I have some fond memories of my 5th grade year. I had a fun bus driver who let everyone pick one piece of candy out of a Folgers can on Fridays, and who blasted Wham! over the tin-can sounding speakers. My cool teacher, Mr. Bunker, wore a shiny turquoise tie and a stone-washed denim jacket with the collar turned up. He, too, had an affinity for Wham! and would play them on his boom box while we were doing our "quiet" work (1985 = the year of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go".....). I also ran the school store once a month, earned a t-shirt selling fundraiser candy bars, and had a cute boyfriend named Matt LeBaron who I would let catch me on purpose when we would play tag at recess.
And then there was lunch.
The clatter of the divided plastic trays. The clink of the silverware. The smell of..........well, I never could quite place that smell, but it was "foody". And it was heavenly.
I know I've mentioned before that I grew up in a home with a widowed mother, who was a really good cook---but she never had much time to actually get behind the stove. So, we ate out. A LOT! Servers in just about every restaurant in town knew our family by name. And with that being my situation-- the gourmet creations those support-hose clad, hairnet-wearing lunchladies would concoct became my version of home-cooked "comfort food".
My Zane brought home his first school lunch menu the other day. And guess what? I couldn't stop drooling! All those old favorites of yesteryear are still making the rounds on the cafeteri-um tables of today: Sloppy Joes, Finger Steaks, Cheese Yum-Yums, Wiener Wraps, Hay Stacks, Carnival Corn Dogs, and my all time favorite.....Little Smokies. Just reading over those names was like being wrapped in a big, warm, happy blanket.......albeit a highly-processed blanket that will most likely leave a greasy residue behind and make me gain 8 pounds.....
And though I'm the kind of mom that has a home-cooked dinner on the table every night, I'm still excited that my kids and I will soon have the shared memories of jello cups and tater tots, and those wonderful women in their orthopedic shoes who figured out how to cook up a little slice of childhood.
What was your favorite item on the lunch menu?
44 comments:
Peanut Butter rice krispy bars. Yum!
Linda
I loved that mashed potatoes-green beans from a can-baking rolls-heated meat smell too! Hate me, but I also like hospital food. Hello-someone ELSE is cooking, serving, and cleaning up. But for hospital food two words: butterscotch pudding. Or vanilla pudding. Or chocolate pudding. You get the picture.
My favorite meal in elementary was nachos with chili and greasy-goodness french bread that I'd use to get every last drop of chili and nacho cheese sauce out of the rectangular paper bowl. I can still taste it now.
Oh! And how could I forget about the peanut butter (non-rice krispy) bars that left grease marks on the plate and had chocolate globs frosting dripping off the sides? Apparently I'm a grease-monkey.
This is gonna grouse some people out but I loved the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and smothered in gravy fair. I loved being a lunch helper, it was like being cool for a week.
Sadly it is not the same at my kids school. I look at the lunch and long for the days of a full on meal, not what the kids get. I think that is why they are asking for homemade every day.
We don't have these lunches in Australia.
You can order your lunch from the canteen and it will be ready for you at lunchtime. Things like a meat pie, or sausage roll, or noodles.
Most kids take their lunch, and recess, each day in a lunchbox - a sandwich (vegemite), a piece of cake or some other treat, and a piece of fruit.
We are always amazed by the school lunchroom (cafeteria? restaurant?) in American movies.
My peanut butter and honey sandwich. I couldn't stomach the cafeteria food. And it's all because of the slop we had to eat when I lived in Hawaii. The lunch there was so bad that I can still taste the soggy spinach as I type. It wrecked me for life. And the funny thing is, my daughter brings her lunch everyday as well. She doesn't like any of the food either...Oh and the smell, that cafeteria smell is the same everywhere. It is combined with the pencil lead smell in the rest of the school with the chicken nuggets they seem to serve every day!
I always liked the french bread pizza. My kids' favorite now is when they served breakfast for lunch. Pancakes and french toast.
i liked the cheese yum yums a ton, as well as school-made mac n cheese...probably all so unhealthy, but it's what we had and I liked it. I also loved having a lunch sent by mom because it was always exactly what I would have wanted.
Hmmm, I feel gipped! We didn't have cheese yum yums or french bread pizza....our pizza day was Friday. The pizza was a little rectangle and the sausage looked like someone had pulled the erasers out of the end of 10 pencils and scattered them on the pizza.
My favorite was the turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy....followed closely by spaghetti & garlic bread....which thinking back now, was probably gross!
I also remember bringing 2 cents wrapped in a piece of foil so that I could buy chocolate milk when I packed. 2 cents! Can you imagine??
My kids can get pizza, hot dogs, or salad every day now in addition to the regular lunch....man they have it good! Their favs are meatball sub, cheese sticks, and breakfast for lunch.
mm, i loved the apple sticks. and chicken sandwiches. and who can resist square pizza?
we were brown-baggers in our house. very rarely did we get the $$$ for school lunch. though i did help in the cafeteria my sixth grade year...i loved it! i thought it was fun just to buy milk for my lunch.
I've been lurking for several days and need to start commenting on your adorable blog!
The homemade yeast rolls, hands down. Smothered in butter, piping hot. This was in small-town USA, mind you, so they had the means to cook for our small school. But i never really understood why kids ate vinegar on their canned spinach?
And my favorite elderly lunch lady? I always pictured Cinderella's fairy godmother would look just like her!
Okay, I feel all warm and cuddly now! Okay absolutely square pizza, meat pies (now I think they are called empanadas?) the chocolate milk! I loved the clink of the trays being washed! I also loved putting my try on the line to go get washed (I thought it was so fun!!) In junior high they made fresh cinnamon rolls that were wrappeed in plastic so they stayed warm! I blame my current weight situation on those rolls!!!
♡ Great pictures! :)
My mom always made our lunches but I remember always wanting so bad to have the school lunch...
Chili day was by far the best:
Chili
Fritos
corn
cinnamon roll
Oh my favorite was the Chicken Patty sandwichs with tots. They served them on supper soft buns. YUMMY.
Don't know if I'd call the smell "foody heaven", but I did love the mashed potatoes with turkey gravy and homemade roll. I also loved the crispitos (little meat burrito things). Ahhh...the memories.
Hands down, peanut butter bars. They were peanut butter on bottom, chocolate on top. I don't think they serve them anymore. In fact, my kids lunches are nothing like what I was served as a kid. No English muffin pizza.....whole wheat crust instead, I could go on and on. I'm glad their school is dedicated to healthy lunches but they feel foreign! :)
I was never a fan of cafeteria food. And when I was in private school...we had to bring our lunches. But I do fondly remember pizza day. And with pizza was always corn.
When I go have lunch with Madalyn at her school...my favorite day is the chicken fajita one. It's really yummy.
Chili.
Not because of the chili.
Because they ALWAYS had cinnamon rolls on chili day.
Dee-lish.
Loved reading through your blog! Found you...well, can't even remember how. I scoured your archives for your "suddenly single" story because I was curious. I was a single mom for several years w/ 2 boys. Now I work on a blog for SM. www.plunderfullife.com
Blessings on your day!!
I loved the taco salad and the pizza! So delish.
..and now I'm drooling. Good thing lunch is in about 45! :)
Pizza pizza pizza!!!!!! I loved the pizza. And it was weird square pizza, too, with like on or 2 slices of pepperoni but that was my favorite.
I work in a school now and regularly buy school lunches or just the entree. Don't really like their pizza. I find the chicken patty sandwiches quite tasty.
FINALLY!!!! Someone who appreciated school lunches as much as I did! I LOVED THEM, and the cafeteria ladies loved me. I would eat everything....even the sour kraut (how do you spell that again), even though I hated the sour kraut to be honest. I was simply grateful for food.
Anyway, oooooh, some of my favorites were the pizza, ham and cheese rolls, oh, the rolls. MMMM.
Something that I didn’t know was odd about our school until I left and discussed it with other people was that we were allowed to have seconds….SECONDS!! YES!
When everyone was done going through the lines, all of us athletic hungry types would be sitting and patiently chatting and waiting. When the ladies gave the nod, we would all come up with our trays for another helping of whatever was left. It was usually me (I promise, I worked off a ton of calories with those sports...no piggy sounds allowed...and I was super thin like a gymnast...yes, no chest for me until after high school..tee hee), and a ton of guys. What a great memory for me. We were all pals.
P.S. Did I mention we had an "all you can eat" salad bar equiped with all of the normal green salad along with pasta salad, veges....oOOOH, our cafeteria rocked.
I want to go back.
Definately pizza! I think that pizza is probably the only food that always sounds good no matter what time of day and when it is in the year. I hated cheese zombies, those huge bread pastries filled with processed cheese and you dip in tomato soup. Yuck! My mom always loved them though... and she would purposely sign up to volunteer on those days they served them. I think I always let her have mine and would eat a sandwich she brought from home.
As a child I had a love/hate relationship with cafeteria food. I remember being terrified of buying my lunch because I was afraid I would get to the cashier and not have enough money and then she wouldn't let me eat. But, if I did buy my lunch (which was like...never), I would always get the pepperoni pizza (in a square) with little dotty pepperoni's on it. They would always serve it with tater tots and corn and I'd get a 1/2 pint of milk...yum.
Here's a good chuckle. A few years ago, I was looking through some old elementary school yearbooks and I came upon a picture of the lunch ladies. There were 6 of them to be exact. Emblazoned upon each one's chest in blue ink were the letters...
W-E K-I-L-L! I about lost all bladder function when I saw my handiwork of days gone by!
Macaroni & cheese and little smokies was my all time favorite. The macaroni was not good but the smokies swirled around in the cheese from the mac & cheese was downright unbeatable. I make that at home for my kiddo sometimes. Unfortunately he doesn't bask in its yumminess like I do.
Rolls and chocolate milk. I think that is all I ate from 7th-9th grade. Yum
Ohhh, such a lonnnng day...let's just say, I think I could change a flat tire by myself now :) or :( But I had to check in on one of my favorite people in Blogland! I'd have to say burritos. Loved 'em...don't know what was in them, but yum! Makes me hungry just thinkin' about em! Hint: don't go runnin' over any knife blades...they do reallllly bad things to your tires! Not that I'd know or anything...and who in the heck throws a knife blade out??? UGGGHH!
I was pretty much always in private schools with my home-packed lunch. I do love the smells when I visit my kids at school during lunch...speaking of which, they won't eat the cafeteria food! I don't know what's wrong with them. I have to make lunches every single morning...
I just saw your hilarious comment on Kat's (Sunshine and Lemonade) site, and I want to know the story behind your tenth high school reunion. I know there's a good one there...
Oh my gosh....I have agree with Debbie. It was peanut butter and honey sandwiches....but I didn't make them, they served them at my school and it was my favorite. I don't know why because I don't think I've eaten one since.
I can't remember my favorite school lunch, but I am pretty sure anything sweet or junky would've been a hit. My mom didn't let us have any of that stuff otherwie. I do remember sopping up the grease from the top of a piece of pepperoni pizza with a napkin. Ewww. :)
My favorite parts of school lunch growing up were the buns that they served chicken sandwiches and hamburgers one. Definitely the best bread I had tasted at the time. Also loved the cold peanut butter squares, ours didn't have chocolate on them though. That is the only way I can eat peanut butter to this day.
When I did my student teaching I was at a middle school and I totally ate lunch there every day. So many different choices than when I was in school.
What the heck are these peanut butter scrumpulicious things people keep talking about?
I need a picture...
Oh man, I don't know what my fave was, but I just finished my daycare menus and I SO need to make some additions and give them cute names!! Thanks for the inspiration!
I'm embarrassed to say! When I was in 5th grade, hot lunch cost 50 cents, and ice cream sandwiches were a dime. My Mom always packed me a SPECTACULAR lunch, and all the kids were jealous! Didn't matter what was in it, they all wanted some. But I was greedy, and had a sweet tooth, so guess what I did? I sold my lunch every day, and bought Five. Ice. Cream. Sandwiches! Can you believe it? BTW, Uncle Lynn is being pretty generous, and is hosting another Great Pop'rs Giveaway, so come on by!
I too went to public school and loved the "hot lunches" My fave was pizza...du?
we only had it on fridays :o)
~simply~
At my kids school we're invited to join them for lunch occasionally. They have this cake that they make once a month and that is my date with the kids. I complain to my friends about having to buy school lunch, but I secretly adore the greasy chicken nuggets, soup, and cake. What's more fun than milk OUT OF A CARTON?
Pizza day was always my favorite. Who could resist that rectangular school pizza, served with corn and lemon pudding! And I remember at one school enjoying flying saucers: fried balogna with a scoop of mashed potatoes sprinkled with cheese inside.
I really missed you..I have come to rely on you you are in trouble now girlfriend...Oh I love your blog..I wanted to be a nun desperately ..it was even my halloween costume I felt so wonderful in the long flowing black robe with the rosary dangling from my side!!xoxox Jennifer
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