Test Kitchen: Happiness is a full lunch bag!

[Mission High School students Dale Scholzen, Phyllis Cassidy and Ed Johnston eating lunch in Mission Park.] Nov. 12, 1958. Photo and caption courtesy of the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, San Francisco Public Library.

It's September again, and school-aged kids all over the country uttered a collective "Good grief!" In their honor, this month's Test Kitchen post is dedicated to the best part of the school day: lunch! Our recipes come from a title in the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor (SCOWAH): Charles Schulz's Peanuts Lunch Bag Cook Book, published in 1970 with recipes by June Dutton. There were plenty of tempting lunchtime treats to try, from "Lucy's Crabby Sandwiches" to "Good Ol' Charlie's Brownies," but we decided to go with that midday mainstay-- the peanut butter sandwich.

There are seven different recipes in Peanuts Lunch Bag Cook Book for "Stick-to-the-Roof-of-Your-Mouth Peanut Butter Sandwiches," and for this Test Kitchen we had most of the ingredients for all but one (peanut butter and chopped celery with catsup didn't make it to our table.)

Photo: L. Weddle

Here are the other six recipes:

1 T. chunky peanut butter
1 T. chopped raisins
Mix and spread on raisin bread.

1 T. creamy peanut butter
2 T. chopped apple
Mix and spread on white or dark bread.

1 T. creamy or chunky peanut butter
1 t. sweet pickle relish
Mix and spread on dark bread.

1 T. creamy or chunky peanut butter
½ T. honey
Mix and spread on white bread.

1 T. crunchy peanut butter
Banana slices.
Spread half the peanut butter on slice of white or wheat bread. Lay slices of banana on top, spread second slice of bread with peanut butter and cover bananas.

1 T. crunchy peanut butter
12 miniature marshmallows, chopped
Follow above proceedure.

Results:

While the peanut butter with fruit or honey recipes won the day, more adventurous types took on the marshmallows and relish recipes. The relish-- crunchy and tangy rather than sweet-- was a surprisingly good accompaniment to peanut butter. Even though the marshmallows could barely be distinguished from the white bread it was tested on, the result was declared to be "Great!"

One of the best things about peanut butter is its versatility. After trying out recipes, testers began throwing caution to the wind, resulting in all sorts of combinations! Photo: L. Weddle.

Just like school lunches, a trip to the San Francisco History Center/Book Arts & Special Collections on the 6th floor of the Main Library could be the best part of your day! Come up and find more about San Francisco schools, or just spend the day reading Peanuts comic strips.

The Complete Peanuts (1950 - 1976) - thirteen volumes of Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, and Charlie Brown. Available here in the Schmulowitz Collection of Wit and Humor and at your neighborhood branch.

San Francisco Unified School District Records (.pdf - 1MB) are accessible through the San Francisco History Center and contain administrative circulars, photographs, scrapbooks, curriculum titles, pamphlets, newsletters, reports, district directories, handbooks, budget documents, salary surveys, and newspaper clippings documenting SFUSD's history from 1854 to 2005. If you were more into seeing what the cafeteria had to offer than bringing a sack lunch, check out the "Food Service Master Plan" from 1973.

You can find even more information on individual San Francisco schools in our vertical files under SF. SCHOOLS. [school name].