The University’s campus is home to many popular fast food restaurants, attracting students with low prices and quick service. Money and time are
two important factors to consider when choosing somewhere to eat lunch. We rarely think about the history behind our food when we’re standing in line at the Student Union or in dining halls. 
Each day in the Union you’ll find po’boys being served in the French Quarter Cafe. Ask any of the people in line what they’re going to order and you’ll hear about the flavorful combination of seafood and gravy that Louisiana cuisine is known for.
The po’boy sandwich was a product of the four-month streetcar strike in
1929. Two streetcar-conductors-turned-restaurateurs served meat scraps and gravy on stale bread to their former coworkers for free.
When they saw another man walking up to the building for a free meal, they would call, “Here comes another poor boy.” The name was quickly shortened to po’boy, thanks to the Louisiana dialect.
If we take a look at our state’s history, we can see how the lower class has affected Louisiana food culture. They were the ones who inspired the meals we now drop a pretty penny to recreate with fresh ingredients. They’re also the ones in the kitchens of the higher-end restaurants in New Orleans.
And across the country, food critics are turning from the food they’re consuming to the food in the refrigerator and shopping carts of those workers who are receiving food stamps. These are hot topics for those who have never had to feed a family on the national average of $133 a month, or scrounged for healthier options in the many food deserts in our country.
In 2012, a Fox News anchor compared their situation to a diet plan. When asked by cohost Stuart Varney if she could make $133 stretch for a month of food, Andrea Tantaros responded, “I should try it because do you know how fabulous I’d look?”
Tantaros may have thought she was making a harmless joke, playing the woman whose only food concern is how it affects her figure, but food stamp users can’t afford to joke about their health.
In many cases, they can’t even afford to think it.
While it may be easy for someone of financial stability to stroll around the produce section at the grocery store, those on food stamps don’t have the luxury. They’re in the canned food aisles, trying to figure out how to buy food for a family of four on a minimal budget. Vegetables rot, bread molds and milk goes sour. But canned vegetables, crackers and peanut butter? Those can last a lifetime.
Unfortunately, they can also stretch the waistline with their high sodium content and fats. But we don’t consider that when we peep into the shopping cart ahead of us at the grocery store. Instead, we scoff at the unhealthy and poor individual in line ahead of us.
It’s time we stop looking at the poor as some sort of vermin or unfortunate circumstance. There are and have always been people who can’t afford to
eat well. There was no way for the creators of the po’boy to know that their efforts to help the hungry would result in the most popular sandwich in Louisiana. 
Perhaps if we start dreaming up new ways to battle the hunger problem instead of just wrinkling our brows at a budget sheet, we could end up with new delicious Louisiana cuisine. 
Jana King is a 20-year-old communication studies junior from Ponchatoula, Louisiana. You can reach her on Twitter @jking_TDR.