What was on your hot lunch menu when you were in elementary school?

[RubyCat]

I remember salisbury steak and turkey pot pie were regulars. Also mashed potatoes and these rectangular pizzas. Occasionally, when they had frozen popsicles, a few students would actually buy 2 meals. I viewed them as rebels.

In elementary school, the hot lunches really were just packaged TV dinners. They offered just two options on a given day, but what was offered changed every day. I think it rotated on a two week basis.

The menu improved dramatically in middle school. It was actually a real cafeteria where you could pick and choose what you wanted and pay for them separately. The food was quite good in my opinion and there was a lot of variety. Chicken nuggets were really popular. So were the french fries, Munchos, and Fungyuns. They had these bagels where one side was really, really salty. I don't remember them serving soft drinks during middle school though.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

1. Salisbury steak, meat loaf, chicken croquettes, lasagna, pizza

Chicken and noodles (always a favorite), cinnamon rolls. Oh - can't forget Frito chili pie (bleeccchhh). And Sloppy Joes (another bleeeccchhh).

[RubyCat]

21. Sloppy Joes for elementary school kids is a bad idea. Too messy. It's

like having a sand box for little kids. It's insanitary because the kids just pee in it.

[nytemare]

2. I remember the rectangle pizza and "barfaroni"

[fluffernutter]

9. hey,we had barfaroni too! did we go to the same school?

[nytemare]

27. LOL, it must have been a standard for the 80's or something

Something we all must suffer to become adults...LOL.

[Elidor]

3. Ketchup! And we loved it!

We were damn happy to get ketchup! Because it was so much better than mustard or relish. We used to offer the lunch lady our extra lunch tickets for extra ketchup. And we'd lap it up like the manna it was!

[LiberallyInclined]

4. we didn't have hot lunch in elementary school-

so, lunch was whatever mom put in the box and the thermos.

[starroute]

32. Neither did we

We ate at our desks -- though we did get to buy some sort of punch cards through which we could order milk or juice or hot soup.

I went through an awful lot of cream cheese and jelly sandwiches in those days. And little tupperware containers full of crushed salmon.

I've still got the tupperware containers, but I haven't had cream cheese and jelly since sixth grade.

[sakabatou]

5. Fruit salad, pizza and a 4oz. chocolate milk.

[Ruffhowse]

6. We regularly used to have this crap called cinnamon rice. It was

creamed rice with some cinnamon sprinkled on it in a bowl. It was one step above gruel. Horrible stuff. And, of course, we had lots of that old school lunch standby, macaroni and cheese.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

7. Cinnamon rice? Yuck

I love cinnamon and I love rice, but not together!

[Pegleg Thd]

8. In the 1940s

we did not have hot lunches.

[RubyCat]

10. I hear you man. I went to school during the 80's, and we no doubt had it

better than the kids in the 40s. I hear the millenium kids have it even better than we did. But that's great. I'm happy for them.

[RubyCat]

13. And I thought the plain cottage cheese was bad.

[latteromden]

49. Sounds like Norwegian risengrynsgrøt - love the stuff. I guess it depends

on your tastes, and of course, who's making it (good lord, I wouldn't trust the lunch ladies from elementary school with my risengrynsgrøt!).

[Tab]

11. In elem school the grossest thing was "Shepherds pie"

Mashed potato with corn niblets and god knows what else.


In high school, "Tuna Tetrazinni", and I can't even go there.

That's not counting "Vegetable Medley"

[RubyCat]

23. In middle school, we made our own kind of "Shepard's Pie" for fun.

We took half a bowl of tomato soup and made the grossest concoction by mixing all sorts of junk into it. Then we would dare each other to eat a spoonful of it.

[KG]

12. pasketti!

[RubyCat]

14. SPORKS! SPORKS! SPORKS!

Sorry, I just had to include that. It's the genius invention between a spoon and a fork!

[BrotherBuzz]

15. Hot lunch?

I usually had a bologna sandwich wrapped in a wax paper, an apple or orange, a box of raisins, and on a good day a couple of cookies all stuck in a recycled paper bag with my name written on it (Momma told us only rich sissies got new store-bought paper bags).

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. I don't know

My mom made us take our lunch every day. We couldn't afford to buy a school lunch. It was only 40 cents but we were pretty poor.

I do remember they had spinach a lot because I loved spinach and my friends would let me eat theirs.

[asjr]

17. I do not remember any meals in elementary school, but in

high school we had really great hot lunches, until one day I found maggots in my peas. After that I brown-bagged it.

[Southsideirish]

18. No hot meals or cold either. Just tables in the Assembly Room where you

sat and opened your brown bag.

[El Fuego]

19. Tat'er Tots

[RubyCat]

20. The tater tots rocked! I totally forgot about those!

[agates]

22. Mystery meat gravy

served over instant mashed potatoes. Beans and weiners (that was often the day some kid would puke after lunch. Nice visual there.

Salad, which was brown iceberg lettuce drenched in western (sweet french) dressing.

Honey and peanut butter sandwiches (comodity stuff) on white bread.

Jello.

[RubyCat]

24. Soggy canned green beans.

[solinvictus]

25. Rectangular pizza rocked!!

Some of the local wholesale meat stores carry them, so I pick up a pack once a year or so. Menus:
1) Chili or spaghetti and on the next day...
2) Either chili that tasted like spaghetti or spaghetti that tasted like chili.
3) Meat patties with gravy and potatoes
4) Hot dogs
In all fairness, we moved to another area in the county and my high school lunchroom was great.

[MrSlayer]

26. I went home for lunch in elementary school.

If you stayed for lunch you brought your own. No cafeteria or any of that.

[SoCalDem]

28. Roast beef, baked chicken, roast turkey, homemade chili, veg soup

baked potatoes, boiled potatoes w parsley,julienne carrots, corn, green beans,sliced ham,scratch-made cakes, rolls & biscuits.Chef salads, jello, puddings, ice cream, home-made pies (cherry/apple/peach)..fresh fruit, cottage cheese, and much more..

Local business people chose to eat there, and willingly paid double what the students paid.. :)

[RubyCat]

31. Did you go to a private school?

[SoCalDem]

34. nope.. a public high school ..graduated 1967....Kansas

We had FANTASTIC food..:)

I forgot.. The sports guys got TBone steak on game day :)

[RubyCat]

35. You guys had it good.

:)

[SoCalDem]

36. The homemade rolls were to die for..

:ight & fluffy and basted with real butter, so they werte soft and just a tad salty.. served warm and fresh from the oven.. The "lunch ladies" arrived at 2 AM to start the baking :)

My school was the only high school in town (except for the Catholic one) and had about 1500 students, so it was a busy place.. We had 3 lunch squads.. 11:20-12....12:10-12:50..1:00-1:40..

We also had ONLY water fountains.. no junk food or vending machines at all.. There was also a courtyard for smokers.. STUDENTS !!

[SoCalDem]

47. OOPS.. I did not read it correctly.. My food experience was high school

we did not have a "lunch program" when I was in elementary school. We started school at 7 am and ended at 1PM.. We had a "snack" at around 11 but no lunch.. We ate lunch once we got home :)

[RubyCat]

55. You really have a good memory. I went to school in the 80's and I can't

remember what the lunch hours were. I just remember in high school that when the bell rang and I was going to get a hot lunch that day, I would walk really fast so that I would be at the front of the lunch line. If you were at the end of the line, the wait could get so long that you would have to scarf down your food to finish it before the lunch period was over.

[Pithlet]

29. I still crave the square pizza my high school served sometimes.

And the fries. Mmmmmmmmmm....

[sasquatch]

30. Taco Salad

:9

[Wapsie B]

33. Porcupine meatballs.

[politicat]

37. Bean & Cheese burritos, quesedillas (called cheese crisps for the gringos)

Taco-dogs (hot dogs wrapped in tortillas), soy-burgers, chicken sandwiches, the occasional nacho plate. Sides were usually canned vegetables, canned fruit or quartered oranges, cold salads or some sort of raw vegetable sticks. Once a week we had something with gravy, with mashed potatoes, and these interesting bread rolls that were nothing like any other bread I've ever come across.

I lived close to the Mexican border, in a community with a strong Hispanic presence, so even when the food wasn't really Mexican, it tended to have a Mexican flavor.

We also had the square pizzas, spaghetti, but rarely the salisbury steak or pot pies. To drink, we had the choice of white or chocolate milk, 1 8 oz carton. A very few kids, allergic to milk, got juice. The rest of us had to drink our milk. I was weird because the chocolate milk was too chocolatey for me, and too sweet, so I drank white milk.

Middle and high school were both better and worse, because we had other options than what the school was serving, but it meant the regular menu suffered. Middle and high schools had salad bars and random, deep-fried or baked a la carte items, like burgers, pretzels, and corndogs (and woe betide the girl who ate a corndog... teen age boys can be SO perverted...) My last year of high school, we had a taco bell/dominos and rotating burger concession, but by then I'd figured out that I felt better if I ate vegetables for lunch, so I tended to get a salad.

[mykpart]

38. There were 3 days each week where the menu never varied:

Monday: Corn dogs, Hot dogs or chili dogs
Thursday: Hamburgers
Friday: Fish sticks

[yellowdogintexas]

39. the nastiest fried fish ever in the history of the world, and I

hold that fish directly responsible for the fact that I don't much care for fish unless it is extremely fresh

greasy fried chicken

fairly icky vegetable soup and chili

sloppy joe type burgers

meatloaf, which was pretty good

turkey around the holidays which was good, and turkey salad sandwiches after which were very good

overdone canned vegetables

not particularly good mashed potatoes

food generally sucked

high school was much better, we also had a roll lady who could really make wonderful fluffy light rolls.

[Maine Mary]

40. I always envied the hot lunch kids

They had really neat stuff. things like....

I remember salisbury steak and turkey pot pie were regulars. Also mashed potatoes and these rectangular pizzas. Occasionally, when they had frozen popsicles, a few students would actually buy 2 meals. I viewed them as rebels.

In elementary school, the hot lunches really were just packaged TV dinners. They offered just two options on a given day, but what was offered changed every day. I think it rotated on a two week basis.

I especially LOVED the fake potatoes and am embarrassed to say that I used to beg from my friends for them. (I couldn't barter MY lunch away...) Talk about no choices.... try a bolgna and cheese sandwich, a boiled egg, an apple, and 2 Vanilla Wafers for 11 years!!!

Sorry. Had to rant again. :hug:

[ChoralScholar]

41. My school served the basic fare

Burgers, Chicken Nuggets, and the kick-ass Deep-Fried Burritos. I remember an unfortunate incident with Salmon Loaf. Most schools in Arkansas had tried it. Must have been some government-commodity salmon floating around in the early 90's.

About the soft drinks, I remember we each had a cup and could fill it once with a fountain soft drink. I was in 8th grade when the Arkansas Legislature ruled that they could not serve soft drinks with lunch any more.
----------
On a fonder note, my cafeteria would take the day-old rolls, put a little finger-hole in the middle of each one, and pour a butter/sugar/cinnamon mixture on them. Those cinnamon rolls rocked.

[Steve Nash is god 13]

42. Every wednesday was hotdog dat. they were gross!!!!! they

bounced

[Hardrada]

43. Spaghetti, chili, spaghetti, chili, some kind of potato stuff

Mashed up carrots. After elementary (in the Fifties) I tended to walk home and eat lunch.

[TheMightyFavog]

44. Ahh yes, the breadtangles of Pizza

Hamburgers with barley any meat in them, Tuna Casserole :puke:, Hot dogs, etc.

[Technowitch]

45. My favorite: "Scrambled Hamburger"

I have NO idea what it was, save that it was my favorite lunch ever.

The food at our cafeterias (this was in the late 60s and through the 70s) was really quite good most of the time.

[CRK7376]

46. I was a brown bag luncher

through out my school years. Seldom did I eat school food, and when I did it was inevitably on Fridays. And in the South, Friday lunch was normally that nasty piece of flounder or cod or some nasty deep fried fish chunk....Go Brown Bag!

[Scout]

48. we didn't have lunches in elementary school....

we all brought our lunch from home, or walked home and back if you lived close enough to school.

[Bertha Venation]

50. No cafeteria. Just tin trays that they heated up. All I remember are

burgers, hot dogs, and "pizza" -- literally a slice of white bread w/ tomato sauce & cheese on it.

And I remember our milk came in those square-top wax cartons with the round hole, and you pulled back the punched-in lid that was made from the same waxed paper. Nostalgia.

[China_cat]

51. No lunch room

you either went home for lunch if you lived in town (or to the drugstore for a burger) or brown bagged it. When I was in high school they finally put in a vending machine that dispensed little cans of hot soup.

[jmm]

52. kangaroo burgers

At least that's what I called them because beef isn't that shiny or gray. I usually brought lunch during elementary school. Guess I have too any chefs in my family because my standards wouldn't let me touch most of the food they served.

My high school offered nachos and cheese as a lunch option. Unless it was Wednesday and they were serving Papa Gino's pizza I always had that because it wasn't nearly as salty as the boiled hot dogs, Salisbury steak, and it didn't scare me like the kangaroo burgers. After they started to serve smilk instead of milk I drank lemonade every day because the smilk scared me more than the burgers.

[Akoto]

53. Brought my own!

Because I have some really nasty allergies to a few common recipe ingredients, my lunch was usually brought from home. Mostly snacks and stuff, and then I'd pick something more up after school. :)

[Bunny]

54. Turkey croquettes, johnny marzetti, salisbury steak.

The johnny marzetti was great, and occasionally they served actual homemade rolls. Incredible! The rest of the menu was shit.

[Redstone]

56. Government Surplus food; we lived in a poor area

Big old blocks of cheese, S.O.S. (which, amazingly enough, I still kinda like), powdered milk, instant potatoes, and so on.

Redstone

[Tektonik]

57. Trapezoidal pizza with a chalky thick crust.

[Dervill Crow]

58. Carbs and more carbs.

In high school would alternate between the mac & cheese and rice & gravy. Oh, to have the metabolism now that I had back then! A huge serving was 35 cents.

Elementary school I remember the "barbecue beef on homemade bun" that was the best sloppy joe ever made. And snickerdoodle. My mom got the recipe from the school district but never quite duplicated it.

[progmom]

59. I remember...

Barbequed Beef on a Bun
Chicken a la King
some horrid rubbery thing they called a hamwich

[Nikia]

60. When I went to city schools

They trucked in the hot lunches from the high school where they made them.
I remember pizza, tacos, chicked, grilled cheese, subs, chicken patties.
When I moved to a rural K-12 school in 5th grade, we had more options 2-3 choices everday, sometimes more. Those were entrees as well as baked potatos, turkey, sloppy joes, hot beef or turkey over mashed potatos, pizza subs, meat loaf, ham, ccold and hot subs and all sorts of other things. Despite it being a poorer district, we has better food, including fresh not canned vegtables in season.

[patricia92243]

61. I packed a sandwich from home - too poor to buy lunch.

[alittlelark]

62. Frito Pie was my favorite... heck, I still love it (esp. at Sonic).

[Left Is Write]

63. Toastie Dogs, those round turkey slices with

mashed potatoes and carrot coins, Salisbury steak with parsley potatoes, rectangular pizza, chicken a la king, chow mein (the school chow mein was the big reason that I thought I didn't think I liked Chinese food), and, on half-days, pancakes and sausage.

I usually brought a homemade lunch in a brown bag. Toastie Dogs, pizza, and pancakes were "treats" and my mom let us buy lunch on those days. She kept a supply of lunch tickets in one of the cupboards in our house. If she had a lot of tickets left toward the end of the school year, we got to take hot lunch every day until they were gone.

[all.of.me]

64. shepherd's pie. blech.

it was like canned vegetables covered with crusty mashed potatoes.

disgusting pizza, too. when i got to college and people said, let's get a pizza, i thought they were nuts! school pizza was the only pizza i'd ever eaten before that. ick.

thank god my mother made me lunch more often than not.

[Historic NY]

65. Meatballs with rot gut tomato sauce............yuck.

mostly I never ate in school.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

66. Boring

The most common meals were hamburgers, hot dogs, mashed potatoes with meat gravy (beef or chicken), pizza burgers, spaghetti, and, on Fridays, either tuna burgers or fish sticks.

No pizza, no tacos, no salad bar, no fast food.

On the other hand, if my mom packed my lunch, she never put anything in my sandwiches but Kraft cheese slices and lots of margarine. She was afraid that peanut butter would ruin my complexion and that tuna or egg salad would go bad.