School lunches - A walk down memory lane
Since fall is here and kids are back in school, take a trip back in time (late 70s early 80s), when kids were skinny and anything the lunch lady served up was cool....what was your favorite lunch? For me, corn dog day. 2 corny dogs, perfectly brown and crisp, the token vegetable of green beans, a generous squirt of yellow mustard, and a good size chocolate peanut cluster for dessert. If you have never tried it, chocolate dipped in mustard, awesome! But never ate the slimy green beans, haha.
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24 Comments:
I loved chicken cordon bleu day - served with random steam veggies, baked potatoes and beet root salad. Good old fashioned fare!
B
Hand to Mouth
handtomouth at 6:14AM on 09/13/07
In australia we dont have 'food days'- just whatever the school canteen happened to be serving,
It was usually chicken rolls, pies, pasties, fried rice, sammiches, so much candy and the assortment of baked goods and cold desserts (ice cream, ice blocks etc etc) Sometimes they got in those nasty pasta meals in foil trays that you heat up in the microwave.
One food trend I remember was people used to get a white knot roll (with sesame seeds), squirt a fountain of tomato sauce (ketchup) in it and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds. Weird.
I used to spend my money on other random crap (damn you hello kitty keychains!) Hence, I never used to eat lunch >.
choc_puddin at 6:26AM on 09/13/07
always loved Fridays during lent, that was Pizza Day. about the only thing they ever served that was worth eatting.
huney_bumper at 8:51AM on 09/13/07
I don't know why, but I had to buy school lunch on "beefaroni" day. My dad usually made our lunches, but my brother, sisters, and I each had a "day" -- all different -- that we liked to buy lunch.
Now I'm a teacher in an elementary school and sometimes get nostalgic for the lunches of yore. I work in the same district that I grew up in, but they no longer serve beefaroni -- how sad!
Dominic
the zen kitchen
dvchurch at 9:17AM on 09/13/07
Fish sticks and spaghetti? What was up with that?
ronfrankl at 9:18AM on 09/13/07
My favorite school lunch was a bowl of beans with a block of cornbread alongside. I put the pat of butter (meant for the cornbread) on the beans, and added ketchup. Sometimes I scored somebody else's butter, wich was always a plus. Either crumbled the cornbread into the beans, or just ate it alongside. (it's a white trash/southern thing;)
The peanut butter/cornflake bars were my favorite dessert. They also had homemade yeast rolls. But mostly I packed lunch...
Lilla at 10:10AM on 09/13/07
Chocolate and mustard?!? That sounds a little scary, but I'll take your word on it.
When I was in high school (not so long ago), the food was pretty high quality (lots of fresh fruit, a great salad bar, healthy hot food) and the cafeteria was open all day, so we could grab something between classes anytime. My favorite dish they served was an outstanding chana masala (chickpea curry), or on special alum days or when the school was hosting important visitors, the dining hall staff would put out leftovers from fancy luncheons, like caprese salad and shrimp cocktail.
ChristineB at 10:11AM on 09/13/07
Taco boat day and pepperoni pizza day were my favorites. A "taco boat" was a big, rectangular tortilla that curved up around the edges and held a big pile of ground meat, cheese and sauce. It was so oily, but I loved it!
And the days they wheeled the ice cream cart out were real treats. I always got a "rocket." Not those red, white and blue popcicles, but it was vanilla ice cream with a fudge swirl that you pushed out of a cardboard cylinder with a small plastic handle. I don't think I've seen these things anywhere since elementary school!
K at 11:31AM on 09/13/07
I'm with huney-bumper on Pizza Day, generally served on Fridays as well. Ours were cut into squares and made with ground beef and lots of American cheese. Not exactly Italian fare, but we didn't mind. The pizza was served with whole kernel corn and pear halves. Lilla's post also brought back memories of the beans-and-cornbread grouping that my mom used to make for dinner. I miss my mom, and I miss her beans.
hatlady at 11:36AM on 09/13/07
We didn't have a school cafeteria in elementary school, but we had certain days where we could sign up and bring in money for Hot Dog Days and Pizza Days. This always meant a fun time, although since my last name is at the end of the alphabet, I always got served last, which meant lukewarm hot dogs and milk (a vile combo).
In high school I mainly packed my lunch, but if I was still hungry, they had these triangular shaped hash brown puck thingies that I absolutely loved. They were soooooo greasy, but so tasty. Also, we had these sort of half-baked chocolate chip cookies. The softer and dough-ier the better. Mmmm....
psychsarah at 12:33PM on 09/13/07
Lunchroom pizza for me too! Spongy crust, never saw a pizza stone (did they exist in the '60s?), canned tomato sauce, rubbery sausage...I loved it.
My favorite dessert was a very dark, moist chocolate sheet cake with choc. frosting.
Cathy at 2:20PM on 09/13/07
The only three things I remember about school lunches were:
buying 2 slices of buttered rye bread, a scoop of tuna and making a sandwich
the lousy rubbery pizza they served
a good friend who everyday ate the same lunch. Two pints of milk, an ice cream sandwich and two Ring Dings!!! Everyday for the three years we had lunch together.
Dughis at 2:37PM on 09/13/07
English Muffin Pizza! I LOVED those things. I still get all sentimental about them and break out the Thomas' every once in a while.
rockykay at 3:28PM on 09/13/07
Okay, maybe this is because I was raised in the midwest, but I also remember very fondly the days when the sdie dish was a big pile of tater tots! Just a little salt and those were amazing!
Our school pizzas and hamburgers and tacos were always a huge disappointment, spongy, coagulated and stale, respectively, they were horrible. But somehow, the tater tots always lived up to their hype.
Traveller at 5:24PM on 09/13/07
yes! tater tots days were the bomb.
i seem to remember getting really excited for taco days...
and for sloppy joes.
AND does anyone else remember those awesome rolls that came with every meal? Squishy white bread rolls glistening with salty butter on top (or should i say dripping?)...mmmm
our school would also have bagel day once a month where you could put in an order of bagels for your family (25 cents each!) and they'd be delivered in a brown bag from Detroit Bagel.
Yes, Detroit has good bagels.
crafty at 5:30PM on 09/13/07
I'm probably the oldest SE here & I'm having a "senior moment" re: school lunch----do not recall any hot meals in grade school & middle school (lunchbox from home). In high school, a bunch of us would pile in cars & cruise to the local drive-in & order by the speaker phone for our greasy cheeseburger & fries or drive to the local drug store & cram in booths while eating pimento cheese sandwiches, chips & dill pickles. Some great memories :)
JEP at 5:52PM on 09/13/07
Friday was fish day in our 93% Jewish public elementary school. Even if I had understood the religious meaning of meatless days, I still would have loved fishstick lunch for itself: fried crumbs (not batter) on sticks of indistinguishable white fish, with a scoop of from-powder whipped potatoes and a ladle of corn niblets on the side. I cannot recall any greens being served in the cafeteria from 1963-1970 inclusive, except the lettuce leaf under the square of red jello. It's no wonder we baby boomers have serious brain chemistry problems.
annien at 6:19PM on 09/13/07
Going along the same lines as taco boat days, I used to love Frito Boat days: in those paperboat bowl things, a pile to Frito chips with a scoop of heaping hot chilli with cheese and jalapenos on top. The lines were always out the door those days!
chlamers at 6:56PM on 09/13/07
Wow. I'm a LOT older than you guys. We didn't have microwaves in my day, and we sure didn't have any steamed veggies, either! Everything we ate tended to be either fried or boiled within an inch of its life.
I did like sloppy joe days, though. That was about it. I HATED school lunches. I was so happy to get to high school, and be able to go to the Plaza Diner down the street for lunch!
klg19 at 7:12PM on 09/13/07
I, too loved pizza days (rectangle with white cheese and pepperoni chunks or yellow cheese with sausage bits). And the hamburgers were pretty good too (although, even then, we called them mystery meat).
My mom still works in the same school district I grew up in so occasionally I'll go have lunch with her. Now they have something called "chicken rings" that scare me. What part of the chicken comes in a ring??
kendraburt at 6:47AM on 09/14/07
We had a dish called "John Marzetti" in elementary school that I swear was served once a week. Everyone hated it, I loved it- it was a messy mash up of noodles, ground beef, tomato sauce, and peas. I also loved the gluey, sticky, goopy, burnt on the edge macaroni and cheese, too! Fridays were "chocolate milk day", always something to look forward too.
aungeinphx at 4:12PM on 09/14/07
I, too, am a kid of the Fifties, and don't recall anything worth eating in the lunchroom, with its perpetual smell of steamy overcooked canned vegetables. It was peanut butter and pork chop sandwiches for me and occasionally left over fried chicken. When I got to HS, I was allowed to walk the 3 blocks to our tiny downtown and buy 10-cent hamburgers (spectacularly cheap, even by the standards of the time) with the rest of the kids, but it had to be from Lucy Bee's, not the pool hall, whose hamburgers were much better. "Nice girls" weren't supposed to go in there. I once received a severe talking-to by one teacher because she had heard I did so, and since one of my parents taught in that same school system, I was fair game to be chastized. My honest protestations of innocence fell on deaf ears, but she was clearly unsure of herself enough to carry her complaints to my folks, her usual tack. But they were divine burgers; eventually I got to taste one.
lemons at 10:26AM on 09/15/07
I only remember the "avoid at all costs" lunch -- Country-fried steak, affectionately known around the lunch table as "Crunchy-fied"! YUK!
flootsmith at 12:13PM on 09/15/07
My all time favorite lunch was tomato soup with cheetoes (crunch ones not the soft kind) . I would dump in all of my cheetoes right in the soup. I still love it with the cheetoes (had it yesterday) but at home I add a grilled cheese sandwich which I dunk into the soup. My school also made amazing cinnamon rolls. Dixie
Dixie at 3:42PM on 09/20/07