kompot. But if you used 2 tickets, you could get "vtoroe", which would be a serving of rice with meat or fish. since russian schools are usually 8am to 1pm, students would rather spend their stamps on a snack than a full lunch and then go home to eat. If you had an extra curriculum, parents would give you some money for "real lunch".

Also! You have technology classes, where they teach you to cook, so you can eat there. And usually that food was good too!

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Yes, the protein boxes are good! I'm now back on a low card diet and buy them sometimes when I'm in a rush in the mornings.

[qi-tronic.livejournal.com]

What a coincidence :))

lenta. ru/articles/2016/03/02/reservations/

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Interesting, thanks! It's true, they now live as ordinary Americans for the most part, and like to take money from the white man at tourist attractions and casinos. :))

[iamschik.livejournal.com]

Hi Shannon,
Since my school was somewhat priveleged in early 70-s, we could buy extremely yummy huge chocolate waffle candy; they cost 10 kopeeks each, at that time - horribly expensive, so we use to pitch in, and share it. The food was disgusting, and smelled disgusting, and looked disgusting. We are talking about Moscow school with advanced study of English.
Back in preschool, the most horrible day was Friday when they gave each kid a big open-face sandwich with the butter and black caviar. I was so scared of those millions fish eyes, and we were not allowed to leave the table till we finished it. On the other hand, teachers were prohibited from taking it from us, even if we begged them, so they would just walk around, drooling, poor things.
I struck a deal with my favorite teacher: I would be the last at the table, and then I would help her to clean the table, and cautiously slip the horrible caviar sandwich into her hands, or her mouth:) It was the deal of Eternal Salvation!:)
Now, as an adult, I don't mind black caviar that much but still prefer red caviar (salmon eggs)

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

"millions fish eyes..." :)) I don't like fish, especially ones that are placed on a plate or sandwich with their eyes still intact. :) I once wrote a post about it - http://peacetraveler22.livejournal.com/69240.html.

[metaller.livejournal.com]

Lunch on photo looks very yammy !

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

I ate it all - very good! Especially the spicy soup.

[den-dark.livejournal.com]

In my childhood (90es) I always eat in the school cafeteria. Breakfeast was free if I remember correctly. And dinner cost some money (not very much).
It wasn't very fancy food (some food I liked like sandwitches, some don't - like porridge). Still it was plenty and it was healthy food. And it was funny to eat with other kids and share jokes and e.t.c. Still food was always same for all. And of course noone used lanchboxes.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

My nephew likes to buy lunch in the cafeteria, and hates when my sister packs his lunch. I guess it's more fun to stand in line and pick which items you want, rather than eating what your mom tells you to. :)) Although parents can monitor which items the kid picks each day to eat, to ensure they are eating healthy if this is a concern.

[yacc11.livejournal.com]

For me soviet ages cafeteria in schools is better. I do not like a lettuce :) For me mix of tomato and cucumber with a sour cream is more tasty.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Almost all men I know rarely eat vegetables. They want meat, meat and more meat! :))

[anna-sollanna.livejournal.com]

my favourite meal from the soviet school canteen was grey pasta with cheese. I've never tasted such a meal after so I don't know whether I would consider it tasty now.
In my childhood it was used for children to eat lunches at canteens but in last years of my childhood I used to take a sandwich from home.

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Gray pasta? :) I've never seen such a thing! And why was it gray? Was it due to an ingredient in the pasta, or just artificial coloring?

Rerservation

[barb yulia (from livejournal.com)]

So, you're saying, reservation is a good word? And this nice word means some nice place?
OK, let's look at Wiki, for instance. Here are some excerpts from the article, written by American people, I guess:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_reservation

"...The name "reservation" comes from the conception of the Native American tribes as independent sovereigns at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Thus, the early peace treaties (often signed under duress) in which Native American tribes surrendered large portions of land to the U.S. also designated parcels which the tribes, as sovereigns, "reserved" to themselves, and those parcels came to be called "reservations."[9] The term remained in use even after the federal government began to forcibly relocate tribes to parcels of land to which they had no historical connection.



...From the beginning of the European colonization of the Americas, Europeans often removed native peoples from lands they wished to occupy. The means varied, including voluntary moves based on mutual agreement, treaties made under considerable duress, forceful ejection, violence, and European wars in which the Native Americans were on the losing side.

...The passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 marked the systematization of a US federal government policy of forcibly moving Native populations away from European-populated areas.

...One example was the Five Civilized Tribes, who were removed from their native lands in the southern United States and moved to modern-day Oklahoma, in a mass migration that came to be known as the Trail of Tears. Some of the lands these tribes were given to inhabit following the removals eventually became Indian Reservations."

That's enough, I think. Duress, surrender, wars, forcible relocation, violence. Nice....

So, what do we have here? A bunch of people came to a foreign country and squeezed native population out of their own land. But who cares what happend long time ago? Now everything is great, right? They are "independent sovereigns", US government pays them - an earthly paradise, no less!

Every country has its own brainwashing system, but yours is the best, as I can see ;) What do they teach you at school about your own history? That America is the greatest nation, freedom, multy-culture, blah-blah?

Shame on you, Shannon. You're big girl enough to accept and to answer for your own history and crimes of your ancestors.

Re: Rerservation

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

Excuse me? I just saw your comment now, as it was marked as SPAM due to the weblinks you posted. "Reservation" - this term is used by locals Native Americans who live there, and they do not view it as a negative term. So, I'm not sure why you're preaching at me, or trying to suggest I'm insensitive. Yes, I do not like lazy people, who do not take any initiative to change their own lives or improve it for the better. And it doesn't matter if they're black, white, Asian or Native American. This is a mentality, and ultimately here in the USA, there are still a lot of opportunities if you're willing to make the effort and seek them. Even here in Browning, where there is a local college to get a degree and better your prospects for future employment....

Reservation food

[theo cecil decelles (from livejournal.com)]

Just like most Americans of every ancestry, Native Americans are fat. Almost everywhere you look on the reservation, you're going to see obesity. We put down our bows and arrows and turned on our microwaves. A number of factors has contributed to tribal obesity: poor nutritional education, government commodities, fast food, cheap carbohydrates, but that is changing. Glacier Family Foods is a premier destination with many natural foods that one might find at Whole Foods Market but is far cheaper, and is tribally owned. Some people say a sovereign nation owning a grocery store is socialism, and I say, so what. So is our national school lunch program. Though our unemployment rate is high at 11%, those who actually have jobs receive meager wages, so we supplement our food sources with hunting. To turn the page on obesity, we are starting with our children. I know people have seen those pitiful American school lunch photos compared to the haute cuisine of school lunches around the world. So the Blackfeet Nation has decided that if everybody thinks we're just a bunch of impoverished Indians, we might as well spend the national school lunch program's money on the best school lunches available in America. As you can see, that is something we are superior at doing.

Re: Reservation food

[peacetraveler22.livejournal.com]

I visited Glacier Family Foods. :) This is where I actually met the two wonderful ladies who live on the reservation and spent the day with me there. I write a lot about socialism because most of the readers of this blog are Russian, or from former Soviet-bloc countries. This is a region of the world that is of special interest to me, and I travel there frequently, you can see many stories about various Russian villages and small provincial towns in my blog, plus lot of other countries. The lunch I saw on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning was very impressive. We did not have options like that when I was a school child. People are more obese now because we are more lazy - tied to our electronics, rather than moving about and exploring. Thanks for all of your comments to these stories from Browning - it's really interesting to hear from another tribal member. Cultural exploration and studies is my true passion in life. Both in the USA and abroad. :))