today we’re recreating the first school lunch in America pizza sticks not those today’s historic meal is inspired by the first American school lunch program served in Boston Massachusetts on January 24th 1890 Ellen swallow Richards opened the New England kitchen as an experiment to determine the successful conditions of preparing nutritious and palatable dishes by using scientific methods and cheaper food materials the kitchen soon expanded to other neighborhoods and secured a contract to prepare lunches for Boston public high schools in 1894 they became the first schools in the US to participate in a school lunch program like cafeteras today students could buy a complete lunch or individual items such as milk soup sandwiches rolls ice cream and cakes today we’re recreating some of the meals from the late 19th century School lunchrooms we’re making a scalloped oyers baked Indian pudding baked apples and split pea soup so Boston right I I want to try to do a Boston accent but what if I upset Bill Burr Matt Damon and Ben affle like will they come beat me up I don’t like the way you said that but maybe come beat me up oh come okay Daddy don’t dress as a sexy dunino dang it it’s time for meal of History who do we have Over Yonder hey get out of my kitchen out of here get out of here I’m done cut the cameras I don’t need this energy in my life wait are you an adult yes I am an adult okay thank god listen I had to uh get a new persona cuz these kids M they kind of uh they’re tough they work in factories yeah they’re all T they all work in factories and they’re from Boston so they are tough they throw they throw rocks at me if I don’t have if I don’t have a big Persona like hey get out you know if I don’t do that then they they hurt me you have to turn into the monster that you’re defending against so I’m I’m a very nice girl uh no you seem girl from from Boston can you tell I’m really working hard at this accent that Boston accent is working hard it’s it’s kind of hard to think about like the jokes that I’ve come up with this through this character I’m guessing so you’re you’re the lunch lady yeah you’re kind of the first lunch I’m the only one who works here you are only one and they these kids they make fun of me they do this thing where they they come up and they they my flap on my arm yeah so I gotta I got to be tough or else these kids will walk all over me I totally you’re in a weird position where you are part you’re the on the Forefront of such a new Endeavor because never before has there been lunch served to children on it’s also 1890 I don’t know is this an 1890 kind of vibe perfect 1890 ACC I don’t know so Duncan right now we’re gonna I’m so sorry to everyone from Boston I’m just I’ve been watching um just Goodwill Hunting back to back trying to figure this out Larry Bird plays the game the right way with a lot of hustle and smart that’s what she saying over it’s hard to also you want to go into the Brooklyn accent that makes sense cuz it’s so much easier cuz it sounds like this it’s like more like in the side of your mouth like this kind of thing I just do Bill bur the whole time but Bill the kids are out here they a’t got no lunch they got no lunch okay that was Brooklyn again we’re going to have to have a Brooklyn counter on the screen okay cuz if I go into Brooklyn you got to we got to get cooking because they’re hungry children they’re going to throw rocks at you they’re chronically malnourished and we’re going to cook one of the recipes from they also say slurs yeah words saying at me I swear to God Jesus Christ there had been some Public School lunch programs in Europe in the 1700s basically people during Public Schools realized that oh my God these poor children are now interacting with middle class children and the poor children were coming in very hungry so it’s one of the first times that you really saw like malnourishment in the public Ser so people were like we should try and get rid of this but in America it’s easier to do like child labor 100% if you feed them like actually it’s like if they’re not hungry they’ll actually work kind of but you know part of this is trying to provide adequate nutrition for work and then part of this was part of a very new social reform movement that Ellen swallow Richards who founded the New England kitchen that eventually turned into the modern day school lunch program was her maiden name swallow Yes actually and she decided to keep it actually yeah she loved swallow so much honestly I bet on the fights between the kids me and the janitor we go we watch the kids fight we’re like okay and I win every time he’s mad at me I can’t is mad at now it’s aiding and abetting a crime if I listen to the cops in 1890s Boston I’m sure we’re the cops are in on it can you it’s Boston can you shut these oysters for me we’re making a recipe that was from the New England kitchen cookbook called escalloped oysters you do you got the oysters now you got escallop that’s very good I I have my own type of uh uh shocking okay all right get out of here get out of the show how did you get hired listen you hire the first employee don’t be don’t be you don’t know what you’re looking for in the first hire and so you end up with my friend here at the oysters standard back not these are these are oysters yeah it’s the oysters fault I’m sure These suck I don’t know where you got these but they don’t listen got him from the hab Brooklyn oysters um so this was on the original School lunch menu in 1894 which was in the boys whatever that is yeah Crush that I’ll shuck the oysters I’ll shuck the oysters so the escol it’s basically a bunch of butter and cracker crumbs with spices and oysters this if you look at the original menu from the first school lunch in 1894 she actually LM swallow Richards who was the first woman admitted into MIT which is crazy uh she actually broke down all of the carbohydrates fats and protein which was wild what I’m doing I think it’s great okay which was wild because the idea of the macronutrient was only figured out about 20 years earlier so this is actually what’s a macronutrient it was figured out in 1860s by Justice V Li big that doesn’t and you don’t know about it 160 years later no macronutrients are carbohydrates fats and proteins so all food is made up of those three macronutrients and those are sort of the building blocks of nutrition so we were really still figuring out the idea of modern nutrition by the time the school lunch program came out but again she was a scientist and she was using a lot of the findings of other scientists like um there’s a guy named count Rumford the New England kitchen was original real name this it’s r r name he was a physicist who used a lot of his scientific techniques to figure out new cooking methods on how to extract nutrients he basically invented bullion cubes to try and nourish as many people as possible and so a lot of what Ellen swallow Richards did in the Boston school lunch program is sorry your accent makes me want to hold a blade I know it does makes you want to like stand up straight through oh yeah keep talking about that thing oh yeah yeah that thing so basically all of this menu that we’re cooking today this was meant to provide child to beat this on this is meant to provide as much kids come nutrition and as much flavor as possible using the cheapest ingredients so that’s why you get a lot of butter crackers high calorie density things cuz you had kids coming to school than whatever I was doing what’s your name how do I address you Ru Ru Ru please add the cracker crumbs to that bowl and then mix the butter with it the one thing that I really believe in is that every child in America and around the world because we have the means to do it should get in equal chance at life to any other child right I age even if you want to play the game of like oh it’s your fault you’re poor it’s no child’s fault and so to be able to give a kid the goal of this program was onethird of their daily calories to at least give them a chance and this is there was like stew sometimes which sounds lit Stew was actually basically the cheapest way to get the most nutrients into children this is dry bread crumbs so you take the day old bread from the sandwiches that maybe didn’t get eaten and then you add that to this delicious a scalloped oyster okay I’m going to dump the butter into the breadcrumbs you’ll see a notable lack of fruits and vegetables in a lot of these recipes mainly because vitamins weren’t discovered until 20 years later so they’re like Ah that’s for the rich a feat people uh but oval te remember that oval did you have Ovaltine as a kid my dad still had the idea that Ovaltine was healthy well I it is what do you mean it is no just sugar and malt powder delicious look it up can you look it up for me no there really is there’s vitamins in oval te but doesn’t mean it no there’s like a lot no it’s it actually is good for you but it is also a lot of sugar and stuff but then there’s other stuff but there was like a big oval te moment in the 90s there was well oval te I I think of it as even earlier like came back like it came back with a vengeance my parents had so much oval tee and I would get a spoon and get the the powder and just eat you’re dry scooping oval te yeah do what what so tell us the vitamins in oval te I’m seeing vitamins a d and calcium and copper but it’s also high in added sugar but there’s like fiber in there too right and magnesium Emily I think this is where you learn I want to be right no because okay I mean we had the square pizza of course I didn’t do school lunches in elementary school elementary school my mom made me a cheese sandwich cuz I hated lunch meat just cheese and white bread um there were grapes no that no why do you make me do that cream sherry and oyster juice keep and uh I get baby carrots which I would throw away and then uh grapes and a Little Debbie cake and best ever it was so good in high school we had microwaves that we could use yeah and I got the cans of Chef boy Rd ravioli my God and I would warn those up in the fridge it’s so funny in the fridge in the microwave that is literally World War II food and like World War II is another inflection point in the school lunches in America because then it became a national security issue it was literally how do we raise our large young men to be strong enough to fight America’s biggest foreign enemies and so oh this is Mace it’s a spice you’re the lunch lead you should know this Rutha what are you doing hey I know it’s your third day on the job the kids are throwing rocks at you you don’t have to be so road that was Brooklyn again dang it so we have our alternating layers of oysters cream oyster juice cherry and buttery crackers a little bit of M and nutmeg in there and now we’re going to pop this in the oven till it’s nice and baked and again in 1894 Boston they were serving 5,000 kids a day only one year into the program so these would have been I’m the only lunch lady you’re just baking this in a giant vat with a kayak ore I swear to God it’s going to go in the oven we’re going to give it a taste oh I you want to go bed on some kids oh that’s all I want do you take the bigger kid or the me Bobby is Bobby is like the king he’s like 300 lb and he’s 12 how much of scol of oyers is Bobby eating Bobby is eating all of them and if I don’t give him all of them he uh throws rocks at my ass you sound like a real housewife of Long Island now trust me I got a big old lunch lady yes look at these apples is that was that good do you like apples I love them how about them apples M Dam it that’s what kids say when they throw rocks at my fat ass how about look those apples they do this your boss ell swallow Richard as I mentioned she was a social performer and I think one of the most inspiring things she said was that schools should not teach children how to make a living before they teach them how to live because this is all an extension of how to actually live kind of a virtuous life and her Hero count Rumford one thing that that he said is uh why do we try and not help the poor until they’re virtuous why not help them and that will lead to Virtue so that’s why we’re making the kids dessert I love that that’s so true really though yeah so we’re making baked Indian pudding cornmeal was known as like Indian flour to make Indian bread back then because this is an indigenous crop to the Americans and was used a lot of native cooking so oh so it’s not like from India no it’s like Native American book the official in the all right uh it was a different time so we’re adding a little bit of sugar to milk right here they would actually use skim milk in schools generally because it was cheaper sugar and fat no sugar went in there this is cornmeal oh how did you get this job I was here you’re making baked apples you’re going to go ahead and stir together yeah yeah yeah I know how to do this there there were a lot of opponent to this school program mostly the janitors because the janitors go for it the janitors would actually sell food to the children because they weren’t getting provided lunch and this food was prepared in like basements and closets and so Ellen swall Ellen swallow Richards comes in says like hey maybe there should be sanitation standards the janitors literally organized and revolted and got shopkeepers to put up signs that said don’t let anyone tell you how to eat so they were like the early like Pro School food choice to try and sell more poison to Children uh which I think is really bad trust me I think about poisoning these children all the time the children all the time don’t tell your does your boss know you Harbor these thoughts uh my boss is scared of me listen I do a lot of things to like make myself scary to the kid like uh you know how to get rid of bear uh-huh look I’ll give an example I’m tempering the hot milk into the eggs so to not scramble the eggs the and then you got you got ah get out get out of my kitchen your little rat bastards what if I told you I hate you the way you’re treating these children is going what I do to my boss basically be the same for the next 130 years on the way that lunch ladies treat children you’re setting the the trend you have a chance though to reverse this curse now that we’re back to the futuring this thing listen I you’re asking a lot of women don’t make you abusing children a feminist issue here okay that’s not anyone could do it all of the cornmeal into the egg custard I’m going to add in some rais hey get out of here get out of my kitchen you little bastard there’s no kid she’s just having PTSD flashbacks little Bobby once just ran up on her get that rock that is a big rock you can’t throw that oh you can these are good spoons I’m adding the raisins to the pudding why do you have so many Wooden Spoons do you really need all of these like kind of we cook a lot of food here do you guys just get in a row and everybody’s got a spoon and they’re like wooden spoon time on mythical kitchen that’s almost all we [Music] do with the brown hey hey wait a minute this is something I can do she’s gonna do that anyways hey all right people saw what was happening in 1894 Boston it was a pretty big success in schools but that’s almost because it wasn’t a success outside of schools so the New England kitchen wasn’t meant for schools initially it was meant to educate poor workers in how to feed them and their children better at home however Ellen found herself like pretty unable to convince grown people that they should try and cook better cheaper more delicious foods there was a lot of resistance towards it so she basically said if we start children on this early maybe they can learn that’s how home economics in public school was sort of founded that’s why I can’t button this dress anymore I grew up on pizza sticks yeah same that’s where I’m at I think about I mean I grew up eating just chicken nuggets and iceberg lettuce was our vegetable little packets of uh buttermilk dressing that was 90% corn syrup and that set the tone for what I thought food was call your representatives call your representatives that’s what we all say we’re going to put the the the link to know what the phone numbers are right down here but truly I mean support good organizations like no kid can we do that let’s do that school lunches everybody likes those like this is not an this is a bipar is an issue unless you’re a janitor who’s selling moldy sandwiches to children in SCH I know is encroaching on your territory talk about Richard like that he could hear you can I add some water to the bottom of this I want to do it do it oh my God before we get to making this delicious soup we have a very exciting announcement we are doing the first ever pay-per-view live stream in mythical kitchen history it’s called survive the mythical Kitchen yes Emily and I going to be there we’re going to be drunk and the rest of the kitcheners they are going to be going through their most grueling challenge ever we are going to finally decide once and for all who the best Ultimate Kitchener is and it is going to be a very very wild time yeah and I there won’t be editors for me so true we’re a little worried but this character is offensive with what you’re seeing you don’t know what they edited out you’re probably going to want to cut this [Music] I think this is the most offensive character I’ve ever done I agree and when we do this they can’t edit anything out so you should watch CU you really should I might lose my job yeah watch Emily fully crash out and have a breakdown uh but also I won have a breakdown the company will have a breakdown really cool important thing for us because things like a pay-per-view live stream are how we get to make all these fantastic shows and we’ve never done it before we’re frankly a little bit nervous about it but very very excited so please a bad idea it might be I I mean to let me unfilter do you know all the stuff that I say off camera oh my God back to the soup that’s what you all came here for we’re making a soup soup is a big big part of the New England kitchen and the early school lunch program because the best way to preserve nutrients is to cook it into a soup to eat the liquid and that’s true they’ve done studies where if you drain off the liquid that vegetables thank you so much for the addition hey what you what you doing over here we’re doing show child there’s no Rock nutrients are best preserved in broth and that is a lot of the early nutrition science that was done by people like count Rumford and Ellen swallow Richard so I’m going to start rendering off salt pork salt the accent uh this recipe right here what we’re making this is about 1,800 calories and 62 g of protein meant to be four portions and again it is like really revolutionary that in her cookbooks the recipe she published from the school lunch program from the New England kitchen they had a full macronutrient breakdown um that was actually like a really revolutionary thing wooden spoon too do you want another inspirational quote from Ellen swallow Richards sure so she said she was very much an optimist about the way that these social programs were going and she said in the 19th century it will be unconscionable for schools to lure children in with a promise of Education only to poison them with bad food we both went to school yeah I mean public education I mean the Boston Latin School is the first public school in America in 1635 and it’s very fitting that that was the first school that this pilot first public school was in Boston in America yeah cool Boston L school it really was I mean I am very grateful that you know I I grew up super low income but I grew up in a relatively affluent area that had very good Public Schools so like I’m incredibly grateful for the fact that you know despite my parents not having the means I had a lot of opportunity because I was around good schools I brought a knife to school in the third grade she brought a knife to school these are split pe’s so these are a type of field pee that are going to like get super super starchy there’s a lot of great protein a lot of great carbs in this I’m going to just add that to here and then I’m going to glaze it with water get all that pork flavor off the bottom when I heard of split peas soup I thought it was just like these are this is just liquid Peas I didn’t know you actually split the peas does someone have a little knife and they just split all the peas maybe like a thousand years ago but like now there’s Machin that just like put it in a big tumbler and then they split the peas but how do they do it so perfect I don’t most peas just have the same structure check this right here is what’s called like a reverse R so we’re adding floured butter we’re going to put this in to thicken it later but the thing that I love about this this is this is going to be delicious right this is like pork it’s this is salty it’s meaty it’s starchy and one of the main what she doing this is salty it’s meaty it’s starchy and one of the main goals of this was to give people nutritious food CU like the worker must have bread the worker must also have roses you know what I mean if people are eating delicious food they’re happier they’re also more likely to eat nutritious food if it tastes good you guys what the hell are you grabbing at I was looking for a tiny knife to split peas with and then I saw the tiniest Little Fork this would be good for my American Girl doll can I have itk she’s got overalls on right now I can put it in we’re going to bring the split soup up to a simmer for about 8 hours is it dirty though let this cook for a long time with this we’re going to add that Ro to thicken it and then I think we’re ready to [Music] eat it’s so cute I’m keeping this can I have it please you can have it absolutely that’s yours that’s your Christmas bonus courtesy of the New England K thank you oh it is dir we’re going to let this soup run we’re going to gather all our foods and eat our first ever school lunch in America all right look at this over here oh that’s Brooklyn dang it there it goes again Ruth we finally get to eat we have our escalloped oysters over here we have our Indian pudding with the cornmeal and the Raisins We have these baked apples covered them with a little bit of cream we have of course that wonderful split pea soup and then some other things that would have been common at the lunch table never had split pea soup before excited me we got some normal rolls here grab a roll we have some Lemon Jelly some butter and then just lard you don’t need utensils when you have gloves on you know that yeah I can just do anything you can do it without gloves too but see check this up but I do have a utensil I’d like to [Music] use can I serve you up a scol of oysters yeah oh my God I’m put next to the soup I’m putting it next to the soup this is so thick with oyster you feel the smells like the ocean right there of the oysters I’m slightly nervous about that I don’t know if this conforms to Modern taste but again 1894 would have been different here let me get you some soup give me a soup I’ll take you soup bowl all right this is a relatively upsetting color but that’s split pea soup what if I eat this with this here we go oh I’m going to do it being hot and being reheatable was actually a really big part of this lunch program M I like that you like the oysters let me try them let me try them this is nutso I like it not so good not bad at all yeah oh uh-oh what wrong what wrong no I’m getting real strong oyster flavor right now okay a lot stronger than I have some soup it started out really nice I can’t eat the soup with this I feel ready to learn I feel ready to work like a lathe yes you know a lathe I feel ready to work a lathe what is that I don’t know it’s Industrial Equipment what does a lathe do can someone Google what a lathe is seems like something a child oper l a i l t h e a lathe when you were a kid can you pass the lard real quick what can you pass the lard there’s three and the Lemon Jelly I want lard and Lemon Jelly that’s Lemon Jelly oh the now which one looks more like butter and which one looks more like okay all right all right I wasn’t being patronizing I was being helpful when I was a kid I don’t know if you guys did this but there were a lot of movies about kids in orphanages and there were like you know the Box Car children it was like kids who lived in a box car so that was like I don’t know Charles dicket I don’t know anyway we would pretend that we were like kids in an orphanage like Annie like Little Orphan Annie we’d be like oh no they’re making us eat the slop again how will we survive I don’t remember life before and then we’d all have like a little cchf on our head and be like we’re so cold we’re so cold and we’re orphin our parents are dead but you actually are one so you could probably play that better my culture is not your costume I’m I’m just breaking this roll off and putting put some L on your roll what are you doing you’re not going to have energy learn is it offensive that I was just playing as a poor person as a kid no man you’re a kid I was a kid it was bad it’s bad but you know what I don’t know and my parents are probably like we’re feeding you good food why are you like sitting here going e this is SL anything you got in an orphanage is probably healthier than instant ramen noodles like that’s what we grew up on I know that was just it I’m going to try this baked apple uh I also love baked apples this is one of those old timey foods that is just like always really good it’s so steamy it’s soft what is this we made it I know but I don’t recognize it little hot is it that cornmeal stuff yeah oh don’t do that hot look away okay look away oh oh my God isn’t that great that is amazing I know I wish I knew how we made it damn I feel like I was ripped off as a kid did I know Screw the pizza sticks this is where it’s at what’s really funny is even down to the equipment right we grew up with microwaves and ovens there’s something that the New England kitchen was outfitted with called an aladdin oven that was like an early pretense to the slow cooker so like slow cooking soups this is like good homemade food in made I mean in a time of absolute poverty in America I’m not going to lie the the oyster the escalloped oysters are one of the least fun things I’ve ever put on I thought it was all right but this soup is where it’s at soup and this thing it’s like a custard almost yeah like a pudding yes oh my God you guys you got to get some of this y’all get your Wooden Spoons gather around what do you think Rutha thinks about this meal oh God I’m going to have to find this accent again all right I think that was Brooklyn dang it okay ba ma uh Boston all right we’re back in there right it’s like you’re swimming in your mouth got a little bit of you got to get in there with the accent like Steve Irwin just ate peanut butter all right Ruther thinks this is too good for the kids they don’t deserve it they don’t deserve it they got they just you put all this together and then you just make a slap yeah and you just make you be grateful and then you go fight in the yard so I can make money listen with all due respect in the yard you know God forbid a woman to have hobbies in sports betting that Bobby he’s way too big he’s 300 lb what else are we going to do with him he don’t even fit in the factory seat for the kids well I feel inspired to learn uh what are the school subjects that they had in 1894 violence y oh we got the um pipe tightening pipe tightening class I feel inspired to go I’m assuming that’s what Factory stuff is I don’t know what kids did in the factories oh my God I’m so offensive in this episode thank you so much for stopping by mythical kitchen we got more episodes for you on the way let us know what meal of History you want to see me and my friend Rutha cook him next this character is permanent this I’m doing this every single time just Ruth and I’m also turning into this person permanently uh Rutha at the Battle of Carthage o don’t you want to see what she does there I do that sounds great see you Rutha at um what was the the thing where Jesus was eating Last Supper that one get your tickets now for mythical kitchen’s first ever live show survive the mythical kitchen available now at mythical kitchen live.com