School food

Puggles

Puggles

"I don't like things I hate"
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I'm old, so this is talking about the time period of the 90s. Did anyone actually like their school food that was provided? I loved it, not all of it, but there were so many things that were awesome. In high school, they had these seasoned curly fries and also nachos that were awesome, and by the time you got down to the bottom of the little paper tray they came in, the tortillas at the bottom were soggy (A personal favorite of mine) from absorbing all the cheese. They had these big loaves of freshly-baked bread that were excellent with anything. I would get a couple pieces of that bread and put some butter on it, and use them as scoops to pick up the rest of the nacho cheese at the bottom. /drool.

Back in middle school, the cafeteria had these mozzarella rolls that were amazing, get them with a side of pickles, a side of ranch and an Arizona Cowboy Cocktail. That was the best lunch then, 🤤🤤😋
 
Puggles said:
I'm old, so this is talking about the time period of the 90s. Did anyone actually like their school food that was provided? I loved it, not all of it, but there were so many things that were awesome. In high school, they had these seasoned curly fries and also nachos that were awesome, and by the time you got down to the bottom of the little paper tray they came in, the tortillas at the bottom were soggy (A personal favorite of mine) from absorbing all the cheese. They had these big loaves of freshly-baked bread that were excellent with anything. I would get a couple pieces of that bread and put some butter on it, and use them as scoops to pick up the rest of the nacho cheese at the bottom. /drool.

Back in middle school, the cafeteria had these mozzarella rolls that were amazing, get them with a side of pickles, a side of ranch and an Arizona Cowboy Cocktail. That was the best lunch then, 🤤🤤😋
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I'm older, so my school food came from the 70s...I graduated in 1980. And the food was terrible, mostly.
 
Seventies here.
And for the most part I liked school food. Especially when they went to an ala cart style if you did not want the full dinner.
I'm trying to think of what I did not like and as much as I remember it was their hamburgers. Those they probably used frozen patties. Everything else was pretty much made from scratch. No fries, no nachos, stuff like turkey and biscuits, we had a pizza day, fried chicken, chili, fish sandwich, whipped potatoes and gravy, canned corn, cottage cheese and peaches, some kind of cake with cherries... just "regular" food.

If I remember it was pretty much the same thing week to week. Pizza was always on Fridays.
We got a menu... and something just clicked... and it might have even been announced on the AM radio what school districts were serving for lunch that day.
 
PAcanis said:
and it might have even been announced on the AM radio what school districts were serving for lunch that day.
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They announced it over the school PA every morning. We also got the monthly menus sent home.

Related…what always fascinated me was how what was “cool” regarding school lunch shifted year-to-year, and sometimes changed mid-year, meaning some years, the trend was to bring your lunch from home (“I’m too cool to eat that garbage from school!”) and other years it was better to buy the school lunch (“You brought a lunch from home?! What are you, 5 years old?!”).

I think there was a big transition school lunch programs right after I graduated (1984). During my time, there were no vending machines in school, and the school lunch was a tray of food - no picking and choosing, no options, it was a single set meal, which might be something like turkey a la king over mashed potatoes, corn, a piece of bread, and a brownie, along with a carton of milk. That was your choice, take it or leave it.

A few years later, talking with my niblings, they had a full complement of vending machines (schools figured out there’s gold in them thar snack chips), and they had things to choose from, including vegetarian, so they could build a meal, as in “I’d like meatloaf…French fries…and the fruit cup,” and the kid behind them would say, “I’ll have the grilled chicken breast sandwich, but with the boiled potatoes and the chocolate cake,” and in addition to milk, they could have fruit juice or pop.
 
We started getting choices for the sides or dessert, but never the main course.

My mother's sister was the head cook at a large city school. On the weekends that I would stay with her and my grandmother, I got dropped off at her school and hung out in the kitchen until she was through.
For what that's worth, lol.

I was the kid that brought a million egg shells for kindergarten projects :happy:
 
Puggles said:
I'm old, so this is talking about the time period of the 90s.
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You're a spring chicken.
I'll tell you about school dinners in the 50s and 60s. :hyper: :hyper:
I can remember some notably ghastly concoctions. Beef stew - a few chunks of gristly beef, swimming in oily gravy, surrounded by carrots any self-respecting rabbit would turn his nose up at, a few bullet-like peas. Served with lumpy, grey mashed potatoes.
Lancashire hot pot. Same as beef stew, but with potatoes sliced on top.
Beef olive - supposedly a slice of steak wrapped around sausage meat, but more like a slice of dog meat.
Sausage Lyonnaise - bread-laden sausages swimming in overcooked onion gravy.
Boiled fish in white sauce. A true challenge for a discerning palate.
As for "puddings", some days we got jelly. The next day, blancmange,Then a ponderous succession of classic stodge - roly poly pudding, spotted dick, jam pudding, treacle pudding, lovingly elaborated with flour, suet and very little else (except lumpy custard).
Rice pudding was followed by tapioca pudding (lovingly known as frogsspawn), and then followed up with bread & butter pudding.
It's a wonder I'm still here.
 
I had school lunches at my primary school, after that it was a packed lunch brought from home. I don't remember much of the school lunches, it was the 1970s and catering budgets were small, so they weren't very good. The best was the chocolate cake and strawberry custard which I loved, the worst was liver and mash - it was beef liver and they didn't bother to cut out the blood vessels and connective tissue, plus the gravy was just like coloured water that turned the mash to a tasteless soup. To this day I can't eat liver.
 
The Netherlands is a strange outlier where school lunches weren't provided and still aren't. The only exception was 'school milk' due to there being so much milk being produced in the 70's that the farmers couldn't sell and lobbied to have children drink it at school for their health. This was called the 'melkoverschot' (milk overproduction) and made school milk a tradition that lasted to about the 2000's when the health guidelines changed and put dairy in a lesser place.

We did have school meals when we went on school trips or camps, usually for a day trip it was just the well known dull Dutch two sandwiches and a piece of fruit-combo, at school camps we would get food made by 'overblijfmoeders ' (moms who volunteered to help at school) which was usually catered to children's preferences because school camp was a holiday and meant to be fun. Usually dinners would be something like pasta with red sauce and cheese one day, one day pancakes, one day fries with snacks, and one day pizza. Not very healthy but they kept us incredibly active during the days at school camp so we definitely burned it all off. And this way children at least ate what was provided.

At regular school days you're supposed to pack lunch for your child and it's not accepted to provide anything but a meal consisting of bread, fruit and a drink usually. These days it's even forbidden to give your child candy or sweet drinks (it wasn't yet when I was a kid) and usually white bread is banned too. This while fruit and veg are obligatory for parents to add to the lunchboxes. Very good health wise of course, but there's no alternative option for poorer parents and this has led to so many children coming to school without food because the parent's can't afford to meet the guidelines that since about 3 years there's a charity making poverty relief sandwiches for school for poor children. This has led to our government making legislation to make it mandatory for schools to provide lunch for poorer kids, starting possibly in 2026 but there's already a lot of dissent saying people should be 'responsible' and somehow feed their children anyway. So if it will happen remains to be seen. Anyway, if it does, it will still just be bread + veg+ fruit and water. No hot meals were ever served here and I think they never will be.

When I was a child I always got dark wholegrain bread with fruit and a healthy drink like water or tea, and I was always jealous of some of my friends who got only a coke and cake every day. I now understand that those children were not treated well by their parents, but tell that to an 11 year old munching on 'healthy' bread while watching another eat cake every day! :laugh:
 
I liked the school food back when they still cooked in the kitchen and the meals were well-balanced. I always asked for extra spinach. Now they cater crap food and not well-balanced.
 
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