Most or Least Favorite School Lunch?

[radioguy]

I brown bagged it most of the time $$ were tight for us. 16 ounce chocolate milk for 20 cents a week. Glass bottles too !. Every once in awhile I would be able to get a "Hot Lunch" that's what the program was called. Favorite was a sloppy Joe sandwich. bag of chips or fritos, apple and a nutty buddy bar.

RG

 

[texomakid]

I found a rusty nail in the peach cobbler once. Showed it to the Vice Principal and that tray of food disappeared so quickly it was like magic!

 

[BigW.]

Glad to see chili with a cinnamon roll is served in places other than Nebraska. That was always a tasty lunch. I also liked Fiestadas... a hexagon shaped mexican pizza. Hamburgers were awful. Jr High had ice cream and rice crispy treats so that was the go to on many days. I also worked the lunch room for a semester. I think I made $3.85 an hour? Got all the churros I could eat.

 

[ghostguy6]

In grade elementary school it was always bring your own cold lunch as there was no cafeteria to speak of. No vending machines either. There were a few days where you could opt in to buy pizza's, hot dogs or subway sandwiches. If you were lucky the teacher would provide popcorn if they showed a movie.

Junior high we had vending machines with the usual chocolate bars and chips but nothing that would qualify as a meal. We did get a canteen that would offer Hygard pizza or ham sandwiches. The problem was there was a very limited amount available each day ( 25 of each I think) and the assistant principal was always first in line ordering 5 sandwiches a day for himself. No word of a lie he must have been 5 feet tall and 6 feet circumference. We did also have the occasional pizza, hot dog or sandwich days if you paid and signed up ahead of time.

In high school we did have a cafeteria but it was run by commercial food's students. There were the staples like burgers and fries which sold for $3.50. It was actually a good deal if you bought a 1L soft drink because it worked out to $5.00 for a meal. There were some pre-made sandwiches but I don't think I ever saw anyone actually buy one. Honestly gas station sandwiches looked better. They did have a daily special that sometimes would be a club sandwich and fries, other days it would be a stir fry but those were $7.50 and you still had to pay extra for a drink. They also offered some basic pastries but they were not made fresh unless they ran out of stock. If the cinnamon buns were fresh they were great but most of the time they were old and stale.

I opted to take a personal foods course one semester right before lunch so I would get some variety in my meals ( and to meet girls) but the teacher turned out to be horribly sexist and would only allow the class to make what the girls wanted. We made spaghetti once, vegetarian pizza once, pretzels once and the rest of time we baked cookies. The whole semester I literally cooked meat once and that was because I made a steak sandwich for my final exam.

 

[processhead]

I recall our school cafeteria had no less than 4 different names for what was essentially a sloppy joe.
Not sure if they thought we would think we were getting something new/different but they didn't fool anyone. They were usually served on Mondays.
They also served canned corn that came in the standard 1 gallon cans. Big uproar one day when someone found a dead corn borer worm in their serving of corn .

 

[jcam222]

Our grade school 1-8 didnt have a cafeteria, so it was brown bag for us, no refrigerators so lunch just sat on a shelf until lunch, high school had a cafeteria but still brown bagged it, rarely ate the cafeteria food which was ok, I ate my lunch and headed outside for awhile while kids were still in line waiting for their food.

I packed a lot too, those lunches of things like tuna or egg salad sat in my locker with no ice packs or cooling for hours lol. None of us died from it.

 

[fxsales1959]

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".
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Anyone else have a story to share?

I shudder now but always looked forward to those big, dry Pizza chunks.