Fluffernutter Crushes Foes In Taste Test

I did not eat a school cafeteria lunch until ninth grade. It wasn’t an option since our school didn’t even have a cafeteria until I hit seventh grade.

Many of us walked home at lunch time until the school built a cafeteria. Others just ate at their desks which made the classroom smell like stale milk each afternoon. In one hour I was able to catch a hot lunch, watch some Leave it To Beaver on television and run one block back to school.

The new cafeteria didn’t actually serve lunches. Instead, we could buy milk and sit at big tables while the room was monitored by volunteers to give the nuns a break. Imagine our surprise that year when we realized that nuns ate lunch too. We just assumed they went back to church to pray for strength to get through the afternoon.

Once I started bringing my lunch, every day was a surprise. Just like June Cleaver, my mother packed our lunches and had them waiting for us at the door. There was little discussion and even less argument about what was in the bag. So just like Wally and the Beaver, my brother and I grabbed the sack lunch and walked to school.

The lunches were not what you’d call gourmet but I enjoyed them anyway. Looking back, I wondered how my mother’s school lunches would fare with today’s discriminating lunch critics. To find out, I conducted a taste test using nine kids from Allen ISD’s Kids Club program. The highly scientific study asked the kids to rate each of my mother’s signature sandwiches as Great, OK, or Terrible.

I called the first sandwich a “Goober” after the jar of blended peanut butter and jelly with the same name. We were fascinated by the convenience of combining both in a single jar and overlooked the marginal taste of both. One young taster observantly noted that it tasted like peanut butter and jelly. Overall it earned 6 greats, 2 ok’s and a no comment.

The next sandwich was called a Philadelphia after the cheese. Cream cheese and jelly was a standard lunch item. Spreading cold cream cheese on dry bread was the hardest part of this delicacy. Four kids said it was great, 2 said ok and 2 rated it above a great with an “awesome” and a “love it.”

The Deviled Sandwich refers to that small can of deviled ham. With a consistency and smell similar to cat food, I can’t imagine why I liked the stuff. I mixed some with mayonnaise and three of the kids thought it was great. Two thought it was ok, 2 thought it tasted like tuna fish and 2 wouldn’t touch it.

Finally came the most delicious and disgusting sandwich of all – The Fluffernutter. I could almost sing the whole commercial jingle as I spread the marshmallow fluff on the cheap white bread. I learned years ago to add the peanut butter to the other slice. Rumors circulated that astronauts on Apollo 13 used marshmallow fluff to fuse pipes together but I couldn’t verify it.

The kids loved it though and one said he would go home and beg his mother to buy some fluff. This classic rated 5 greats, 2 ok’s, an “I love it” and a “best ever.”

Mom knows best again. She didn’t get a single “terrible” rating. The kids, who admitted eating almost nothing but peanut butter and jelly, have expanded their tastes and are almost ready for Spam.