Question of the Day, Saturday, September 23

[Winchester]

Happy Weekend!

This question is thanks to bbdoll22 's post in the Dinner Thread. Thank you bbdoll22 !

Think about your school's lunch "back in the day". What did you really like? Anything? What did you dislike? Anything? Did you buy your lunch or did you pack?

We always had to buy lunch at school. I liked their spaghetti and meat sauce. Hated, hated, hated toasted cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. Liked the sandwich, hated, despised the soup. Turkey and stuffing wasn't too bad, even though it was processed turkey. Rest of the lunches were OK, I guess. We didn't have pizza, hoagies, etc. back then. And we didn't have salad bars or anything like that.

Our son usually carried his lunch as he didn't like the school's lunches. He would carry things like leftover fried chicken, leftover pizza, leftover soups and stews in a thermos, or some kind of sandwich (meatloaf, tuna, etc.), always some fruit, and always some kind of cookies or cupcakes. He loved taking his lunch because it was always something different. A couple times, when I was packing something that I knew one of buddies really liked, I'd pack extra for him, although I don't really think our son shared. Rick always took his lunch to work, too, so they usually had the same kind of lunch. I always made extra for dinner for the next day's lunches.

What about you?

 

[kashmir64]

I don't remember grade school, that was early to mid '70's. For High School, it was an open campus so I never even went into the cafeteria. There was a pizza joint not far so usually got a couple of slices there.

 

[Mia6]

i packed in grammar school, bought the school's after that. loved spaghetti and grilled cheese.

 

[denice]

I went to small schools so meals were cooked from scratch, still institutional food though and I ate the school lunches. The two things that I remember as good were desserts, figure that is what a kid would remember. Apple Crisp and these huge, at least in my memory they were huge, warm cinnamon rolls.

 

[MoochNNoodles]

My first elementary school had some kind of beef with gravy and mashed potatoes that I LOVED. The meat was probably glorified lunch meat because it was super tender but like sliced off a loaf and then topped with gravy. It cut with a plastic knife very easily. I can’t imagine eating that now!

My high school had the best rolls! I usually ate at the salad bar and had a roll with it. They weren’t as good once the lady who made them left. That was probably a low pay, thankless job.

 

[neely]

Growing up in the city we went home for lunch in elementary school, not a far walk. I honestly don't remember whether I bought or brought lunch in high school, I just remember they had the best gigantic butter cookies and sometimes that was my lunch.

 

[Kat0121]

I always brought lunch from home. It was very rare that I bought lunch from the cafeteria. Our schools were located in a residential area so there were no restaurants anywhere near them so it wasn't like you could walk across the street to get something. I'm pretty sure that the menus in all the schools were pretty much the same. Not great. The hamburgers were taken out of a pan of water that had a layer of grease on top. Cooked to death and SO bland. Exactly what you'd expect a boiled hamburger to taste like. The pizza was not great. Frozen probably. There was no reason to eat it. We had good pizza places all over. I do remember the HS having a reuben sandwich that was pretty good.

 

[sivyaleah]

Lunch was always packed - there was no cafeteria in any of the schools I went to before high school. Probably tuna, some kind of deli meat. I actually have no real memory of this at all. I do remember the food in the H.S. cafeteria was awful - most likely I bagged it then too. It's all a blur to me. Shocked I didn't get food poisoning weekly since nobody even used cold packs then.

 

[MonaLyssa33]

I always loved French toast sticks. In high school I brought my lunch most days and it was often just a bag of microwave popcorn because disordered eating FTW.

 

[catloverfromwayback]

My primary school didn't have a canteen, it was Salada biscuits and an apple and probably something else from home for me. High school had a canteen but I don't remember what I might have eaten there, or even if I used it often.

 

[susanm9006]

Always the school lunch. I loved their goulash, toffee bars and refrigerator cookies.

 

[lizzie]

Seems like the best they ever served was the goulash,and I remember it was just about everybody's favorite.Most of their food wasn't too bad.

 

[allmykitties]

In grade school, I usually packed a lunch for school, but it wasn't feasible in jr high and high school. We had closed campus, so what it was in the cafeteria was what was available. Mostly, the issues seemed to me had to do with food prep. I'll never forget the potato soup with chunks of raw potato in it. (And I like potato soup ... just not with raw potato cubes.)

 

[maggiedemi]

I really liked our school lunches, especially the pizza. But we didn't buy our lunches very often. I guess it was too expensive with all us kids. I think my mom packed our lunches in elementary school, and my dad packed them in high school. We usually got a sammich, fruit, and dessert. Sometimes chips too. Juice box to drink I think.

 

[susanm9006]

Seems like the best they ever served was the goulash,and I remember it was just about everybody's favorite.Most of their food wasn't too bad.

I don’t know if I kept it but I found “School Lunch Goulash” on the internet and made it. Tasted exactly the same. It was a smaller recipe of course but still made a lot for one person.

 

[misty8723]

The only think I remember of lunch from grade 1-2 is eating mashed potatoes and gravy. I didn't want the gravy, and I started throwing up as soon as I left the cafeteria. My mom had to come get me, and I don't want gravy to this day. Grades 3-6, I went home and mom made me lunch. Often French Toast.

 

[muffy]

By 3rd grade I turned vegetarian so the only thing I could buy for lunch was the grilled cheese and tomato soup which I loved. I also loved their spaghetti. I would just remove the meat as best I could. Now days I would never eat anything that was cooked with meat. We did not have a salad bar and I don't think we had pizza.

When I brought my lunch from home it was pb&j or some type of cheese sandwich with chips. There were no restaurants we could go to. There was a little country store down the road but we were not allowed to leave the school grounds.

 

[iPappy]

By 3rd grade I turned vegetarian so the only thing I could buy for lunch was the grilled cheese and tomato soup which I loved. I also loved their spaghetti. I would just remove the meat as best I could. Now days I would never eat anything that was cooked with meat. We did not have a salad bar and I don't think we had pizza.

When I brought my lunch from home it was pb&j or some type of cheese sandwich with chips. There were no restaurants we could go to. There was a little country store down the road but we were not allowed to leave the school grounds.

We had pizza, but it was plain cheese in rectangle shapes, and surprisingly good. They'd serve that with a side salad and 1/2 graham cracker with chocolate or vanilla frosting in the center for dessert. That was always my favorite.
Our school served one meal I would never, ever touch--some weird gravy with ground meat in it served over potatoes. Most kids loved it but TBH it looked like barf to me. I am not vegetarian but I could not even stand to look at it.
When I got into Junior High, I packed lunch, and once I hit high school it was usually a juice-less juice (how can they call it juice when it says "contains 0% juice"?) and a nutty bar. So healthy
We had no restaurants around where we went to school so walking to a local fast food place or a store was out of the questions, but once in awhile a locally owned restaurant would "cater" at our school. It was a stampede when the lunch bell rang!

 

[aliceneko]

We had school dinners so I didn’t really pack for lunch but my favourite snacks for break were always milk and biscuits (simple!). Kids would always fight to get Digestives, lol.