We continue today adding stories to our series Eating While Poor. By this time in the semester college students often complain about the cafeteria food and look forward to a great meal over Spring break. Students in the south wanted more variety in cafeteria menus but Jim Crow meant that historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) cafeteria received far less state funding than predominately white institutions (PWI). As a result college administrators had to use leftovers in soups and stews to reduce their expenditures. As Lamenta Watkins Crouch, a Virginia State alum recalled, “If there was chicken and vegetables served one day, we knew there was going to be chicken vegetable soup the next day.”
