School Lunches

TastyReuben said:
School lunches here are notoriously terrible (at least they were when I was a kid), right up there with prison food. Be careful what you hope for! :)
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I guess the grass is always greener at the other side.

We did have a school breakfast at christmas each year, and a school dinner at the end of the year before the summer holidays. But those were organised by the parents and were most like a potluck where everyone contributes something.

School Christmas breakfast used to contain at least Christmas stollen, fresh bread rolls, all kinds of deli meats and cheeses, fruits, juices, boiled eggs and usually some kind of muffin or cake.

School dinner was an assortment of snacks usually, like pigs in a blanket, sticks with fruit and marshmallows, pizza rolls, french bread with cheese and dips, vegetables on sticks, meatballs and devilled eggs.
 
In grade school it was cafeteria day in and day out. My mother was a teacher so I can only assume she got free lunches for her kids. I have no memory at all of the food. I always wanted a Scooby Doo lunchbox but that was not to be. Fast forward to middle school, still cafeteria because that was where my friends were eating. There was a donut shop close by that made bean burrito which were cheap and filling and had lots of cheese which we liked, so sometimes we would go there and eat. I still don't remember the food in the cafeteria although I do remember that every Friday was burger day so all the other kids seemed to like that. I had great cooks for parents so I wasn't impressed with that dry grayish brown patty and mediocre bun.
High school brought all new friends and we started going to each others houses in rotation for lunch. Susan would always feed us tuna sandwiches. Felicia always gave us PB&J. I always fed them whatever was in the fridge. Slices of ham right off the bone with home made buns and thick slices of colby cheese that my dad made along with the bottles of home made root beer he made when we had them. Sometimes I would leave a covered pan of enchiladas in the oven on warm and we would eat those. Other times there would be enough fried chicken left from dinner the night before to have it cold with potato salad. Once in awhile we would go out for burgers but we really preferred to let our parents feed us and save our money LOL.
 
Backbay said:
Pizza burgers were ground beef with a light tomato sauce and finely chopped pepperoni served open face on a hamburger roll topped with melted American cheese. Upside down meatloaf was meatloaf mixture spread out in a sheet pan that had sides and then topped with a layer of mashed potatoes on top and cut into squares for serving.

On the days I packed, it was bologna and Hellman's mayo sandwiches or tuna fish and miracle whip sandwiches. Bag of chips and a cookie. Bought milk at school for the bev.
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I'm struck by the complete lack of any vegetables here apart from the mashed potatoes in the meatloaf. Did you really get no veg in those meals?
 
In middle school, most of the lunch ladies were black, so the menu was mostly soul food with collards, sweet potatoes and okra as staples for veges. Of course the greens and okra were cooked "southern style", in other words mush. You can imagine how the Cuban kids took to that! :headshake: When I did eat the cafeteria lunches, I had no idea I was eating soul food.
 
Morning Glory said:
I'm struck by the complete lack of any vegetables here apart from the mashed potatoes in the meatloaf. Did you really get no veg in those meals?
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Oh yes, they did - but since I hardly ate them I conveniently left them off. Peas &Carrots, corn, carrots, or peas..I only like peas Cold, don’t like carrots. The corn I would eat.
 
In most of grade school, we brought in our own lunches but we had a choice of waxy carton regular milk or waxy carton chocolate milk, for a dime (ten US cents). I usually chose the latter. For nearly three years I insisted that I have peanut butter sandwiches every day, and Mom complied - peanut butter by itself, peanut butter and butter, or peanut butter and jelly. One day I suddenly developed a serious aversion to the taste and stench and it took me until the early or mid 90s before I could bear to eat peanut butter again. And I have yet to put it between slices of bread (I can eat it in Thai cooking, or in quality Reese's style candies. Or if it is a quality peanut butter, even by itself... but NEVER with bread or with jelly! ) That aversion developed back in the early 60s.

I remember after that a lot of bologna sandwiches or cheese ones, sometimes with lettuce, and they did become more diverse. Mom wasn't going to let me destroy my taste buds again, and I was by that point happy not to have that happen again, either.

Instead of lunch boxes, we had paper bags. I remember my much younger brother got to go off to school with actual lunch boxes. I had no envy about it, though. It was what it was.

High school food was cafeteria style. It was okay, but I really remember nothing about it.
 
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Mountain Cat said:
In most of grade school, we brought in our own lunches but we had a choice of waxy carton regular milk or waxy carton chocolate milk, for a dime (ten US cents). I usually chose the latter. For nearly three years I insisted that I have peanut butter sandwiches every day, and Mom complied - peanut butter by itself, peanut butter and butter, or peanut butter and jelly. One day I suddenly developed a serious aversion to the taste and stench and it took me until the early or mid 90s before I could bear to eat peanut butter again. And I have yet to put it between slices of bread (I can eat it in Thai cooking, or in quality Reese's style candies. Or if it is a quality peanut butter, even by itself... but NEVER with bread or with jelly! ) That aversion developed back in the early 60s.

Instead of lunch boxes, we had paper bags. I remember my much younger brother got to go off to school with actual lunch boxes. I had no envy about it, though. It was what it was.

High school food was cafeteria style. It was okay, but I really remember nothing about it.
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This will make you laugh, I grew up watching 'My Three Sons', they ate pbj Sammies. I got fixated on them and wanted to try this. I asked my mum to make me a pbj sammy with left over jelly/ jello. Raspberry from memory. Jelly here is a gelatine sweet wobbly dessert here. The next day I opened my lunch box to a soggy mess. I tried it and never asked for it again. The meaning of words huh?
I still love s proper pbj sammich now, on fresh bread, with lots of butter.

Russ
Russ
 
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This subject just reminded me of two more things we had I had forgotten about. In the winter parents used to come in and make all the kids hot cocoa. We all had our own cups. Some times it was nice, sometimes crapola. Another memory, we could order and prepay for fish n chips on a Friday also during winter. I never had any but was always given a hand full from a friend.

Russ
 
Cafeteria? Choices? You guys had it easy. Lunch would start with an orderly queue outside the dining hall (we Brits practise queuing from an early age) regardless of the weather. When the doors opened we would file in and go to pre-arranged refectory tables that seated about 20 on hard benches. After standing for grace, we would be served our meal, from memory it always involved boiled potatoes, cabbage and carrots, along with some form of unidentifiable meat in gravy. If you cleared your plate you got pudding, usually something stodgy with custard. No choices, other than take it or leave it.
 
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