The food stamp program was born during the Great Depression as an emergency mechanism to get basic staple foods to families facing widespread hardship. The mission was simple: put real food on the table for people who couldn’t afford it.

Ninety years later, the program looks almost nothing like that. Today, food stamps can be redeemed at more than 250,000 retailers — including a rapidly growing number of stores that bear little resemblance to a grocery, such as smoke shops and liquor stores. For decades, the rules governing what those retailers actually had to offer their customers were so weak that the program’s core purpose was quietly forgotten or ignored.