School foods that you hated

[Tab]

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, the era of shitty institutional food. Certain ones I could not stand, and they haunt me to this day:

(Elementary school)
- Canned creamed corn
- Peas
- Shepard's pie
- Spinach

(High school)
- Tuna Tetrazzini

My high school seemed to have some affinity for Tuna Tetrazzini. I hate the smell of canned tuna (I'll take fresh in sashimi, tho), and whatever the hell they did to Tuna Terrazzini made it difficult to be in the lunch room at all.

I can tolerate peas and spinach now (though I won't eat them) but canned cream corn and Shepard's pie and TT gross me out still.

How 'bout yourselves?

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Ewww... we used to get LIVER MUSH in elem school

[cbayer]

5. That reminds me of what they do at Angola prison.

My son went there as part of a "Scared Straight" program. They took them to death row and told them that they take all the leftovers from the other areas, ground them, made loaves and served them to those prisoners.

I doubt they had those pretty pieces of parsley though.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. vienna sausage. YUCK!

I would not eat a lot of cafeteria food b/c my mom cooked much better quality meat.

[cbayer]

3. Shit on a shingle.

Otherwise known as chipped beef on toast.


I don't remember ever getting shepherd's pie, but I love it now.

Also, any canned vegetables. To this day, I can't stand them.

Otoh, I have a fondness for canned tuna, but dislike most cooked fish. Raw fish of all kinds I love.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. SOS can be good , actually.

If made at home, the right way.

[cbayer]

7. Perhaps, but what I had in grade school ruined me for life.

I had trouble even posting the image, lol.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I understand. Totally.

My Mom was such a bad cook that school lunches were great, overall, in my book.

Every once in awhile, when I think back to the 3rd grade for some reason, I will get a smell memory of the lunchroom, and how the smell wafted thru the entire school.

[Lugnut]

11. I hear you!

The grade school cafeteria served SOS over mashed potatoes. I'd always ask the lady spooning out the SOS to put mine on the side of the potatoes so I'd at least have that to eat for lunch.

[DrDan]

4. spanish rice . . . just horrible!

[Tab]

14. Really?

How can you fuck up Spanish Rice?

[DrDan]

15. it was like rice in tomato paste . . .

except not quite that good

[nadine_mn]

9. Root beer punch

I had after school care in 1st and 2nd grade and they served root beer punch...basically watered down flat root beer water. Most disgusting thing ever...to this day 30 odd yrs later I cannot stand the smell of root beer

Fish sticks

Spinach

Lima beans

[pinto]

10. Mystery Beef Stew.

There were obvious little orange and white cubes - tasteless carrots and potatoes. And the feared mystery beef. Talk about conspiracy theories...

[jackbenimble]

12. Stewed Tomatoes

At the time I couldn't stomach even looking at them. Smelling them made me ill.

Now I can use diced tomatoes in recipes no problem but I still don't care for the looks of a stewed tomato.

[Warpy]

13. Stewed okra & tomatoes (junior high and high school)

Institutional pizza(I think they used government cheddar).

The rest of it has faded into a brown haze. I mostly ate rice and green veg and if it was all terrible, I'd eat an apple.

However, slimy okra & tomatoes and cardboard institutional pizza have stayed with me.

[dark forest]

18. How about

the stewed okra by itself?

You'd put a stick of it in your mouth, and it would turn around and come out point first. Horrible stuff.

On a positive note, my high school would mix oatmeal, or something, in with their hamburger meat. I can't explain why, but I LOVED those suckers with plenty of mustard. Maybe because it was so much better than anything else on the menu.

[Warpy]

19. If they mixed anything with ours, it was either concrete or sawdust

because they were absolutely dry and could have been used for hockey pucks--in street hockey.

But yeah, best damned thing on the menu.

[TBA]

16. Flying Saucers

Yep...

That is what they were called.

1 piece of baloney, a ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes (from flakes I am sure), topped with a small strip of cheese.

I could only eat the cheese.

[Angry Dragon]

17. Liked it all except pudding

[Rhiannon12866]

20. Lamb curry.

I have no idea what was in it, but I couldn't even stand the smell. I went to boarding school and the smell hung around in the halls for days.

[hobbit709]

21. Pretty much all of it.

[SoapBox]

22. Grade school...in the 60's...

Peas and carrots.

I still have a vision of one of those cook ladies, stirring, Stirring, STIRRING those horrific over cooked (most likely) canned
peas and carrots...used to try and smash/hide them under my plate...got held from recess by one teacher for not eating them. Vomit.

However, I loved the hamburger gravy served over mashed potatoes. Opps, got in trouble again for smoothing the potatoes over the gravy and them SMASHING it like a volcano.

Hmmm, "this means something"!

[Glassunion]

23. Holy shit people! Did you all go the the Hudson Street Orphanage for Girls?

Public school majority of my educational life, never had a bad meal.

Of course I grew up down south, so we had fried chicken, real mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, green beans and ham, peach cobbler, etc... All for .90 cents.

[HeiressofBickworth]

24. I generally disliked all of it

One year in high school, the food got so bad signs were posted in the bathrooms: "flush twice, it's a long way to the kitchen". A food strike was called for -- the kids didn't buy school lunches for a few days in protest. This was back in the early 60's -- it was the first student protest to make the Huntley-Brinkley news.

[noamnety]

26. Ha, we had a food protest in college.

Normally everything there was wonderful. But every so often they would do baked frozen fish - with that overwhelming fish smell. One day we all got it, then fake died all over the cafeteria. We were just a mass of bodies lying all over the floor.

That put a stop to fish day.

[WolverineDG]

25. the pizza

looked like a square of some fuzzy carpet & tasted worse. The only kids who were in the lunch line on those days were the ones on the free lunch program (poor kids).

But I liked everything else, especially the hamburgers. I don't know what the ladies in the main kitchen did with the mustard you had to put on them, but that stuff was like crack.