FAST FOOD COMES TO BILLINGSLEY HIGH

Do you remember the first time you saw or ate a hamburger? I do. Billingsley High.

In the ’40’s, coming out of the Great Depression, my parents still produced what we ate, augmented by hunting and fishing.

Sandwiches around our table were unseen. Mom cooked three meals a day, consisting of a meat, lots of vegetables, with biscuits and cornbread – the cornmeal ground from corn we grew – slathered with butter from our own cows.

Desert? Nah, only on special Sundays did Mom waste the resources and spend the time to make her famous chocolate fudge cake.

On the grounds of Billingsley High stood a cannery, where surrounding families brought their produce and preserved it in gallon cans.

The lunch room benefited from the counties share of these canned goods, so for many years we were served delicious vegetables at school also.

It was as I neared junior high age, that a buzz went through my class, concerning the coming Friday lunch room menu They were going to serve hamburgers and potato chips! My only excitement came from knowing, I’d find out what those food items were.

So why the buzz? To me, hamburgers proved to be nothing more than a lot of bread with a piece of dry ground beef. I was so unimpressed, I gave mine to Earl, but kept the pickles and potato chips.

March 3, 2010 В· Carolyn В· 3 Comments
Tags: ,  В· Posted in: country life

3 Responses

  1. Melanie - March 6, 2010

    This just goes to show that even back then natural, home grown cooking was superior over processed food.

  2. Sue - March 8, 2010

    And to think it was a treat for us to go to the drive-in to eat a hamburger!

  3. Kat - March 28, 2010

    I can taste right now the delicious, over-powering sweet red tomatoes straight from Great Grandaddy’s garden sliced on my plate next to sliced cucumbers also from his garden there in Alabama!! I yearn for that today. Even at Whole Foods, those tomatoes just ain’t the same!!!!!!

    Fast food!!… is for a fast life. Just be careful or you won’t enjoy a thing!

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