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Our school bulletin, that we had to tote home every week, had the following weeks cafeteria menu in it. When we saw pizza on Friday, my brother and I convinced our parents to let us eat school lunch that week. At the time, 1960s, it was $1.75 for the week. Normally it was a brown bag lunch or we walked the 2 blocks back home for a quick bite.
Friday comes and pizza is served. But to my chagrin, instead of pizza dough as the delivery system for the sauce & cheese, the base of the 'pizza' was cooked white rice. Either someone screwed up the dough, or else maybe they didn't have enough flour on hand.
What a disappointment. After waiting all week and having to endure the mediocre line up of other cafeteria foods to arrive at the holy grail of school lunches, decades later I'm still slightly scarred and the twitch is finally subsiding to just a few times a day.
Yes, same here with the menu. We would get all excited over Pizza Day or Taco Day.
I came from the era of the lunch ladies cooking from scratch & they saved me from starving.But one "salad" that I could not handle was shredded carrots, raisins & either mayo or Miracle Whip. Chili day was great but there was always a big hunk of cornbread, really dry, salty & gritty. I swear they threw a handful of sand in it. I still don't like cornbread.
Ours cooked from scratch too, but after they got done with it, you wished they hadn't. We used to love those shredded carrot dishes, carrots, raisins, pineapple, mayonnaise. It was better than most of what they served.
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Originally Posted by North Beach Person
Yes, actually it was pretty good. Remember this was also back when the cafeteria meals were meals. We rarely had sandwiches or pizza (which was sauce and cheese on a half hamburger bun) and never chicken nuggets. Bread and butter was standard most days with the meals.
I think part of that was because it was, and still is but different, a heavily farming Scots-Irish/German area so maybe the meal from that was followed-breakfast, heavy lunch (dinner), light supper.
Our cafeteria lunches were full meals too from the meat and three era. No chicken nuggets, but a lot of fried chicken. One of the meats was "salisbury steak" but it didn't look like any salisbury steak I can recall. It was a wad of ground beef shaped like a football with what I assume was a cream gravy. Except the gravy was more of a mix of light coral and gray with pink chunks of something undefined in it.
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Originally Posted by aliasfinn
The cafeteria in grade school always smelled like vomit. The only air-conditioning was in the teacher's lounge so with all the stoves and ovens going on, the cafeteria was like hell.
I would often see an old lady with sweat dripping off her face into the pot of gruel she was stirring. I think I only ate cafeteria food a couple of times, I usually just bought milk. The weirdest looking food I remember seeing was some kind of pie that had carrot slices in it.
The cafeteria in Jr. high was a lot different, they had soda and potato chip machines in there, plus you helped yourself to any of the food instead of waiting for one of the cafeteria ladies to spoon it out for you. I remember my first day in that school after filling my tray and paying for it, I headed to one of the tables and saw a kid sitting by himself with no food. I asked him if he was not eating lunch and he replied, " I kept waiting for a lady to serve me but she never did."
I explained to him that he had to get it himself in this school. He jumped out of his seat and scurried back into the line.
For us, didn't matter elementary, jr high or high school, it was the same. Line up. March to the cafeteria. Wait in line. Get your food slopped onto a plate. Take your mandatory warm milk. Take the next available seat. Eat. Buss your tray. File out. The first time I ever ate in a military chow hall was less regimented and better food than my school cafeteria. SOS was like ambrosia compared to ground beef and potatoes.
Pizza Day was on alternate Fridays to the dread fish sticks. It was actual, though not very good, pizza, served with a stick of what I'm certain was the stuff they get processed orange cheese slices from on the side.
At the school where I used to teach, the fried chicken was so good that it would always add another hour to lunch because everybody ate who usually skipped lunch and they had to serve them all. The mailman would even come in on fried chicken day.
Unfortunately, most of the time the choice was between slop and chunks, mostly brown, yellow, or orange.
The fish sticks and pizza I mentioned were from elementary school, where there was also a 'chilled fruit' dispenser outside the lunchroom, selling apples and pears.
The only high school lunch memory I have is walking down to the corner deli with friends for a baloney and cheese sandwich, and eating it outdoors.
What I remember about elementary school was the tray hot lunches with at least 4 items and milk was 35 cents. We also had a machine that dispensed an ice cream sandwich for just 10 cents.
Currently, our local elementary school charges $2.25 but nothing is really hot, it's outsourced to a food and facilities management services company. The menu has things like pizza, sunbutter/jam sandwiches, tacos, grilled cheese, Mac & Cheese, turkey hot dog, fish sticks, and the oddest, Chicken Nugget Po' Boy Sub. At the high school, they serve several Indian items, such as Butter Chicken, Chicken Tikka, Tandoori Chicken or Lentil Dal (our city is 37% Asian, most from India).
I remember the trays. I think you & I grew up in California in about the same era. The public schools actually had some money to spend then. I still remember the chocolate cake with vanilla frosting.
By the time my daughter was in school the lunches were appalling. I knew it was bad when she was in high school & asked me to make her lunch.
All I can remember about our lunches, and this was elementary school, was the cowboy bread they served.
I don't even recall what they served it with but it was so good.
It was brownish in color with a sugary topping. And, a carton of milk.
Fortunately not served very often, but my elementary school cafeteria served liver loaf topped with cherry pie filling. Looked really odd, tasted absolutely awful, and what a strange combination, cherry pie and liver.
Fortunately not served very often, but my elementary school cafeteria served liver loaf topped with cherry pie filling. Looked really odd, tasted absolutely awful, and what a strange combination, cherry pie and liver.
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