You don’t hear too many complaints nowadays about jailhouse food from the resident population. There are health department standards and basic humane considerations to be considered.
While nobody gets himself locked up to enjoy jail cuisine, at least it is not so bad as to make the news. That was not the case in the old days.
Going back to the 19th century, sheriffs received a per diem from the county to feed their prisoners. Before the Tarrant County jail got its own kitchen in 1884, meals were contracted out to a local restaurant. Once the jail had a kitchen, food was purchased in bulk and prepared presumably by someone who knew at least the basics of cooking.
County commissioners gave sheriffs a set amount of money to use in negotiating a contract. They got to keep any difference between what they were given and what they had to pay. With that incentive, a sheriff could be a tough negotiator, and prisoners did not get a seat at the table.
Around the turn of the century, the per diem for Tarrant County prisoners was 30 cents for three hot meals a day. Bidders could easily come in under that amount by cutting corners. One contractor got the contract for four straight years (1912-1916) by keeping both sheriffs and county commissioners happy.
Part of a contractor’s responsibility was to hire a cook to prepare the food, usually with the assistance of trusties. Like other jail employees, the cook was hired not for any particular skills but because he had friends in high places or was related to someone. Between the quality of the food and the indifferent preparation, the results served to prisoners could be grim.
Grand jury investigates
A grand jury investigation of Sheriff Tom Woods’ jail in produced a disturbing report. The jail food was found to be of “very inferior quality” with the worst offenders being the menu staples of beef and flour. The former consisted of the poorest possible cuts of meat, so spoiled as to be almost inedible, while the latter was coarse and full of weevils.
The way the food was served was equally deplorable. Meals were served in a pail with meat and vegetables on the bottom, a piece of bread atop that, and dessert on top of everything. Prisoners got a single spoon to eat with, which had to be returned with the pail afterward, but since the trusties who delivered the meals also had to collect everything afterward, nobody counted spoons. Some wound up being sharpened and used in escape attempts.
The 1906 report aside, jail food had actually improved since 1903. That was the year Jim Warren took over as cook. An elderly Black man who claimed to have visited “almost every country on the globe,” Warren was not hired for his cooking skills but because he worked cheap and did what he was told.
Warren proved to be a very different kind of cook than the jail had ever had before, and the first one to get written up in the newspaper. He was beloved by the prisoners because he put an end to the hog-slopping style of service. It was his self-appointed mission to serve tasty and nutritious meals, even if that meant buying some things out of his own pocket.
Every day, he arrived at the jail before dawn to prepare pans of biscuits, gravy, and vegetables. For variety he occasionally made cornbread or gingerbread. His vegetables were not overcooked mush, and he alternated beef with pork when the budget allowed. Perhaps the best thing Warren did was preparing a Christmas feast every year with “all the trimmings.” After his last Christmas dinner in 1912, prisoners were so moved they sent a “thank you” note to Sheriff Rea.
Warren retired at the end of 1912, and things went downhill fast after that. In March 1913, the Star-Telegram said the county spent more to feed its mules than it did “inmates” held by the county. Sheriff Rea assured a reporter that the prisoners, were “satisfied” with what was served.
Hunger strike
That may not have been true. In November 1914, prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest the food. Their complaint may have had something to do with the fact that commissioners had cut the per diem to $13. 31 for the entire prisoner population, or roughly 11 cents per meal during average occupancy.
The men somehow got a petition to the Star-Telegram detailing what they were being served. For breakfast they got one ounce of parboiled salt pork, blackstrap molasses, three biscuits, and a cup of coffee. For supper they got a small portion of “soured beans,” 2 ounces of boiled fatty beef, three biscuits, and another cup of coffee.
Adding to their misery, meals were served out of two big steel pails pushed around on a cart by a couple of trusties. One trusty slopped the food onto the prisoner’s tin plate, then moved on to the next cell. Prisoners who could afford it got their food brought in to them by family or friends. Only a few could afford such a luxury.
Naturally, Sheriff Rea denied providing substandard food and even offered to take a Dallas Morning News reporter through the jail at mealtime. On the day of the visit, dinner consisted of three biscuits, a piece of cornbread, a cup of red beans, and a piece of fried beef. No prisoner complaints were heard. Three weeks later, the protest collapsed when the petition signers withdrew their complaint, telling a reporter their food was really quite tasty.
In 1915, county commissioners added a requirement to the food service contract that menus had to be of “good quality.” The new language did not define exactly what “good quality” meant; that was left up to the sheriff to decide. Dan Tierney, the winning bidder, came in with a bid of 12.75 cents per meal for three meals a day. For that price, prisoners would get their food served in a “bucket, with a breakfast of bacon or “steak,” three “fresh” rolls, hot cereal, syrup, and coffee.
The big meal of the day, dinner, would consist of two vegetables “changed daily,” cornbread, a half pound of “stew meat,” soup or coffee, and dessert. The evening meal (“supper”) was more modest fare. Most importantly, Tierney promised that all the food would be “good, sound, and well-cooked” and prepared in a “sanitary” manner.
Tarrant jail food preferred over Dallas
The food must have improved because in December a group of federal prisoners being held in the Dallas County jail asked federal authorities to do their time in Tarrant County. The reason they gave was because the “daily fare” in the Tarrant County jail was so much better.
Apparently, better food was only for white prisoners, however. The Critic, a weekly topical magazine run by Garfield and Kitty Crawford, former Star-Telegram columnists, said Black prisoners were being served meat and beans “unfit for human consumption.”
The only prisoners guaranteed first-class food as a rule were condemned men. By long-standing tradition, they were entitled to a last meal of anything they wanted within reason. The record shows Tarrant County condemned prisoners favored a last meal of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and apple pie. (This is back in pre-1925 days, when condemned were executed in county jails.)
Jail food was just another reason to avoid doing time in county lockup. No word here on how much it has improved today.
Author-historian Richard Selcer is a Fort Worth native and proud graduate of Paschal High and TCU.
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