Do you recall the halcyon days of your youth? The days spent in school, anxiously awaiting the bell, going to find your friends in the lunchroom, the same table every time? Surely you also remember the tasty lunches served to you in that room. Scrumptious salads with fresh vegetables, lovingly crafted sandwiches, bowls of gooey mac and cheese. No? Not sounding familiar? Your school lunch sucked?! Wow, pizza was a vegetable?! Gritty chicken nuggets! No, that can’t be right. All school lunches are delicious and nutritious! Unless… On this episode, we discuss the lengthy and opinionated history of school lunches, in all their infamy, with special guest David Cogswell (that’s me).

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to sources:

• “Eggo: The Waffle that Revolutionized the Frozen Food Industry,” by Mark Haney

• Levine, Susan. School Lunch Politics: The surprising history of America's Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2008.

• Weaver-Hightower, M. B. Unpacking School Lunch: Understanding the Hidden Politics of School Food. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 2022.

• Gaddis, J. E. (2019). The labor of lunch. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xpk

• https://www.usda.gov/

Alternate theme song: “Ai Like Hamburger” by The Idolm@ster

Ah, the hamburger. Whether you call it a Steamed Ham, a Royale with Cheese, or a Quarter Pounder, this beefy spheroid is one of America’s proudest exports. But did you know that a little more than a hundred years ago, the hamburger was regarded with intense suspicion, suggested to “fortify even Satan himself”? Join Nicole and Julia as they take a peek inside the bun to figure out just what it is that makes the hamburger so quintessentially American, and how meat-eating reinforces our notions of masculine identity. We also try to parse the insane "Hardee’s Girls" ads of the mid-2000s/2010s (you know the ones).

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to sources:

• The Hamburger: A History, by Josh Ozersky

• The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (25th Anniversary Edition), by Carol J. Adams

• Burger, by Carol J. Adams

• Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America’s Fast-Food Kingdom, by Adam Chandler

• “Who invented the hamburger? Biting into the messy history of America’s iconic sandwich,” by Erik Ofgang, The Washington Post

• “Hamburger” entry in Encyclopedia Britannica

• Unwrapped, Season 1 Episode 4, “Hamburgers Unwrapped”

• “What Is Baby Corn? Children of the Corn: Baby Corn, Demystified” by Niki Achitoff-Gray

Alternate theme song: “Queen of the Supermarket” by Bruce Springsteen

A dream awaits for you in aisle two of this product-packed episode! Join Nicole and Julia as they grocery shop through the ages, from bartering at markets in the early 1800s to grocery delivery services in the age of Covid. Marvel at mind-blowing innovations, such as the grocery cart, chain stores, and - gasp - the Piggly Wiggly man! So grab your reusable Trader Joe’s tote and come with us down to the local supermarket for a fun, food-filled adventure.

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to Sources:

• Ruhlman, M. (2017). Grocery: The Buying and Selling of Food in America. Abrams.
• Deutsch, T. (2010). Building a housewife’s paradise: Gender, Politics, and American Grocery Stores in the Twentieth Century. Univ of North Carolina Press.

• Counter. (2020, January 14). The wild story of how America almost banned chain grocery stores. The Counter.

• Tyrväinen, O., & Karjaluoto, H. (2022). Online grocery shopping before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A meta-analytical review. Telematics and Informatics, 71, 101839.

• Mothers’ diets have biggest influence on children eating healthy, MSU Today

• “These Mail-Order Diners Helped Define Roadside Eating. Now They're Disappearing,” by Kyler Alvord

• List of Valentine Diners by Location (outside of Kansas), Kansas Historical Society