Most or Least Favorite School Lunch?

[mneeley490]

One of the things I love about this forum is that many threads stimulate thought on other subjects. For instance, JLinza's thread on chili made me think back of my grade school days in Seattle in the 1960's when chili and cinnamon rolls were a Wednesday staple. Thank you, JLinza!

That got me to wondering what other folks fondly remember?
This was when school cafeterias were staffed with women who actually prepared and cooked the food. No farming the meals out to mass-produced, commercial "kitchens".
Besides chili, my other favorite was creamed turkey over mashed potatoes, with big chunks of turkey in a savory gravy. This was always served with maple bars. And in grade school back then, if you ate everything on your plate, you could go back as many times as you wanted, until they either ran out, or lunch period was over. My friend and I would eat our favorites until we were stuffed! And as I recall, a carton of milk was a nickel, and a school lunch was $0.35 in the late '60's.
But not everything they made was great. I remember sauerkraut was on the menu way too often. Who feeds sauerkraut to little kids??? We tried to bribe other kids to eat it for us, because you couldn't leave for recess until your plate was clean. Also, their "hamburgers" had so much oat-filler in them, they might have qualified as "Vegan".

Anyone else have a story to share?

 

[mr_whipple]

I do have a story or two... as I'm sure everyone does! Done on the web for the day but I'll get to it tomorrow.

 

[DougE]

What they called beefaroni was especially nasty ....... basically some sort of ground beef concoction served over elbow macaroni.

 

[gmc2003]

I can't remember the day it was served, but Cookie Sheet Pizza's were the worst.

 

[DougE]

They had another version called, "Rocky Mountain", which was ground beef in gravy over mashed potatoes. It was pretty good aside from the giant pasty peas that came on the side.

I may or may not have been sent to stand against the wall in front of the cafeteria by the lunch ladies for flinging peas off my fork at other students .................

 

[mneeley490]

They had another version called, "Rocky Mountain", which was ground beef in gravy over mashed potatoes. It was pretty good aside from the giant pasty peas that came on the side.

I remember that one as well. I still make it sometimes. Not the peas, though.

 

[DougE]

I remember that one as well. I still make it sometimes. Not the peas, though.

It was pretty decent. I also like peas, but not those pasty nasty ones the cafeteria aways served on the side.

 

[yankee2bbq]

Very rarely did I buy my lunch. I always made my lunch before school. I do remember pizza day, most popular item on the lunch menu. Kids, including me loved it.
The most popular lunch line in high school was the “short line”. Don’t know why it was called that, but it was the longest line and you could buy nothing but junk food….candies, Little Debbie’s, chips….pop.
A couple of years after I graduated (1995) they discontinued that.

 

[Fueling Around]

The kitchen staff actually cooked back in my day too
They made some of the best soups and chili too
Some of the hot dishes (casseroles) were really good
Toastie Doggies was by far the most popular
I really missed the flavor of bulk milk. When they switched to cartons all I could taste was carton

 

[JLinza]

I remember the boiled hotdogs and what they called baked beans, were pretty bad. The hotdogs they served, looked like a Slim Jim that got run through the dishwasher

 

[JIMSMOKES]

I can't remember the day it was served, but Cookie Sheet Pizza's were the worst.

Rectangle pizza day was always a favorite no matter what grade I was in. Elementary and middle it was the biscuits for breakfast if you got there early enough and the yeast rolls for lunch!

 

[SMOKEOCD]

Salisbury steak, green beans, mashed potatoes is #1. Then jr high had alacarte type so pizza rectangle, fries and a chocolate frosty.
“Hamburgers “ were the worst. We called them soy burgers but never knew for sure what was in there.
High school was pretty good food. Two lunches, two chocolate milks, and a nutty bar was under $3.

 

[thirdeye]

In grade school (also in the '60's), we had the option to take a sack lunch, or buy a cafeteria lunch via a punch card.

The worst lunch option at school.... for me was fish sticks on Friday, with mac-n-cheese and some unknown dessert.

I lived on the Gulf coast, and we enjoyed fresh fish or shrimp at least 3 days a week.

 

[DougE]

some unknown dessert.

The jello with chunks of fruit was both recognizable and horrible.

 

[mneeley490]

I guess I should mention, that grade school had the best lunches, with quality progressively going down as I got older. Middle school, or Junior High as we called it, prices went up, quality went down. High school was the worst. The food was getting expensive ($1.75 in 1979 dollars) and nearly inedible. That's about the time the food was being made somewhere else, and just reheated at school.
My friends and I would most often opt for the sub sandwich. It had minimal cold cuts sliced so thin, that you could hold them up to the light and see through them. I'm not kidding. We ate it because at least the bread was filling. My senior year, they put in a hot dog cart in the lunchroom (which coincidentally was run by my future mother-in-law.) It didn't last long; the rumor was that it was outselling the kitchen, skewing the numbers, and making the school lunch program look bad, so they axed it to end the competition.

 

[civilsmoker]

In elementary school I was the first and really only student that would raise my hand to do “kitchen duty”. All the kids hated it…..but they didn’t understand how to work the system….see I got to leave class 1 hour before lunch time to go help the lunch ladies fix the lunch…..ie make pizza, mash potato’s etc! I would then serve the lunch and then after I would stay and hour to clean up…..so that was not being in class for two hours…..oh and the best part, the lunch ladies would either let me make my own lunch or they would make up a real lunch as a thank you……hey maybe that’s why I like to cook now….????

But the funniest story ever…..one of my friends decided to help one day, I told him it would be worth it…..well after lunch there was extra OJ that was poured so rather than toss it we started drinking it….i had like 3 and said I’m out…..my friend continued to drink between 12 to 16 glasses…..he was like this is awesome…..I mean we had tang at home but never real OJ……well we go back to class and after about 40 mins I hear him groaning….so I turn around and he is just leaning over his desk and then just lets go……the OJ just didn’t stop and it made a HUGE spread all over the floor…..kids screaming running for the door….the teacher freaking out and not wanting to run through the lake……I was laughing uncontrollable…(I got detention for being insensitive….ha ha). In the end my my friend felt better once the OJ release was done and the teacher had me walk home home early……after that no student would go near the kitchen as a helper so I got the kitchen to my self and yes best lunches ever!

 

[Fueling Around]

I guess I should mention, that grade school had the best lunches, with quality progressively going down as I got older. Middle school, or Junior High as we called it, prices went up, quality went down. High school was the worst.
...

Small town so K-12 was all in the same complex with the same kitchen. Quality did start slipping a bit as the older cooks retired.