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

Is a corn oyster REALLY an oyster? In their most self-indulgent and least food-related episode yet, Nicole and Julia take you inside the world of the popular historical doll series American Girl, and their much less popular series of cookbooks. In addition to learning about dolls and some specific American Girl characters, you’ll also learn what it was like to cook and dine on the Minnesota frontier in the 1850s and richy-rich upstate New York in the early 1900s. And, finally, maybe, you will learn what the heck fruit soup is. (We still don’t know either.)

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:

• “Trying Meals from the American Girl Cookbooks,” Darling Dollz

• Samantha’s Cook Book: A Peek at Dining in the Past with Meals You Can Cook Today, ed. by Jodi Evert and Jeanne Thieme

• Kirsten’s Cook Book: A Peek at Dining in the Past with Meals You Can Cook Today, ed. by Jodi Evert and Jeanne Thieme

• “What Pioneers ate on the Oregon Trail,” Tasting History with Max Miller

• What Pioneers Ate, Notes From The Frontier. Dec 4, 2019

• Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian America, by Susan Williams

• “Victorian Dinner Parties,” Shmanners Podcast

We’ve had cooking shows as long as we’ve had TV (and even before that, if you count radio!) But have you ever asked yourself, “Self, why do I like watching someone ELSE roast a chicken and say “BAM”?” Well, as it often turns out on this show, many people have many hot opinions on that. Join Nicole and Julia on this channel chase from radio to public TV to cable TV to YouTube and beyond as they learn about the history and some early pioneers of cooking shows.

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 (including video clips featured in the episode):

• The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture, edited by Kathleen Lebesco, and Peter Naccarato.

• "TV Dinners: Culinary Television, Education, and Distinction,” by Isabelle de Solier

• Television Cooking Shows: Defining the Genre, by Lori F. Brost (dissertation)

• Watching What We Eat: The Evolution of Television Cooking Shows, by Kathleen Collins

• As Easy as Pie: Housework, Temporality, and Postfeminist Popular Culture, by Elizabeth Nathanson (dissertation)

• “The Essence of Cooking Shows: How the Food Network Constructs Consumer Fantasies,” by Cheri Ketchum

• The Taco Liberty Bell

• Videos we watched:

  • • Julia Child Flipping a Potato: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6s6rVAkFrE&pp=ygUbanVsaWEgY2hpbGQncyBmdW5ueSBtb21lbnRz

    • Joyce Chen: https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_7E8DABA5A896477C9E230E4A4EC9F681

    • The Galloping Gourmet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqxw-_lCNk0&t=287s&ab_channel=LemonCooking

    • Emeril Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbn_kwMRCJM&ab_channel=ShaqC

    • Emeril and Julia Child make burgers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V9ELWibils&pp=ygUWZW1lcmlsIGFuZCBqdWxpYSBjaGlsZA%3D%3D

Alternate episode title: I’ll Farmer Your Fannie

Do you look at your kitschy, 90’s, chicken-themed measuring cup set and wonder why we use measuring cups at all? We can thank the “Mother of Level Measurements” for making it cool to use measuring cups, the basic recipe format, and so much more. Join Nicole and Julia as they follow Fannie Farmer from her humble beginnings to being the absolute alpha girlboss that we still know and love today. And if you love rambling tangents, then this is the episode for you.

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.

Links to Sources:

• Veit, H. Z., Knuppel, J., Railton, B., & Eyler, J. (2018, December 4). The rise of cookbooks in America. The Saturday Evening Post.

• Willan, A. (2021). Women in the kitchen: Twelve essential cookbook writers who defined the way we eat, from 1661 to today. Scribner.

• Fannie Farmer and the modern recipe, Tasting History with Max Miller

• Farmer, F. M. (1998). The original Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1896. H.L. Levin Associates.

• Shapiro, L. (2008). Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century.

We've had a chaotic few weeks here at Girls' Lunch Inc.--health issues (both familial and personal), work stress, mid-semester craziness--so we thought we would put together a silly minisode for you all. These are all bits and goofs from our forthcoming April episode about Fannie Farmer that have nothing to do with the episode subject. It's an episode trailer that tells you nothing about the episode. Maybe it's more like an early April Fools' joke.

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.

We all know them—those little, round, candy-coated, chocolate-filled rainbow chips that “melt in your mouth, not in your hand.” But did you know that M&Ms are made by one of the biggest corporations in the world, originally spawned via a partnership with its biggest rival? Or that a LOT of people have weird sex things with a piece of candy? Join Nicole and Julia on this colorful caper through candy history, where they dare to ask…what IS it about the green ones? Also, we assign genders to anthropomorphized corporate mascots, as is our right and custom as Americans. 

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.

Sources:

• The Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food, by Andrew F. Smith

• The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars, by Joël Glenn Brenner

• “The History of the M&M Characters”, by Nostalgia Critic/Channel Awesome

• “Can a Green Candy Make Love Sweeter?” by Lena Williams

• “Chocolate as an Aphrodisiac: Are Green M&M’s Randy Candy?” by Robert MacGregor

• “Let the Green M&M Be a Nasty Little Slut,” by EJ Dickson

• YouTube playlist of commercials mentioned: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTvMCKU5ZqpMNsi-DNhCdGIZxzTVc26qI&si=VGlF9mIPJiSZsDui