Harris County Jail

Meals

Interview with Julie, Inmate's Sister, Houston, Claire, Jim, Inmate's Mom, Smyth and Ken

JM: How many meals did you get per day?
Julie: 3
Inmate's Sister: 2
Houston: 3
Claire: 3 meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Jim: 3 meals, two hot meas and one bagged which is generally breakfast.
Inmate's Mom: In 34 hours he one balogna sandwich. Dry.
Smyth: Depends on if anyone talked to you on the way to the cafeteria.. if they did you didn't get to eat.
Ken: 3

JM: How would you rate the food?
Julie: on a scale 1-10 i rate it a 0
Inmate's Sister: ok not like mama food "quote" his words
Houston: Fattening.
Claire: Sub-par, mostly. Not fit for human consumption.
Jim: they do the best they can. It's acceptable but then again it's jail food.
Smyth: Below eating out of garbage can.
Ken: Edible, not good at all by free world standards

JM: Did you have any favorite/least favorite meals?
Julie: Onl;y thing was spaghetti it was not cold and i was able to digest i lost 5lbs the 6 days i was looked up only ate may be once a day why would thaye serve us moon pies and oatmeal cakes for breakfast
Inmate's Sister: pbj sandwishes
Houston: breakfast, because of the fruit.
Claire: The most decent meal was breakfast, because that was the closest you got to "real" food. You usually get a hard boiled egg, a banana (or an apple or an orange), one of those pre-made cereal bowls, and a carton of milk. I usually just ate the egg and the fruit, and I would trade my cereal and milk for someone else's egg and/or fruit. I'm not much of a cereal fan out in the free world, and I damned sure didn't want cereal with lukewarm milk.
Jim: Chili Dog nite on thursdays
Smyth: They all sucked.
Ken: Breakfast

JM: Were there any other snacks offered outside of meals?
Julie: no only what u could save
Inmate's Sister: no unless you had money on books
Houston: Comissary
Claire: Yes, there was a commissary, and it was okay, as those things go. You basically get a list of things that can be purchased (usually on Monday) and check off the items that you want. There is a separate sheet showing how much money you had in your account. You turn in the completed form, and your commissary would be delivered to you on Wednesday. The commissary inventory was pretty good; plenty of Ramen noodles, queso in a can, Little Debbie snacks, soda, tuna, potato chips; other stuff, too, but those were my staples. The Little Debbies were mostly for barter in case one of the other inmates had something that I wanted.
Jim: no
Smyth: If you had money otherwise no.
Ken: Generally not, you could purchase goods from the commesary once a week. They offered plenty of food and snacks, often better quality than the food that was served.