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".
View attachment 725700

Anyone else have a story to share?

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

 

[gmc2003]

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.

Yeah, but that does explain a lot. LOL

 

[millerbuilds]

My favorite was the Chuckwagon sandwich. All of the food was cooked at the High School and then transported to the elementary school, it was nasty. High School was much better.

 

[912smoker]

Damn sophomores. 1977

Class of '78 here and about all I can remember are the pizza and yeast rolls.
YUM YUM

Keith

 

[jcam222]

My favorite was the Chuckwagon sandwich. All of the food was cooked at the High School and then transported to the elementary school, it was nasty. High School was much better.

I remember loving those but can't remember what it was...... Like a fritter type patty?

 

[millerbuilds]

I remember loving those but can't remember what it was...... Like a fritter type patty?

The ones we had were Ham, Salami, Bologna, swiss, american warmed on a poppy seed bun. Usually served with tater tots. That was in rural Minnesota. Here in Texas, what they call a chuckwagon is basically chicken-fried steak on a bun with Miracle Whip....

Jason

 

[forktender]

I rarely ate school lunches, mom made our lunches, except for meatloaf days and grandma pizza pie days, They cost 50 cents back then, and like above you could eat as much as you liked as long as you cleared your plate each time. A Sicilian lady that lived across the street from us was a lunch lady at our school, she always gave me a double portions of meatloaf, and two corner slices of her sheet pizza. She was awesome, her name was Arianna, I called her Auntie Arianna.
Man, those were the days!!!

 

[sandyut]

my pseudo hippy parents packed my lunch most of the time. Home ground wheat bread AKA Lead Bread and all.

Anything beyond that I must have blocked out. Zero recollection of school lunch.

 

[jcam222]

my pseudo hippy parents packed my lunch most of the time. Home ground wheat bread AKA Lead Bread and all.

Anything beyond that I must have blocked out. Zero recollection of school lunch.

I loved with my aunt and uncle as a junior and senior in high school. They were into the organic and stuff. I used to get the lead bread and onion cheese sandwich. I sometimes wished for wonder bread but in retrospect that bread was awesome.

 

[chef k-dude]

Sorry, this trip down memory lane caused an even more serious case of diarrhea of the keyboard than my usual.

I always admired those "poor kids" who got the best breakfasts and lunch. My mom always had me eat breakfast before going to school, but she seldom cooked! It was usually pop tarts or cereal. I dont remember food in elementary school, but I remember getting to middle school (our system in Virginia at the time was K-6, 7-8, 9-12) and smelling the cinnamon rolls and eggs coming from the cafeteria...I never got that. I guess my parents didn't qualify for assistance school food but were too frugal to pay for school lunch at full price. I guess I brown bagged but it was never memorable. Sadly my mom wasn't much of a memorable cook, but she kept us alive!

I dont remember eating lunch in high school. I started getting $10 a week for lunch, but became an "entrepreneur" quickly and started "turning over substances" first thing Monday with that $10. By Friday I had a pocketful of "substances" and $20-30 to party with for the weekend! My sustenance was a buzz...

After I caught up with my truancy and class failure due to simply not showing up or doing anything (usually skipping school for the parties and girls at the latchkey kids homes while the parents were at work) by going to summer school and eventually night school, I started getting my act together, but took welding class in 11th grade which took me away from my academic school which I hated. The school where the trades were taught treated us more like adults. We were allowed to go off campus where there was a 7-11 and a MacDonald's which became my lunch for that year. Somehow I had the money for it...

Then in Senior year I had two classes and a job as a welder trainee as the nearby Army base. I drove a car, so I went back home for lunch, then to work. I was way too cool for school, especially the cafeteria! I parked in the teachers parking lot and my day started at second period, thanks to my welding instructor marking me "present" at that trade school miles away for first period!. I walked in to government class with my 7-11 cup of coffee to my teacher giving me crap about "how could I drink that nasty coffee" as he sipped his. The next year I moved from the parents and never went back. Lunch was on me from then on!

Was too poor to eat school made lunches. Brought a paper bag lunch that consisted usually of bologna and cheese sandwich and piece of fruit. Got a small box of milk to go with it.

That's where it was weird for me. The "poor" kids got the school lunches, but somehow we didn't have enough money to pay full price for a couple years. I vaguely recall getting that "box of milk" too though.

There's one girl I remember from those days, as well. I sometime wonder whatever happened to her, especially around this time of year. Never saw her again after grade school.
Her name was Becky, and she was a sweet girl who always wore what looked like hand-me-down-3-times clothing, always in a shade of brown or beige. Not quite burlap sack, but obviously not store-bought, either. Not that any of us were young fashion icons, but it stood out in the suburbs. This was a time when the line between Secular and Religious schooling was a little more blurred, especially around the holidays. But her parents belonged to some sort of offshoot of LDS, or Jehovah's Witnesses, and she was never permitted to attend school when we would be having a Halloween, Christmas, or Easter celebration in class. Her absence was conspicuous, and we always felt bad for her because of it. In retrospect, it's amazing to me that they let her attend a public school at all.

In high school, I got somewhat "popular"...somehow. Long red hair and a wild attitude I guess. Almost everyone said hi to me in the halls. I always acknowledged the lesser noticed girls...made sure they were "noticed" by a "popular" guy. Same with some of the dorkier boys. I had been one of them before my sudden "fame" and always treated all the same as the other popular, or at least "fearless" freaks and grits that were my clique. And stood up for them when needed. After bieng bullied when younger, I had zero tolerance for anybody bieng bullied once I had the power. Even the jocks didn't mess with me or my crew.

In my old neighborhood, pretty much elementary school days; we had a neighbor across the street that were of a certain religion. They didn't have a TV. They had to leave their kid, about my age with us for some reason one day. The look of astonishment on his face seeing the cartoons on our TV is something I'll never forget. I had never met a kid who had literally never seen TV.

That'll make a fella feel old! I graduated in 1983

That's my year. We ruined it for everybody. "Just say no"...was our fault...

Whipper snappers...1979.

My wife was 74. We went to their combined 73-74 reunion a couple years ago. THATS when I was supposed to be born! They were doing the reunion on the "3" for the "50". THOSE people know how to party. After closing down the reunion space, staying way later and dancing while the staff were literally taking things away, the party moved to a suite upstairs, rented by the reunion committee and went on into the wee hours...I have no idea how long...we left by about 2:30AM. Fine drink and snack food were there to be had.

Sitting there with fine bourbon in my hand, it suddenly occurred to me, "hey, this is my 40th reunion year". Grabbed my phone and looked it up...yep, exactly the same night (wife's was 2 nights). They were having it at the police association hall and alcohol free! Dweebs...

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.

The FDA "2 hour" thing is an abundance of caution, but some people wont risk it. A bout of food poisoning like Forktender tells will do that!

 

[gmc2003]

my pseudo hippy parents packed my lunch most of the time. Home ground wheat bread AKA Lead Bread and all.

I bet everyone wanted to trade with you for your brownies Dave. LOL

Chris