Scool Cafeteria Food..

[norgeway]

I really feel sorry for kids today, they never got to experience really good food at school, At Lower Creek Elementary School, I thought we had the very best..I was at LC from 1971-1977, and I dont remember a thing that wasnt great, the best rolls I have ever eaten in my life were served there,the cornbread was also as good as ive ever had, the macaroni stuff I posted a recipe for was a favorite, great spaghetti, meatloaf, country style steak....on and on, my Dads first cousin worked there and mad the rolls, I can remember seeing her working with a huge mound of dough,most of the ladies who were there went to Church across the street where we went, and most were older...probably all in their 50s and 60s then, which at 6 or 7 is ancient ...lol, my Grandmother worked in that lunchroom from 57-62, and learned many timesaving tricks...to this day ive never known of anyone who cooked turkey like she did, and it came from the lunchroom...She said in the afternoon they would heat the ovens to 550, wrap the turkeys in foil, put them in a roasting pan, and bake for 2 hours, then they would turn off the ovens and go home, the next morning they would come in and take the perfectly cooked turkey out and cut it up, I am sure someone would say now days this isnt safe...but they fed thousands of kids down thru the years and if anyone ever got sick I never heard of it...

 

[toploader55]

Hans...

Ditto everything you said.

Fresh baked rolls, then in the early 70's caterers took over with premade food made in a town 70 miles away and shipped in hotboxes.

Quality went down, cost got cut, and ended up bringing what I call scraps ( leftovers } to school.

But My family made tuna, cut celery, chicken all on a wood cutting board without Clorox wipes and all that other sanitizing crap, and none of us ever got sick.

Feh !!!!!!!

 

[danemodsandy]

We Got....

....The second-best vegetable-beef soup I've ever had in my life (the best was my grandmother's).

We got really delicious made-from-scratch mac 'n cheese, which I never, ever got at home, because Mom didn't care for it. Everyone in the family turned into a mac 'n cheese fiend when they left home.

There was peach cobbler that was so good you hated to take the last bite, because then it was gone.

There was very good cornbread - not as good as I've ever had, but certainly better than most. And it was always served on days we had the soup I've mentioned.

There were some things they were bad at. The turnip greens were always canned ones, and pretty ghastly. Chocolate pudding always sounded good on the menu, but always had bits of "skin" from where it had been refrigerated after cooking; the lunch ladies just broke up the skin and stirred it back into the pudding.

And that damned canned cream corn was served about sixteen times a month, it seemed like.

But when it was good, it was good.

 

[danemodsandy]

We Got....

....The second-best vegetable-beef soup I've ever had in my life (the best was my grandmother's).

We got really delicious made-from-scratch mac 'n cheese, which I never, ever got at home, because Mom didn't care for it. Everyone in the family turned into a mac 'n cheese fiend when they left home.

There was peach cobbler that was so good you hated to take the last bite, because then it was gone.

There was very good cornbread - not as good as I've ever had, but certainly better than most. And it was always served on days we had the soup I've mentioned.

There were some things they were bad at. The turnip greens were always canned ones, and pretty ghastly. Chocolate pudding always sounded good on the menu, but always had bits of "skin" from where it had been refrigerated after cooking; the lunch ladies just broke up the skin and stirred it back into the pudding.

And that damned canned cream corn was served about sixteen times a month, it seemed like.

But when it was good, it was good.

 

[wayupnorth]

My High School had both a set hot lunch line and a "cold" lunch line. Back in the early 70's, I could get 3 huge rolls, 3 Italian Sandwiches on hamburger rolls, bowl of soup and orange juice for 95 cents in the cold line. Was 45 cents for hot which had milk that I cant drink. No way I could eat that much now.

 

[danemodsandy]

In High School....

....We had the same thing - a hot lunch in the cafeteria, and cold sandwiches in the "snack bar," which also served to sell school supplies.

Hot lunch was 45 cents (up from a quarter in grade school), and you could upsize it by asking for a "jumbo" and paying an additional quarter, boosting your total to - gasp! - 70 cents.

Jumbos were a damn popular option on days when fried chicken was served, trust me. And spaghetti - they made excellent American-style spaghetti, as well. Other days, not so much.

 

[oldskool]

Yes!

Elementary, Junior & Senior High all had excellent lunches as those above have indicated.   After moving to KC, I took a position at a middle school and the ladies in that cafeteria could absolutely cook - breakfast and lunch!  Home made Cinnamon rolls, Yeast rolls, Fried Chicken, Meat loaf, Greens, Mac & Cheese, Turkey & Cornbread dressing, smothered pork chops and the best sheet cakes ever.  To this day when I make a butter cake with chocolate frosting we still call it "school cake".  Here's a salute to the many ladies who actually seemed to like their jobs and were the best at doing it!

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

School lunches were gross here. I had it for a semester during first grade. Then switched to a lunchbox and never looked back. Still remember that awful stench of soured milk and vegetable soup. EWW!

 

During high school I went out for lunch. Pizza, burgers, the usual fast food junk.

 

[norgeway]

My Mother always said...

The food at her school, Oak Hill School" which was a county school that was 1st thru 12th grade.."She graduated in 1947"..was the WORST food ever!, She said the vegetable soup looked like dirty dishwater with a piece or 2 of okra in it!!LOL

 

[tolivac]

School food---YUUUUCCHH!!!!The best school food I ever had was at the old Central High School that was in downtown,Rapid City,S Dak.The food was like eating in a fine resturant!!!So delicious!!!THEN......The State and Gov food program kicked in and replaced the good food-HORRIBLE!!!!So remember the Jello that you could bounce like a ball-and eating it was impossible-you had to bounce your teeth off it many times before getting it down.and most of that food was so stale.Then started bringing my lunch.When the new Stevens High school was built in the section of town where we lived-brought food and ate at the neighboring Dairy Queen-I was not alone--others ate there,too to get away from the stale school cafeteria food.College was even WORSE!!!!Lots of HORRIBLE fried bologna!!!There the college was in a very small Eastern Sdak town.You had the choice of eating at the bowling alley or a tiny restuarant-either was better than that terrible fried bologna!!!And other things couldn't tell what it was.Sadly most of that state and gov't food ended up going down the schools HUGE Hobart disposer!!!Eat hardy, Hobart!!!He was the only one that liked that terrible food!

 

[arbilab]

You know that smell, when you walk into an apartment building and smell everybody's cooking and you say "what in the world are they cooking?" (I live in just such a building.) School cafeteria: That, plus crap. (Fat Bawstard, Austin Powers.)

When I didn't bring a PB sand or go out for a cheeseburger, that's my memory of school food. They did have good rolls if you caught them just right out of the oven and not burned. That and a small bowl of corn was pritmuch all I ate from the school cafeteria. Wait, tomato-burger-macaroni was edible.

The local AM rocker had a 'school menu' segment where they made fun of the published menu. One feature was "schoolburgers" which they described as made from chair stuffing. Might have been a pseudo sloppy joe, I dunno. The smell from that wing of the building pritmuch put me off eating altogether.

 

[whirlcool]

The high school I went to had mostly terrible food. The worst was their Mac N Cheese. It had an odor about it that is just indescribable. It looked rather burnt and had kind of a waxy smell to it. I never tried it but the entire cafeteria reeked from it on days it was served (Tues-Fri).

Nothing in the line ever really looked good. But they did serve hamburgers 5 days a week as alternate choices and the french fries were baked rather than fried. So that's what I ate most of my years there. For drinks you had a choice of milk or chocolate milk or water. There wasn't a soft drink machine anywhere on the premises. Mow remember this was in 1966. Lunch at school was $1.25 per day.Times have changed ever since.

Most of the teachers thought they were prison guards, treated us as prisoners and I am sure they were the ones that came up with the cooking methods too! A LOT of kids just brought their own lunches from home.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Our school lunches were pretty horrible, too. In 6th grade we staged a strike and the upper classes did not buy lunch. The lunchroom manager was in tears; all of that cooked crap and no buyers meant a great loss of money. We might have been the youngest boomers to decide we were not buying establishment crap. On the rare occasions that we were served "hamburgers," it was maybe a half dollar sized piece of beef patty that was swimming in a ketchup sauce and served on a biscuit-sized yeast roll that had been split open. The fare was strictly gov't surplus prepared with little imagination. It was a joke that we had some sort of canned greens on days when they mowed the lawn. Twice a year, before Thanksgiving and Christmas, we were served a turkey dinner with dressing, smashed potatoes and gravy, probably with canned green beans or peas. The gravy was filled with hardboiled egg slices although only the whites were visible; the yolks dissolved. Those were the only times I have ever seen turkey gravy made that way. When I was in the 12th grade, the crapeteria finally put out a huge stainless steel bowl of salad. You could pay for a serving and then dish up and annoint it with some dressing, but no crackers or bread were provided. We were never allowed off campus at lunch. I usually just saved the lunch money and bought something on the way home.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I remember the "pizza" we had in elementary school:

 

1 Slice of white bread

1 Spoon of tomato sauce

1 Slice of American cheese

A little oregano on top

Bake

 

Later, in middle school, we got "real" frozen pizza on pizza day.

 

Ken D.

 

[polkanut]

I went to a Lutheran parochial school that had 3 of the best school cooks ever!  Yes they would make traditional Lutheran foods like casseroles and Jell-O, but they also made loaves and loaves of homemade french bread.  The smell of that bread baking in the morning would permeate the whole building, and everyone would be craving it by lunch time.  It was usually served with WI style chili-mac, homemade chicken dumpling soup, or spaghetti w/ made from scratch meat sauce.  I worked in the cafeteria in 8th grade to help defray some of the cost of hot lunch, and we got extra portions.  What a bonus!  Hats off to Valeria McDonald, Marianne Henkelman, and Doris Weinke.

 

[mrb627]

School Lunches

Our school lunches were pretty damn good, as I recall. I still search for recipes to duplicate some of the things we enjoyed.

Our pizza was fresh made dough (deep dish style), meat sauce (made in house), and cheese. It was quite good for the .50 being charged.

And finally, the big cookies that came out of the cafeteria were some of the best. We used to get a single butter cookie that was about 7" in diameter. Sooo good!

Malcolm

 

[rockland1]

Hot Lunch

I only had hot lunch in 8th grade. My school didn't offer it until then. When they did it was the best! Baked fresh rolls every day and the food was varied and very good. This is the time the government hot lunch program was in effect. I can remember seeing#10 cans of peanut butter. Needless to say, we had peanut butter cookies a lot.

 

[davey7]

I always went to schools where you brought lunch. High School was open campus and very few people ate the school food it was so bad, even if you ate in the lunch room.

When I lived abroad (in Sweden) the school food was good - meat and potatoes every day. However, in Norway, no food was provided and you brought your own lunch.

 

[xraytech]

There were very few things that were good from the school cafeteria, and they were from elementary school.

The first one being pizza burgers, which was fried ground meat mixed with pizza sauce, cheese, and herbs to make a spread, put on hamburger bun halves and broiled with mozzarella cheese on top. The only better pizza burgers are the ones my aunt makes.

The other thing I loved was the Jell-O poke cake with cool whip as frosting