School Food!
Were you served lunch at school? Did you brown bag it? Did you go home for lunch?
I was served lunch at school, and it was vile. We ate 'family style,' there was no choice (although at some point they began providing jelly sandwiches for vegetarians - occasionally, when they ran out of the other kinds, with MINT jelly), there was no standard of nutrition, and lunch was viewed as a punishment by one and all. Thinking about it still makes me cringe.
What about you?
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Start Talking!
Need a question answered? Have advice to share? Start a Talk topic now!
Sign up to get your questions answered and share advice.
22 Comments:
I brown-bagged it most days. In elementary school the lady who lived next door (and is still living next to my folks) was one of the lunch ladies. Their stuff wasn't bad ... but the sheet-pan pizza was odd. Cheese and sauce pizza only, the cheese was grated in such a way that it actually looked like maggots! I don't recall much about middle-school lunch except for the long lines ... High school was a la carte, and the salad bar was pretty darn good. They also had the equivalent of a Wendy's Frosty, which was so popular they'd actually run out of it on occasion.
LunaPierCook at 8:37AM on 07/26/07
Pizza at my high school cafeteria consisted of slices of white bread topped with tomato sauce, a slice of american cheese, and two slices of pepperoni. These were heated in the oven until the pepperoni curled into little grease-filled cups. As I recall, I thought it was the best lunch my high school served.
I had awesome school food in Italy. My husband and I spent a month at a research facility on the shores of Lago Maggiore. Workers at the facility could buy lunch passes so they could eat at a local school cafeteria. One time, we were given someone else's lunch passes. We graciously took them and thought "oh well, at least we'll have nice company to talk to at lunch". We were served a fantastic family style meal with fresh pasta, delicious vegetables, and a meat course. And wine! Carafes of wine and bottled water were placed on each adult table. It was school lunch heaven.
Library Lady at 9:26AM on 07/26/07
"hot lunches" at our school were truly nasty things, so i usually brought my lunch. i think my fav was my mom's leftover hamburgers.
huney_bumper at 9:32AM on 07/26/07
During my elementary school years my brother and I came home for a lunch of sandwiches, soup and a fruit of some kind.What made this special is we ate lunch watching the Soupy Sales TV show. For those of you who know about Soupy this will date these lunches to 1950's Detroit. Soupy's " Words of wisdom" Please don't scratch your chicken pox. You'll look like a golf ball. made lunches great back then.
Colorado Jim at 10:21AM on 07/26/07
School food was always vile, so I brought my own. Sometimes just a PBJ and some fruit, but it was better than what was offered.
ride&cook at 10:46AM on 07/26/07
I went to a little country school from K thru 2 and had FABULOUS food. Nearly everything was made from scratch. No sheet pan pizzas- they were round and not previously frozen! We also got homemade donuts. The only thing I didn't like was the mac-n-cheese. I swear it was green. My older sister says they were fed stewed tomatoes one time and her teacher forced her to eat them. She promptly threw them up. I'm not sure they were ever served again.
Then the bastard$ running the school corporation decided to build a new elementary school and close the 3 smaller schools. I didn't care that the new building would be high tech and 'better' than my beloved Perry School. I knew that new didn't always mean better and I was right. The food sucked and I missed the old building.
AuntJone at 10:49AM on 07/26/07
Grades 1-8 were spent in Catholic schools (there was no kindergarten option, at least here, back then) where we brown-bagged it or metal lunch boxed it -- recall a red-and-black plaid lunch box to go with my navy plaid school uniform. Bologna sandwiches with lettuce and mayo, and good old PB&J were the standards, along with an apple or orange and a small baggie filled with potato chips. We bought milk for five cents a carton (does anyone else remember milk money day?). In high school, we had a cafeteria of course -- favorites were pizza and burgers on school-made buns, and apple crisp for dessert. The food was actually pretty good! I was one of those girls who was always on a diet (still am, but no longer obsess) and skipped a lot of lunches only to hit the town drive-in after school for French fries and Cokes.
hatlady at 11:44AM on 07/26/07
I went to Catholic Boarding School, so "school food" consisted of breakfast, lunch & dinner. The food was excellent, even though it was served cafeteria style. The menus were kept varied...everything from mac & cheese with fish, to hamburgers and fries, to turkey, potatoes & stuffing. They provided nutritious food, fun food & comfort food.
Really though, my memories of school food is of being on the cooking & serving side, more than on the eating side. I was one of the student cooks, which was my first experience in a commercial kitchen cooking
Specifically in a commercial bakery, as the school made 90% of its own baked goods. Eventually, I was given permission to use the bakery on weekends to make treats for our class activities...I still remember making soft pretzels for 100, full sheet pans of brownies & once Gateau Nancy which required a bottle of rum....not all of which made it into the cake!
Oh...and at the time, I kind of liked the sheet pan rectangles of pizza.
2qrs at 1:29PM on 07/26/07
Elementary school equaled a walk home which meant very little time for a small kid to eat.........no biggie, mom was NOT a good cook. On to the 6 year high school and the offerings were GROSS. Comparing not good mom cooking and finding school cooking worse made me at least somewhat appreciate mom's...
I took a bag with a PBJ on spongy white bread, and by lunch time after a morning in a hot steamy locker it is a wonder I never died from it. Cafeteria money at first went for chocolate milk, but they tried really hard to make sure it was warm and tasted almost spoiled.....yeppers, sort of like chocolate buttermilk..........yack.
So the only thing left and the only EDIBLE food from the cafeteria were those big round flat cookies, very vanilla flavored and I don't want to know how bad those were for us....I lived on them for 6 years. No wonder I left Cleveland with nary a glance back.
dmzapp at 3:05PM on 07/26/07
In high school, we would pile in cars & cruise to the local drive-in to order via the speakers with a car-hop delivering our selections! On other days, we would drive to the drug store & eat our pimento cheese sandwiches & chips sitting at a booth. Good memories!!
JEP at 3:48PM on 07/26/07
As if it wasn't bad enough that I ate it when I was younger, I now teach at an elementary school and sometimes (when mornings are hectic) I end up eating cafeteria food for lunch now.
Our cafeteria ladies are the sweetest bunch and they do as best they can with what they are given. Unfortunately, they are doing less cooking nowadays, as more school districts are going the route of buying prepared foods -- more cost-effective, so they say. So what was once just kind of icky is now getting unhealthier with the addition of preservatives, etc.
Anyway -- some old favorites: sloppy joes, chicken nuggets, mexican pizza, beefaroni, and peanut butter cookies :-)
Dominic
the zen kitchen
dvchurch at 4:10PM on 07/26/07
My high school was catered by Aramark. [shudders] As was my college, but their food was better. Not that it was...good. Which gives you an idea of how awesome my high school's food was. Who wants NACHOS FOR LUNCH topped with "CHEESE," MMM? Or funky pizza?...topped with another kind of "cheese?"
Actually, we had a pretty good sandwich bar. I always went for "spicy turkey salad," something that I don't think I've ever seen on any other menu. Everrr. ...But after a while I learned that my semi-good health would stay more intact by bringing my own food from home.
Thankfully my elementary school didn't have a cafeteria so I was forced to bring food from home, usually leftovers from dinner the night before. Not bad.
Robyn Lee at 4:13PM on 07/26/07
Brunch-for-Lunch was our favorite school lunch: Eggo waffles and sausage. But I wasn't allowed to eat sausage so only waffles for me. That and pizza were the only choices available so I usually brown bagged it with a nice Hawaiian Punch juice box, pb&j and some Stella D'oro Swiss Fudge Cookies.
Rebecca
Cooked Books
marmalady at 5:24PM on 07/26/07
I always brown-bagged it. It was usually some kind of sandwich (cheese and mayo, ham/cheese/mustard, pb and honey) with a piece of fruit, a juicebox and probably some carrot sticks or something. My favourite days were when I was allowed to bring a thermos full of soup. But then one day a kid brought a thermos full of hot water and a hot dog floating in it and we were all super jealous.
I shudder to think of it all now.
B
Hand to Mouth
Making Stock of the Situation
A Blog for Penniless Gourmets
handtomouth at 6:19PM on 07/26/07
"Hot lunch." Thanks, huney_bumper. I had forgotten about that terminology. At the start of every school day in elementary school, our teachers took a combined attendance/lunch count, in which we had to announce our lunch plans for the day:
hot
cold (i.e., you were brown-bagging it that day)
cold with milk (brown-bagging but grabbing a milk)
I loved "chicken bits" day—chicken nuggets with cornbread or a roll and mashed potatoes and a veggie. If they served a dinner roll, it became vogue to press a hole in the roll with your thumb, stuff the pat of butter in it, and then compress the roll into a tight ball. Kids!
Toward the end of elementary school, it also became standard practice to save one or two nuggets in your pocket to take with you to recess, which immediately followed lunch. The resourceful kids somehow managed to trade with other kids and get even more nuggets. If you were a really shrewd trader, you could eat your entire allotted nugget serving at lunch and have a couple extra for the playground. (I was never that shrewd.)
I also had a weird affinity for the pizza that they started serving us in junior high or high school. The rectangular slices were my favorite (they also served more traditional triangular slices). The excess grease—and there was a lot—would seep out and into the little cardboard caddy, and the weird spongy crust would soak it up. That was some weird-ass pizza, but I liked it.
Cool topic, caley! Thanks for lettin' me reminisce.
Adam Kuban at 6:36PM on 07/26/07
We had something called "chicken rings". Now, what exactly is ring-shaped on a chicken? They became known as "chicken a**holes" or the cleaner version, "chicken buttholes".
kendraburt at 12:38AM on 07/27/07
I LOVED my parochial school food. They made the best grilled cheese sandwiches with vegetable soup. And they made a mean "purple cow". My favorite day was when they had the peanut butter chocolate squares, which somehow always coincided with pizza day.
As I got older I lived on the salad bar line, which changed every day: my fave was baked potato line. And no one every drank milk, it just wasn't cool.
elderberry44 at 2:51PM on 07/27/07
Because I was lazy and didn't want to spend most of my 20 minutes lunch period waiting in line for food, I always brought my lunch from home in high school.
Ash at 3:16PM on 07/27/07
If you brown bag it, you've got to check out Education.com! They're aimed at kids, but they work for me too. I eat at my desk so often - I need healthier lunch choices....They've got this great list of healthy lunch box items - from healthy (and tasty) snacks like Lara Bars, Lundberg Rice Chips, and Fruitabu Organic Smooshed Fruit Twirls, drinks like O.N.E cocunut water and recipe ideas that will help you spruce up even the blandest of tuna sanwhiches....here's the tuna recipe..I have it in my lunch today and its fantastic:
Tuna Transformed
First of all, if you’re still using “chunk white” tuna, listen up! It contains up to three times the harmful mercury of “chunk light” tuna. Try to get your child used to the healthier variety as soon as possible.
Want to turn that typical tuna sandwich on its head? Add one tablespoon of white bean puree (see recipe) for every one tablespoon of mayonnaise you put in their tuna salad. Or mix in some canned skinless and boneless sardines. Yes, sardines! They’ve got almost no mercury and lots of IQ-boosting omega-3 oils. Start by mixing in 2 ounces of sardines per 6 ounces of tuna, and over time, gradually increase the amount. Continue to stir in mayo or whatever you normally add to your child’s tuna fish.
White Bean Puree recipe
1 15-ounce can white beans (great northern, navy, butter, or cannelloni)
2-3 tablespoons water
Rinse and drain the beans and put in a food processor. Pulsing in on/off trans, puree the drained beans with two tablespoons of water until smooth, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. The goal is a smooth but not wet puree. (The consistency of peanut butter). If needed, thin with a little more water, until no flecks of beans are visible.
Anyway, if you get a chance, check out the site to see a complete list of healthy lunch box ideas - you won't be dissapointed...www.education.com.
jamiewalker19 at 3:18PM on 07/27/07
In grade school ,we would get weekly mimeographs of the next week's school cafeteria menu, and our parents would have to circle the meals we were going to eat. My mom and I would decide which days I was going to eat school food and which days I'd brown-bag it. I used to love it when she'd make me cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, or peanut butter and marshmallow fluff. I didn't mind the school food so much, if I recall.
At intermediate school, we were pretty much reliant on the cafeteria, which was dreadful.
In high school, we had the option of free school lunches, brown bagging, or eating "off campus." My mom was working by then, and the brown bags weren't really much of an option. If I had the money, I'd eat in a diner, or get takeout, because the cafeteria food was so dreadful. I think that was the first place I tasted a curry, which convinced me for the next 20 years that I hated Indian food. I don't think there was a single fresh fruit or vegetable on offer. It was all starch.
klg19 at 8:21AM on 07/28/07
In elementary school, the food was really pretty okay. I always ended up eating the breakfast they served, and lunch as well, and rarely complained-- though I do recall shrinking back in terror from the fishsticks. Junior high food had to be the worst ever; there was pizza-- from Domino's- and 'chicken' tenders, and that was really all there was, every single day. My only experience with school milk was in junior high, where my cherished carton of chocolate milk was rotten. :(
High school food was okay. Some foods were better than others, so long as you stayed away from the taco meat.
Some favorites-- meatloaf sandwiches, turkey and rice with gravy, peanut butter and cornflake crispies, iced tea.
Here's hoping college food will live up to the large amount of money we're shelling out.
Christina at 1:45PM on 07/28/07
Actually-- I forgot to mention-- for awhile I packed my lunch, but since our house was often devoid of things that made handy lunches and I was ALREADY getting at up 5 AM to get to school, it just became too much of an effort...
Though for awhile I did take lovely goat cheese and tomato salads to school. Yum.
Christina at 1:47PM on 07/28/07