Flightless Bird: School Cafeterias

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Salisbury soup again?

My Joe isn't sloppy enough.

Talk about weak coffee! When I was growing up in New Zealand, there was no school cafeteria. You'd bring a packed lunch to school with you in your school bag. We didn't have school lockers either, so your bag would be as heavy as a St. Bernard dog because it would be filled to the brim with textbooks and your school lunch.

Flightless, flightless, flightless. bird, touchdown in America.

Morning, Monica.

Good morning.

How are you?

I'm... good.

You don't sound convinced.

Well, I have high cholesterol.

How high? Too high.

Skyrocket.

You're sucking back a green smoothie over there right now. It's bad.

I mean, I'm trying to be so healthy.

Yeah.

But I have a problem, because I'm going to Houston's tonight.

And that isn't the healthiest, healthiest food.

It's the best.

Yeah, best food.

Best food in the whole world.

Absolutely. But maybe not good for the cholesterol. Just pack that smoothie in your handbag, take it in, suck it back in there. Never, never. That's your life.

I'd rather have a heart attack and die. I said it. I'd rather have a heart attack and die than not go to Houston's.

Yeah, okay.

Not eat at Houston's. I'm just saying that. And you've also had a rough weekend.

Yeah, we have both had health problems. My back, there's some disc issue going on. As I sit here right now, I'm on muscle relaxants and tramadol. And I'm actually feeling sweaty and quite gross. So if I seem a bit out of it, I'm on all these drugs.

I'm so sorry. You do look really uncomfortable. Maybe we should put something here. I'm okay.

I'm like, no, honestly, I'm perked up. I'm just giving you the background. So if you're like, I'm looking a bit sickly, that's why.

Rob is setting you up a really nice cushiony back pad. That was really kind, Rob. Oh, yuck. There's gross stuff under the cushion.

Oh, that is absolutely foul under there. Okay. So we're both got issues. But it's okay. We power on.

Oh, my. We power on ding, ding, ding.

He did that for that joke. It was really good. What was your school lunch experience like?

Oh, man.

Take me through it.

Okay. Well, first, before we begin that, can I ask, what happened in New Zealand if someone couldn't afford to bring their own lunch? Because there's school lunch programs in the US. Do they have that?

Yeah. Well, no, in New Zealand, they do now. But they're not funded very well. But it's much better now than it was when I was at school. But it was a problem in New Zealand because kids would come to school without lunch.

So what do they do? They give you a brown bag? A little brown bag of food. Oh, wow. Okay.

What was the consistency of your table when you would sit down?

I was at a cool table.

Were you on the cool table? That's so nice.

Well, I was a scholar athlete. Okay.

Your face when you said that. I don't really know what that is, but it sounds really good.

There are clicks in groups in high school. There's straight up popular.

No, we have to speak generically about this.

There's kids who drool.

There's the jocks.

Yeah.

No, no, no. The jocks are mainly in the popular.

Oh, they're in the popular category. Right.

But then there is a niche category that we called scholar athletes, which essentially-.

So you made this up. This is a made up thing.

No, don't you kind of get what I mean? I mean, it depends on the height. Like elementary school was kept here, it was different. Oh, yeah. No, I'm talking in high school, middle school, high school time, when you're really coming into your own.

Okay. What was your table? Where were you, Rob?

I was always in the art room doing stuff during lunch. I'd bring my food in there and-.

Making podcasts.

Work on stuff. Oh, you didn't sit in the cafeteria? No. We didn't have that option. You couldn't go somewhere else for lunch.

You had to be-.

You didn't have off-campus lunch ever? No, no. That would be considered skipping. Oh, because we had junior and senior year, we're allowed off-campus lunch. Oh, fuck.

What, you go to McDonald's or something, or Arby's?

Beef and cheddar.

What kind of food did you get? Was your school good or bad?

Well, because I wanted to blend so badly, I had a major phobia of walking around with a tray. To me, that's-.

It is. Someone will trip you. I've seen prison movies. Exactly.

And then everyone stares at you and laughs, and you're the butt of the joke for the rest of your high school. You can't move forward from that.

Oh, once that's happened, once, you're socially-.

That's the end. And so, I always brought my lunch for that reason. Ah. Yes. I never wanted to be the person who bought lunch.

That's healthy. It's really forward-thinking. Michelle Obama would approve. She would.

There were these little cups with basically shredded lettuce and those stupid shredded carrots that aren't-.

Stupid shredded carrots.

They're not real carrots. And then ranch or whatever. And for some reason, we all got into that for a bit. But let me go back to Scholar Athlete, because it is critical. Scholar Athletes were popular, but there was a crossover.

Right.

And normally, we played a sport.

That's why it's athlete. Right. So, you covered the coolness and the sport and the academia.

Exactly. So, it's kind of its own niche. I didn't sit with the regular, popular kids, but all those kids were my friends.

So, you were like a beautiful intermediary between all of those groups. in a way. I worked really hard at it. The best of all the worlds.

I had to put in a lot of effort.

It would be stressful. Every day. It was stressful. Oh, my God.

And this is what you have to do if you want to blend in. You have to not buy lunch. You have to be on your toes at all times, at risk of getting tripped, metaphorically and literally.

It's a war zone at school. One event can change the rest of your year so easily. It's chaotic. I mean, I was a huge nerd at school. I had braces.

What age did you have braces?

I had braces when I was 15, 16, 17..

Oh, wow. That's late.

Yes, it was late. Yes. I was one of those kids that went on Riacutane, which was that pimple medication, which completely wrecks your entire body. And I'll probably drop dead when I'm 50 or something. But it got rid of the pimples, which was good.

During lunch?

Oh, no, just in general. I'm just saying, oh, but a lot of lunch times I was in the computer room. Oh, really? Yeah, because we didn't have cafeterias. Oh, yeah.

Wait, that's so weird.

Or climb a tree or whatever.

Did everyone at the whole school have lunch at the same time? Yes. So that was a different…. My school was huge.

Oh, so you'd stagger.

We had…. There was A, B, C, and D lunch. Oh, my God. That was mine. There was three lunch periods.

It's such a different experience that we had.

Your lunch period was shorter than your regular period? I think. Because ours were just the same. Oh, that doesn't really make sense, does it? No.

Fuck.

Man, I forget stuff.

It's a long time ago. Should I ask my friend Callie? Ask Callie.

Let's call her. Because Callie understands the tray issue.

Hi. Hi.

You're on air. Oh, okay. You're on Flightless Bird.

Hi.

David, say hi to Callie. Hi. And Rob. Hi, David. Hello.

I think it was very short. I think it was like 20 minutes. That's what I said.

Maybe they had like two lunch periods per regular period.

What? That's not long enough.

But then Rob made a good point. that doesn't make sense. Since they were staggered, wouldn't it have been the same amount as a normal period? Because how would they have done this?

We had lunch and then we had the longer class that had homeroom in it. And then we had like a study hall or something. But it definitely wasn't the length of a full class.

Okay. It was definitely shorter for us in our structure.

But yeah, I don't remember why it was like that. I know.

The memories are fading. Now, what is your biggest memory of the lunchroom? The food fights. Food fights. Wow.

Naughty.

My biggest memory involves Callie. Okay. Uh-oh. Remember when you had a contest in the lunchroom?

Yes, I do.

Well, Callie eats, let's preface, really fast. All of a sudden you look over, the whole lunch is gone. And she challenged this nice boy. He was annoying. He was annoying at the time, but now he's a very nice adult man, I think.

So weird.

He said he could eat faster than Callie. So there was a whole lunch dedicated at the end of the week to them having an eating contest. And what did you have to eat again?

We had to eat sub-sandwiches.

Sub-sandwiches. And how did it go? I lost miserably. And you blamed it on something, though. Well, I don't like mayonnaise, and his was covered in mayonnaise.

So I felt like he had an unfair advantage. The mayonnaise.

The mayonnaise lubrication.

You? Yes. Me? No.

Yes, you were.

No way.

But you, yes, definitely.

That's really all I need to hear. Okay.

A little validation.

Okay, good. Anytime.

All right. Love you.

Love you. Bye. 20 minutes. Your memory was correct.

I was right.

So lunch for us, we had an hour. And you'd get your lunch in as quickly as you could, and then go and play a game of sports. That wasn't me. I was straight to the computer room.

And what did you do at the computer room during lunch? You play games?

Just in Microsoft Excel, making spreadsheets and stuff. Trying to learn how to code. And it was real nerdy stuff. Do you know how to code? I did back then.

Websites? Programs?

No, just software. I thought I was going to be a computer programmer when I grew up. So I was trying to get into all that stuff. I was terrible at it, but I really tried. Anyway, for this documentary, I decided to go behind the scenes of a school cafeteria.

Oh my gosh. And this is like a never-been-kissed situation where you pretended to be high schooler?

I thought about it, but I also thought the creepy factor would be quite bad in that. That movie has aged quite badly. So no, I just went in as me.

Okay.

But I will say, of all the episodes I've done, I found talking to high school kids the most nerve-wracking. I felt the most nervous. We've met some big baseball stars and stuff on the show, and I felt more nervous talking to these kids.

Oh my god. It was like you had entered this old environment where you felt insecure.

I was the nerd again. I had those braces, I had the pimples, I had the glasses, and I felt it. Wow. That they saw right through. Oh.

Anyway, here we go.

I'm excited.

It was 7am on a Monday morning, and I had somewhere to be. A town called Hemet, to be exact, population 90,000, situated in the San Jacinto Valley in Riverside County, California. As well as being home to the international headquarters of Scientology, a secretive fortress known as the Goals Base, Hemet is also home to 23,000 school kids. And in less than five hours, they'd be eating lunch.

Hi, my name is Kate Kloet. I'm Assistant Director of Nutrition Services for Hemet Unified School District.

After a two-hour drive and a Starbucks coffee later, I'd arrived at a sprawling warehouse, with Eat Fresh Express emblazoned onto the side. Kate is in charge of getting food to 26 schools, and feeding about 23,000 students. She's a registered dietitian and plans out all the menus. But school lunches had been around far before Kate came onto the scene. Back in the 1800s, certain schools in Boston and Philadelphia provided lunches for kids, thanks to volunteers and charities.

It's been around for a very long time, but it has definitely evolved. And about around the 1940s, that's when they had the School Nutrition Act. It was around World War II when the government was like, hey, all these really nutrition-deprived people are trying to go into the army. And they knew that they had to start feeding their kids better. And then also, they were like, hey, this is great because we can start promoting some of our domestic agriculture as well through the school food system.

And has the food gotten better over that time?

Some would say that it hasn't. It's gotten a lot more strict. Michelle Obama, she's the one that really kind of reformed a lot of the nutrition standards. But I am thrilled to be here with all of you today as my husband signs the Healthy Hunger, Free Kids Act into law.

Back in 2010,, Michelle Obama stood radiantly next to her husband as he signed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act. Suddenly, vending machine snacks and cans of Coke were under federal regulation. And school lunches were set to become a lot more healthy.

We can all agree that in the wealthiest nation on earth, all children should have the basic nutrition they need to learn and grow and to pursue their dreams. Because, in the end, nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our children. Nothing. And our hopes for their future should drive every single decision that we make.

Decisions like making sure school cafeterias had fruit and vegetables, and that whole grain bread replaced white bread. The good old days of sodium, sugar and fat were over.

I mean, it was kind of the Wild West. You could pretty much serve pop, or sorry, soda, fried foods. There wasn't a lot of guidance there.

When those reforms came through, were kids happy about that? Or was it like, oh, we like all this terrible junk food. We don't want to eat healthily.

I think the adults like it a lot better than the kids do. And it did take a couple years for manufacturers to kind of adjust the formulas for a lot of the food that we serve in the schools to fit those nutrition standards. Everything has to be whole grain. We have to cut back on sodium, sugar. The first couple years after the standards got put into place, the food wasn't as good, but it's really gotten a lot better.

Kate and I are briefly interrupted by a colleague who needs to discuss some new cardboard trays, as well as new packages for the sandwiches. There's a lot to think about when it comes to school cafeterias. Are the kids generally embracing the school lunch, or do you get some kids that, like in New Zealand, would pack their lunch at home and bring it in with them to eat? Does that ever happen?

People do still pack their lunch. So we have 23,000 students and we feed about 22,000 altogether. But that includes breakfast, lunch and supper. So we serve all three of those. So we're doing about 22,000 meals a day.

Kate leads me out of her office and hands me a hairnet, which I struggle with for quite a while, as I've never worn a hairnet before. Then she opens a door and we walk into a giant industrial kitchen where school meals are being prepared for the week.

Our staff starts at 5am and they start making stuff at 5am to go out to all of our schools.

There are trays and trays of muffins in front of me, and a woman's shoving a thermometer into one of them to check the temperature. So just explain what I'm seeing here.

This is our central kitchen, and not every district has a central kitchen. Our district is lucky enough to have one. And we can do a lot more freshly baked items.

It smells good in here.

Yes, so today they are making a blueberry pancake bowl, a breakfast item, and then you can see that they're wrapping it. We make really awesome double chocolate chip muffins. here. We make our own kaiser rolls, biscuits.

I find the word biscuit confusing. in America. Back home, a biscuit is a cookie, like a chocolate chip cookie. Here in America, it's an uninspired dry scone.

And then we're also known for our pizza. On Mondays we don't do pizzas because that's when the dough is thawing, but we do about 250 pizzas Tuesday through Friday. And then they transport it to our schools, fresh baked.

About 30 staff work here in the kitchen in Hammett, preparing a variety of meals that will then be delivered to a variety of schools. It's like a full industrial kitchen going on. This thing's huge.

These are big mixers where we do our muffin dough. We have these things called peanut butter pails, which are pretty much like a giant peanut butter cookie for breakfast. These are giant mixers for our pizza dough. They hold up to, I believe, like 400 pounds of dough. And then these are big rotational ovens, so, as you can see, it rotates to make sure all of our baked goods are evenly baked.

Not all school districts have a kitchen this big, and, of course, each school is fighting over funds for all this stuff, applying for grants to get the gear they need. Something I found fascinating about school lunches is that many of the American food brands have their own specific lines. just for kids. They offer many of the same products, just a healthier version.

Tyson is a really big one. They have a whole line of products that's just for schools. Same with, like General Mills. So a lot of those brands that you might see in the grocery store, they will have a separate school line that's formulated specifically for schools. Whether that's whole grain, reduced sodium, reduced sugar, baked, like baked Doritos.

I think of how picky kids can be, and wonder how down they are with the flavor of a healthy Dorito. Doritos aren't even meant to be healthy. Is a healthy Dorito still even a Dorito? What's a common complaint you might get?

Well, the kids, they always want more of like the snack items. They want Takis.

What? Takis.

What's a Taki?

Taki, they're like the little rolled chips. Yeah, they're a type of chip that kids love. We do try to make some of their favorites more healthy, like our pizza, for example. They love it, but it's made with whole grain crust. We make our own pizza sauce.

With all this talk of health, I'm surprised when I pass a giant rack of corn dogs. Hundreds of them. What is this, Disneyland?

That one, I believe, is a chicken hot dog. inside. We try to pick items that are a little bit healthier, like we use hot dogs. They're all beef, no nitrates.

Kate leads me through another door, and we're in a sprawling warehouse, space filled to the roof with boxes and cartons and packages. We're in the pantry. What have we got here?

These are some chocolate chips. So one of our most popular items on the breakfast menu is our double chocolate chip muffin. Which sounds unhealthy, but we put banana puree in it, we put applesauce, and again it has no preservatives. It's made with whole grain flour.

Do you put pineapple on your pizza or no?

We don't, but we usually have that on our salad bars.

I see giant crates of Cheez-Its. I don't know much about America, but I know Cheez-Its aren't the epitome of health.

This is whole grain, so it's specially formulated for schools.

There's even cinnamon toast crunch back here.

This is specially formulated for schools. It's reduced sugar and whole grain.

As we emerge out the other side and into the sunlight, I wonder why they don't serve the kids version of all these American products to the rest of America. There'd probably be less heart attacks. But look, lunch is drawing near, and we have a high school cafeteria to get to. We jump in Kate's car.

This little pocket of California used to be a really big retirement community, and so now it's just kind of a mix. You can see we have lots of different trailer parks. So as far as our population goes, we do have a high, low income status in Hemet.

So this is a high school?

Yes, so grades 9 through 12..

And what age is that?

So roughly 14, 15 through 18..

In New Zealand, we call this secondary school. Where we don't have grades, we have years. So it would be year 9 through 13 for us. As we pull into the parking lot, my brain is replaying what I know of high school cafeterias, all learned from watching American TV.

Who says that school cafeteria food can't be healthy, delicious and gourmet?

Hey, today we're going to be making the students my tasty baked ziti with basil and fresh mozzarella.

South Park's up there with Chef. Then there's Napoleon Dynamite. I see you're drinking 1%. Is that because you think you're fat? And Mean Girls, which taught us about the various cliques found in the American school system.

You got everybody there. You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, JV jocks. Asian nerds, pool Asians, varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don't eat anything.

Now I'm finally here. The real thing. A real American high school with a real American high school name. West Valley. Wow.

I'm so nostalgic right now.

You got very nervous when she raised the cardboard tray that they were trying out in that school. Because that could buckle. Couldn't it?

Exactly. It could.

But is it going to kill some kids? It might lose some kids. to that. I was blown away by the size of the kitchen. They were making 22,000 meals a day.

Who knew, when I started talking today about my cholesterol, that it would tie in to this whole episode.

I think you need to be eating some of these school-made branded things where it's like the same thing, but just a bit more healthy.

I agree with you that I really don't understand why they wouldn't sell this stuff or just make all the food like that.

Totally. I guess it's two markets. They can just have both markets cornered.

But what's funny is they know one thing is healthy or healthier. Totally. And they know the other isn't, and they're choosing to still put out the unhealthy stuff. It's so fascinating. Did you find out?

Some are, some aren't. I can't be more specific. They're all competing so heavily for funding. Desperately trying to keep their meals good, so they get more money next year. But yeah, there are definitely other giant kitchens like this across the United States.

I must have been living under, I mean, I was so naive, but I thought each cafeteria made its own food. I thought there was a kitchen in every school.

I assume so as well. And it'll be out there doing their thing. And some schools would. Some schools would do that. But this is serving, I think she said in the end, 27 schools.

Or they're just heating it up because there was a kitchen in our cafeteria, but they probably weren't preparing it at all.

Yeah, there's a background area where they can keep it warm and stuff and bring it out.

Yeah, I guess I just thought they were cooking it all back there, which is so stupid.

She sent me through some stats. She said for every meal they serve, they get $4.92 reimbursement. That's from federal and state taxes. 48% of that goes towards labor, 47% towards food supply and costs. And the remaining 5% goes to the building utilities.

It is. And they're trying to keep it healthy. This is hard.

Yeah, it's a balance. And she did say the richer schools do opt out of this program entirely. If parents are going to pay more for fees, then some schools, they will have their own system outside of the guidelines, serving whatever they want.

Oh really? But that costs a lot more money.

Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

Okay.

We've got to get ready fast, because once the doors open, we get 400 kids through all at once.

I'm talking to Debbie, official job title NSA2, Nutrition Service Assistant 2.. Like the assistant manager. She's been at this high school cafeteria from 6am. They've done breakfast already and it's about to be lunch. In New Zealand, it's well known that high school students, these are high school students, is that the right term?

Honestly, I think it's the opposite. I get a lot of cologne.

And what are you serving up today? What's on the menu?

Today we have chicken nuggets and we have a penne pasta with meat sauce.

Sounds delicious. Do you serve any sauce with your nuggets?

We have ketchup, ranch, barbecue sauce.

Sweet and sour?

No, sorry.

That's an improvement, maybe for next time. On the wall there's a painting of a Mustang, the school mascot. And framed sports singlets hang on the wall too. Then there's a line of serving trays, manned by three staff members ready to dish up the goods. It all feels like a Hollywood set to me, but I have to remember, this isn't a TV show, it's real life.

My job is to watch the kids coming through and putting their lunch numbers in, make sure they have their whole meal. They have to have the main entree, fruits and vegetables and everything to make it a meal.

So you're really making sure they've got the right stuff.

And not taking extras or anything.

Do kids ever try and slip some extra chips into a hoodie?

Every time, every time.

You've got like eagle eyes down here.

Oh yeah, we have to watch the line, we have to watch the computer, we have to really watch everything. Thank you love.

Leslie is watching like a hawk, watching for thieves, and also listening for any foul language.

Oh, watch the mouth, Zachary! Oh, my goodness!

You get to know the kids as well, right?

And I work at other schools, so I get to watch them grow up and come here. Yeah, I've been here 29 years, so I get to watch them come from the elementary school all the way up to here. Because I work at one of the elementary schools that a lot of them went to. Thank you, love.

That's pretty special.

Oh yeah, it is. Hi, sweetheart, how are you today? You don't want a juice today? Alright, love.

This lunch line is moving fast, and it's at this point. I notice that there's no indoor seating here. This is the first departure from the movies for me. Apparently, because we're in California and it's mostly always sunny, the kids eat outside, just like kids do in New Zealand. I say goodbye to the school cafeteria staff.

Yes, we will do that.

We will call them out. And head out to meet some American high school students.

And today we are trying out for spirit. commissioners. We got a little game for you guys.

Musical chairs. So we need 11 people to come down and fill up these chairs. This American high school appears to be much louder than the New Zealand high school. There's a bunch of students DJing for one thing. That doesn't happen in New, Zealand.

I like it here. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm actually the president of the Gamers Club. And it's pretty cool. That's why we're playing this match right now.

That explains why literally all of you have a Switch, pretty much.

This is like the gamer table, honestly. It's pretty cool.

I head to another table which has zero Switches. These kids aren't gamers. I'm not sure what they are. But they seem nice. What's the quality of the food like here?

I mean, it's okay.

What have you got today? Take me through this.

I got a PB&J sandwich, Cheez-Its, chocolate milk and apple juice.

The girl next to me appears to be ignoring her lunch entirely. I've got an entire tray of chicken nugs in front of you and they don't look eaten. Is there a problem?

You want to try one?

All I've wanted is a chicken nug all day.

What's wrong? Bro, those taste fake. Those taste fake. Every lunch, the food is so terrible, bro. Thank you, what's her name?

Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Michelle Obama. Thank you so much.

I guess Michelle Obama really did make an impact with that healthy, hunger-free Kids Act. Since then, about 75% of schools in the US have signed up for the National School Lunch Program. Some private, richer schools don't opt in, so they can serve whatever they want. No health guidelines for them. But also no government funding for their food.

Thank you for the random slabs of meat. They're really hitting.

It's funny, because as the kids insult the food, Kate is standing with me. They have no idea she's in charge of all this. I feel kind of bad. I mean, of course, the kids aren't going to shower compliments on their high school lunch. They probably want McDonald's.

I do. I am enjoying it, actually. It is pretty good.

I'd come to talk lunch, but I found myself wondering what these kids thought of the high school experience here in the US of A. What's high school like in America?

I mean, I like it, but there's a lot of, like, procedures. We have metal detectors when we walk in. We have occasional lockdown drills. Because there's a lot of stuff that goes on in American high schools. It could probably be better, but I think anything could be better.

All these tables around me have a very different vibe. This one in particular is full of born performers.

They're gangbangers, bro. I tell you, everywhere I go, there's a gangbanger, bro. I can't do nothing. Oh, oh, oh, oh, no, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking, I'm joking.

The chicken nugget's forgotten as they talk to this old man from New Zealand.

You know, everywhere I go, there's these good-looking females. everywhere I go. So I try to holler. I get rejected every time. But it is, hey, it is what it is.

I mean, I know him.

As we talked about the high school experience, I wondered what they thought of America, this country. they were here readying themselves for, readying themselves to go out and work and make change and do whatever they end up doing.

It's kind of troubled. But at the same time, I'm excited for life in general, just to be positive. I think half of us are doing okay, but half of the kids here don't want to do anything. Therefore, I'm worried about half of this future for us. I made this observation a couple of days ago.

That's all you can do?

Yeah, basically, yeah.

I look up from my tray of borrowed chicken nugs. They are growing on me. And I see a student carrying a pink sign that I recognized from the corridor when I walked in. Maddie for president. I guess this is Maddie.

Sophomore class president.

What are you campaigning on? What are your policies?

My goal is just to make next year really fun and memorable for everyone, because I know this year there was a fire here in town, so a lot of things got cancelled and pushed back. So I want next year to be really fun for everyone and include everyone. If they have an opinion, then I could speak to the actual ASB president about it.

and maybe get it approved.

And who's your big competition so far in the race?

Definitely Angie or Julissa.

Good luck with the campaign. I hope you sweep in with a victory. With lunchtime about to wrap, a few other kids have gathered around the microphone. And I figure this is the time to raise the question that's been on my mind this entire time. A question about the modern high school experience here in America.

Not even close.

Is that inaccurate?

No, it's so inaccurate. It's so bad. That's so funny. Probably depends on who you're asking. For me.

And I don't think that's the actual high school experience. I'm sorry.

I do think that there's a lot of drug issues in school. But it's not to that level. Not to that extent. I've seen people do drugs in class. I just haven't seen people do cocaine.

I was kind of relieved that these kids weren't living the full Euphoria life. Indeed, it was the opposite. The teenagers of America not that different to the teenagers of New Zealand. Some kids I talked to even packed their own lunch to bring in. Kindly stockpiling the school supplied snacks for their friends later that day.

Yeah, I always ask my friends for apples because I like to give my apples to some of my friends in chemistry, because they're always hungry by then. And also just because I like good apples.

With an attitude like that, I figure the future of America is in pretty good hands. And as I drove away from Hemet, I thought back to all the apples my mum, Pam, had packed into my high school lunch back in New Zealand. With no high school cafeteria, it was all on her. And it dawned on me how many school lunches my mum had made for me over the years. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands of them.

I know.

I've never really talked to you about that. And first I want to say thank you, which I don't think I've ever really said. Because it's sort of dawning on me. what a massive task that was.

I know. And it's so good when it finishes.

What?

But it's just something that you had to do. It was often hard to know, for a bit of variety, what to put in your jolly sandwiches.

I remember peanut butter and jam was a good one.

Yeah, peanut butter and jam, ham, ham.

I might do some maths and calculate how many years I was at school and how many meals you would have made me.

You could calculate it from five years to 17,. something like that, 17 years. No, it was just something that all families did, David. Yeah.

Well, I just wanted to say thank you for doing it.

I've never given that another thought. OK.

OK, said my mum, who, for over a decade, served as a one-person high school cafeteria for me and my brother. OK is a classic line from Pam when trying to wrap up a conversation. Sick of talking to me. Sick of me rambling on. It's a bit of a Kiwi thing, I think, the OK, and I react accordingly.

OK.

OK. There it was again. OK. I get it, mum. I'm going.

Oh, that was really, really, really fun.

Aren't the kids pure?

Oh, I love the kids. Also, when you started talking to them, I got sweaty. I felt so cringy.

Yeah. Well, the way at my interactions. Oh, no. So I was struggling, right?

I think you got better over time. But those early ones, I felt like, why are you acting so uncomfy?

Yeah, it made me nervous. I was afraid they would see me as a nerd and beat me up. Like I just reverted back. And then I was trying to be cool, but that failed and it just got worse and worse. And I did get into it a bit more.

It did feel like you became one of them because you tried to neg that girl about her apples. That felt weird.

Yeah, the balance is weird because it's like a different species. It's the first time I've clocked in ages. how old I've gotten. I turned 40 last year. In my mind, I kind of stopped at like early 20s, maybe.

That part about the DJ, we did not have music in the lunchroom.

I think there was some special thing going on. There was Spirit Week.

Oh, sure. Because leading up to the election.

The election. And so they had some DJs. I sound like an alien describing what I saw. There's DJs and it's this musical chairs game. I think maybe the DJs were trying to be some sort of social presidents or something.

Or it was a campaign promise. I'm going to bring DJs to lunch.

And speaking of wonderful Maddie, her campaign promise of just wanting to make things more fun. I can get behind that. That was so good. Who doesn't want to have more fun?

One other piece. In America, normally, your mom stops making your lunch. at some point. You have to make your own lunch.

You have to pack your own lunch. It's part of growing up.

At some point, your mom says, if you want to take your own lunch, you better pack it.

You make it yourself.

With that known, my mom still made my lunch.

Our moms are very similar. For way too long. Same. I was cared for way too much.

Like coddled. She drew the line at one point and said, do your own. You're 25.. She still makes my lunch. when I go home.

The last time I was in New Zealand, I go back to visit them. Mom still makes the same sandwiches and cuts them up and serves them to me. She's still making my school lunch.

I know. It's so cute.

She stopped. She said, make your own. But then I think she realized I wasn't doing it. And she took it back on.

Incredible. The other thing, I should say, our lunches at school. They called them tuck shops. Essentially like a small corner store. If I didn't take a packed lunch from home, my lunch would be a meat and cheese pie, which you've had.

It's called cookie time?

Cookie time.

Is that a brand, cookie time? Cookie time. That's a brand?

It's a brand.

It's cookie time for David.

No, it's a brand. And I'll get it microwaved for 30 seconds. And that would make the bits of chocolate a little bit melted. And I would get a bottle of Coca-Cola. And that would be, some days, my school lunch.

That sounds delicious. What did your mom pack you? Well, she packed you ham and cheese.

There'd be a sandwich. There'd be an apple. There'd be a couple of bits of fruit. What were those snacks called? Fruit roll-ups.

Fruit roll-ups.

And another little thing, you peel it back. And there'd be a cracker with some dip. All in the little case.

Dunkaroos? Well, that's chocolate, but they had the cheese ones. And peanut butter. For me, what was packed was critical. Because if you had something stinky, you're out.

Like some fish. The kid that brings fish is an egg. A boiled egg.

Tuna. I think my mom made that mistake. Because I love tuna. But you're not allowed to love tuna when you're young. It's so stinky.

Not open it? Anger. Other kids. They're going to tear you apart.

Tear me apart. So then I got into Lunchables. That seemed very classic. You're on a Lunchables?

No, what are you talking about?

You could do a whole episode on Lunchables.

Okay, what is a Lunchable?

It's packaged and you have crackers, cheese, meat. There's a little compartment for the stacked cheese. A little compartment for the meat.

Do you get on a Delta flight? sometimes, when you're flying and they bring you a cheese platter or something? You pay $10 for this. Is it a bit like that?

Less quality.

It's a bit dicier?

Yes, but they invented a Lunchables pizza at one point. And it was these tiny doughs. Like, what is that? Like a crust, but not really. It was a crust, but it was chewy.

You did, pepperoni.

I never did pepperoni, I only did cheese. Because pepperoni could get... Girls weren't supposed to like pepperoni. They had the dessert ones, too, with chocolate icing and M&Ms. Pizza?

Wow, I'm fascinated by this. I've never heard of this before.

I can't believe you haven't heard of it. It's huge here. I wonder if people still take Lunchables.

The culture of school is so funny to me. The other thing I noticed walking around is that, of course, in America you have lockers. And in New Zealand, at least, when I went to school, there were no lockers. Everything went in your school bag.

All your books for the whole day.

So each morning you take everything you need, and you would just have these little kids you'd see wandering around with just these huge backpacks. No lockers. That's a huge difference. And then this whole cafeteria thing, DJs. We had vastly different experiences in our school, Monica.

I know, it's really interesting. Lockers, I will say, are more romanticized in movies.

In TV shows. Because they're so big, and kids open them, and they lean on them, and they're full of photos of who they've got to crush on, and their books and stuff.

People get shoved into them.

You put the nerds in the lockers, and you lock them in there.

I think things are regional and cultural. So it all depends. My high school was constructed a little differently than most high schools. It was kind of laid out as a college campus. So we had five buildings.

That sounds so big, like so vast.

It was.

And you had seven minute changes. And so you were rushing around, and you didn't really have time to ever go to your locker. So us, we also just carried our whole fucking, these insanely heavy books for the whole day. You're just walking around with.

Bad for the spine. Really bad. It's probably why my spine is so messed up from those Big Buddy book bags.

You could sue. American suing.

Jansport was the cool bag of choice. We talked about this before. Jansport. That was awesome. The other main difference that I clocked that I hadn't really thought about.

Cool. Yeah.

And that's what made me a bit nervous and like so on edge. The idea of a uniform is that all the kids are the same. So the fashionable kids, the nerdy kids, no one's going to get teased for like not having the cool shoes. Because you're all in the same shitty uniform. Yeah.

Right, that they can't wear otherwise.

Yeah, completely. Only at school. So in America, uniforms aren't really a thing, right? They are.

Private schools will do it.

Catholic schools, maybe.

Catholic schools definitely do it. Yeah. So some schools, but mostly and definitely public schools, no. But there was dress code.

The big thing I remember from my school was girls had to have their skirts a certain length. I couldn't be showing too much.

Fingertips. That was ours. Can't be shorter than your fingertips. People would like scrunch up their shoulders, though, to make it. Oh, that's...

The other thing that I really glossed over is that Hammett, where I was, when I went to that Starbucks, I bumped into someone that listens to the show and she was like really lovely. But she said, are you here for Scientology? I'm like, I'm doing a story about school lunches and I'm going to go to high school. And she said, oh, the gold base is here. And I'm like, what?

It was too creepy.

It was full noise and it's in Hemet. And Hemet is, as you heard, it's just the sleepy, small town, a lot of trailer parks and the headquarters of Scientology.

You know what actually makes me so angry? Of course it's there. If that is a low income area, they are preying upon vulnerable people and saying, I can get you out of this situation. Come to Scientology. That's why the celebrity center is right there.

Yeah, recruiting people who are like trying to figure it out.

The most vulnerable people in this city who are dying to become actors, are like, yeah, I want to be sad.

Yeah, get drawn in.

Yeah, if you want to go down a real rabbit hole, Google gold base. And there's just the maddest things ever. It's like, yeah, it's so funny. I thought I'm in this town doing a story about school lunches and there's gold base sitting right there.

Are they trying to recruit at the high school?

No recruiting. I think it's more like where all their biggest, most important members go. You look at it on Google Maps and it's the sprawling, beautiful country club in the middle of this really poor neighborhood. You know, it's not that far out of L.A. and it's probably cheap to buy.

Well, this was really fun. I love high school and middle school. I love school. I have such nostalgia for it.

I think we all do. It's why, whenever Netflix puts out some show at a high school, it does really well, because we all love watching it.

And everyone can relate.

Yeah, completely. Here's to the high school lunch.

Yes.

Muffins, cookies, pizzas. Chicken nugs.

Cookie time.

I'll bring, so when I go back to New Zealand, I'll bring you back some cookie times.

Wait, is it cookie times?

Cookie time. We're going to bring you back multiple cookie times. A cookie time cookie is the one cookie. Okay. So I'm going to bring you back some cookie times.

Okay. Got it. Can't wait.

Bye.