The mid-day meal programme of India has been expanding and transforming ever since its inception in 1995. The main objective of the school meal programme was to raise both the quality of education and nutrition amongst school-going children in India. While economists, nutritionists and journalists have taken a keen interest in the mid-day meal, there has been limited anthropological interest in it. There has also been very little interest in the social context of food and eating in schools in India. This paper is an attempt to fill the gap. We look at the social context of the mid-day meal in Assam’s schools - - a north-eastern state of India, with specific reference to Guwahati. The main methods used in this research are observation and interview - both telephonic and in person, and the analysis is primarily qualitative. Recent years have seen several controversies regarding the quality of food served, distributional agents of the meals, and protests seeking a hike in remuneration of workers involved in the mid-day meal programme of Assam. This paper highlights how issues of identity – caste, class, gender, region and religion - are played out in the mid-day meal, impacting its fundamental goal of enhancing nutritional health. Decisions regarding what food would be served, who cooks and who eats are governed by the social conditions of caste, religion, region and gender. Food is an integral part of a culture, laden with social values and meanings even as it permits survival. With increasing discussions on the relationship between food and health, the mid-day meal is a perfect avenue to understand the interconnectedness between nutrition and the social context. The paper also addresses how the mid-day meal programme was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.