School Lunch Ain’t Like it Used to Be

Retailers are probably the group who are most excited about back to school.  Every ad on TV is for new clothes, or stuff to decorate your locker, like a mini chandelier, or food for lunch.  The Target ads with the background music of middle school band songs are my favorite.

When I was a kid one of my favorite days was going to Boyd’s stationary store in the village center to buy my new cloth covered blue notebook and all the supplies that went into my pencil bag. That one notebook served all my subjects so the divider tabs read, English, History, Science, Math and French.  French was my worst subject.  I wish that someone had clued me in that Spanish was easier and so much more useful here in America, but no, French was the language of diplomats.  Somebody should have figured out I was never going to be cut out for diplomacy.  Now Carter has to have a different notebook for every subject.

Today I ran into the Harris Teeter to get some cheese for a cheese soufflé.  OK, I cook French, but don’t speak more than menu French now.  While I was perusing the cheese rhombus, I did well in math; I noticed a lot more individual “lunch box ready” cheese options.  First, I must say I was looking at the ‘gourmet” cheese case, not the processed, presliced, shredded or string cheese case.  In the fancy cheese home there were the omnipresent Baby Bells, which now come in about six varieties, then some small Allouté cups of garlic cheese spread, not so fancy or gourmet, but still a step up from the Velveeta or American Cheese slices of my child hood.

Then I saw a small plastic bag with six individual cups of, wait for it, Brie!  Lunch box ready Brie — Have you ever?  Now I would have loved brie in my lunch as a kid and I know my daughter would like it now, but liking it and being given Brie for school lunch are two different things.  When I was a kid we made our own lunches. We were lucky if we got a peanut butter sandwich made with the heels from two different sized loaves of bread so that when you put it together the peanut butter on one side stuck to the baggie.

If a cheese producer has done all the research to know there is a big enough market for individual Brie’s in a cup I’m sure they will sell.  I looked around near the Brie and could not find mini baguettes, small individual bottles of sparkling grape juice or mini cream brulee.  What was the Harris Teeter thinking?  When you go up market you might as well go the whole way.  I expect that the cost of a gourmet, but quick to throw in a designer neoprene lunch box is going up, but kids now a days must not be settling for peanut butter sandwiches anymore.