Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

in my high school we had 4 stations and a decent amount of options, yet i would only get 5 things - ever! friday was pizza day and i would always dip my pizza in the mini salad and dressing it came with.
wed was chicken ranchero day - chicken patty topped with bacon, american cheese and the obligatory lettuce and tomato slice and you top it yourself with ranch dressing on a kaiser roll and it usually came with baked mac and cheese - the line on wed was always rediculously long!
the other days i had a bagel with cream cheese, fries and an arizona iced tea. or cheese nachos loaded with toppings (i don't eat beef) or a cheese sandwich on a kaiser as i have always been adverse to lunch meat.
i am very surprised i have normal cholesterol these days - i can't imagine what it was back then...although growing up in a vegetarian household my other meals must have cancelled out the cholesterol loaded fest during the school week.

In elementary school i loved the cold triple decker PB&J's... Also i loved the taste of the sloppy joes with melted kraft cheese but i didnt like the chunkiness of it so i would scrape it all out and eat what became a sloppy joe flavored cheese sandwich mmmmm.....i've tried to recreate it but to no avail.

In H.S. we had open campus so i always left for lunch. lucky me

Growing up in Singapore it was Szechuan Chicken, Beef Kway Teow, with fat rice noodles, beef and greens, and Mee Goreng, Malay style curry noodles. All made fresh while we sat there patiently waiting, watching the woks sizzle and Mr. Ho flip in bits of this and that. Mmmm.

This one is pretty simple. Number one is the rectangle pizza served on top of fries. I would take the cheese off the pizza, put it on the fries, eat the pizza dough, then mix the cheese and fries together and eat them. Very healthy.

Second was pita bread pizza. I would always get cold and wet in the middle, so it was much preferred to have a fresh one.

I wasn't too big on cafeteria food but I always loved when they would have the special "holiday" hot turkey meals right before vacations. An ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes, a slice of turkey with that brown canned gravy and the always random slice of white bread to soak it up. Old fashioned yum.

A few of my favorites: Tator tots, soft buttered roll (almost like White Castle bun) with mashed potatoes, tacos, chicken and noodles, rectangle pizza, and T-Bolt sandwich...Texas toast, mozzeralla cheese, marinara and pepperoni...yum.

I'm a vegetarian now, but I used to love Hot Ham and Cheese days. Was that a universal lunch item? Ham and cheese melted on a soft roll.

I loved reading all of these--it really took me back.

Elementary school:
"taco pie" It was a mix of ground beef, beans, probably american cheese, lettuce and fritos! All scooped onto your plate with an ice cream scoop.
Macaroni and Cheese with two little smokies. I guess they added the little smokies to meet the protein requirement.

Junior High:
I don't remember a lot, but I ate salad bar and that rectangular pizza

High School:
I would eat lettuce and tomato sandwiches on white bread with yellow mustard (yuck!) but would also eat nacho bar.

College:
Breaded Chicken Sandwiches, Taco Pizza, Pasta Bar, Baked Potato Bar, the breakfast was always the best, "premium night" always the absolute worst.

The Turkey A La King served on top of a scoop of boxed mashed potatoes!
Before taking off for Thanksgiving they would serve this with a roll and a piece of "pumpkin pie", which was nothing but pumpking pie filling with a thin layer of Cool Whip frosting.

The only other thing that was remotely edible was the grilled cheese sandwich. I have yet to find one that comes close to that neon, buttery monstruosity.

I loved the beef stew and the sugar cookies. This was when there were lunch ladies who cooked the food and served it lovingly to you. I was a picky eater (I would be skinnier if I still was) and I remember eating many things that I would not have eaten at home. In high school I ate a lot of salads and saltine crackers with butter.

I have the sloppy joe recipe from the high school I attended from 1954 thru 1958, the best. The ladies who cooked were mothers of students and when they got busy serving lunch the janitor would help serving. Great hot beef sandwiches too.

I loved the tuna puff. Basically a tuna salad mounded on half of a homemade yeasty bun, topped with cheese and baked. The lunchline lady always let me have the sandwich that had been made with the top half of the bun. Also, sandy sugar cookies. Five cents for a cookie bigger than my whole hand. I detested the white milk which was always too warm. It was in a completely square carton with a bit of tinfoil at one corner that you peeled back to open. In junior high my favorite was meatloaf with brown gravy mashed potatoes and English Peas. In high school Taco Doritos had been invented and I used to have a bag with a Dr. Pepper or a bag of Ozark BBQ potato chips. They were so thickly coated with spice your fingers were stained for the rest of the day.

At my high school in an L.A. suburb, once in a while (once a month?) some administrator would fire up a kettle grill outside the cafeteria and honest-to-goodness grilled cheeseburgers would be on offer. Those were good days.

The rest of the time, meh.