Martha Stewart Still Made This Food While She Was In Prison

Going to prison is rough as it is, but according to Martha Stewart, the horrible food was one of the worst parts of her incarceration experience (via CNN Money). Back in 2002, the celebrity chef was sentenced to five months in a minimum security prison in West Virginia for conspiracy and obstruction of justice during an investigation of stocks she sold in 2001. Leaving the comforts of her sprawling mansion and her massive kitchen, Stewart refused to settle for prison cafeteria food and resorted to foraging instead.

In an interview with Fox News, Stewart shared that she cooked with dandelions and other wild greens, utilizing the microwave for her recipes. She later told Daily Mail that she also managed to pick crab apples from surrounding trees. "Some of the food [served to inmates] was dated three years prior, so I made crab apple jam from the trees," she explained. Leave it to Martha Stewart to successfully make homemade jam in prison.

Though she had her crab apple jam to hold her over, People reported that Stewart ate so little of the actual food that was served that she dropped several pounds as a result. Even on Thanksgiving Day, she skipped the prison's special holiday meal — apparently it wasn't that appetizing anyway — to spend time with her visiting family. When her family left, Stewart made her own Thanksgiving feast: pasta with olive oil, which she enjoyed with a fellow inmate.

As someone who writes cookbooks for a living, it comes as no surprise that prison food wasn't up to Stewart's standards. But it's also the reason she began advocating for prison reform (via NBC). "I have had time to think, time to write, time to exercise, time to not eat the bad food, and time to walk and contemplate the future," Stewart wrote. As it turns out, crab apple jam just doesn't cut it.