School cafeteria food

[Jen]

When I was in grade school in the 60's, we had a cafeteria that actually MADE the food they served. It was pretty good actually.

High school was another story ....

Same here. In the 8th grade the lunch room ladies made the best yeast rolls ever.........homemade by them. Everything was homemade. I had good cafeteria food until high school then I went to the local hamburger joint with friends. They closed the campus the year after I left. whew!

[ELOrocks17]

At my school, you could either have whatever the cafeteria was serving that day, or you could bring your own lunch. Usually, I would bring my own lunch unless they served pizza or chicken sandwiches.

Did your school ever have "Red dot day"?

[ELOrocks17]

Same here. In the 8th grade the lunch room ladies made the best yeast rolls ever.........homemade by them. Everything was homemade. I had good cafeteria food until high school then I went to the local hamburger joint with friends. They closed the campus the year after I left. whew!

I remember that 1 school I went to didnt have a cafeteria per se. At luch time, a white van pulled up to the playground and hand out lunches in paper trays with Saran wrap over them from the van. About 1978 in Westlake village CA.

[Jen]

I remember that 1 school I went to didnt have a cafeteria per se. At luch time, a white van pulled up to the playground and hand out lunches in paper trays with Saran wrap over them from the van. About 1978 in Westlake village CA.

I guess that's okay if they were good.

[Physics Hunter]

My two favorites in gradeshool were:

PizzaBurgers, with a small square of Government surplus American cheese melted onto the half of a hamburger but open faced thing. We got two of those per lunch. I usually traded my dessert for a third.

Peanut Butter (probably Gov surplus) and (Gov surplus) butter sandwiches. Those things would curl your toes.

From there it all slid downhill. As Jimmy Carter folded the economy in HighSchool and College, it devolved to Beef, Low Grade but Edible. Really, it said that on a box in the dumpster. This was the genesis of Dominos.

[Physics Hunter]

Oh, and no Mex food in the Rust Belt at that time.

[wbslws]

I never ate in the high school after having one meal there. It was nasty. I always saved my lunch money and bought chips and snack cakes at the grocery store close to school.

[JustPassinThru]

My two favorites in gradeshool were:

PizzaBurgers, with a small square of Government surplus American cheese melted onto the half of a hamburger but open faced thing. We got two of those per lunch. I usually traded my dessert for a third.

Peanut Butter (probably Gov surplus) and (Gov surplus) butter sandwiches. Those things would curl your toes.

From there it all slid downhill. As Jimmy Carter folded the economy in HighSchool and College, it devolved to Beef, Low Grade but Edible. Really, it said that on a box in the dumpster. This was the genesis of Dominos.

Honest to Godfrey, we never had anything so bad.

But I was in the Lutheran schools for nine years. The first eight, we had a hot lunch once a week, as a treat. School (new construction, 1959) had a cafeteria in the lunchroom, but they found the cost of operation was more than they could justify. So, four days a week we brown-bagged it. Sandwiches...and that milk. Wednesdays, volunteer mothers would cook a hot lunch. Burgers or sloppy-joe sandwiches on hamburger buns...that sort of thing.

At the regional Lutheran high school...that's where that lunch-card came into play. Mister Rush, the head of the Science department (and an unclean genius) also was the manager of the Bookstore, which sold more crap than books. But that was where we got lunch cards (and sodas after classes, waiting for the bus departure, yada yada).

Family fortunes changed, with the Ford Economy...and I finished my last three years in the public fool system. They had a cafeteria. Child-rearing anarchy was the fashion back then - I didn't have to be at the school till my first class; homeroom was at 1100; and I didn't have to be on campus between classes or after my last class. I walked two miles to class (after my bicycle was stolen); why not walk another half mile for lunch at Mister S?

(Anyone remember them? Mister S...a failed burger franchise. There were several I'd seen in Ohio...gone by 1975. Our local one opened in 1964...)

But I never bought lunch in the "cafetorium" (they called it). The smells were enough to put me off. I ate a late breakfast - we could set up our own class schedules for the semester ahead, and I made sure I had nothing before 10:30; and then I could wait until I got home at three or so. Or walk to Mister S.

FWIW, I never had a car. Lots of classmates did...

[patrickt]

I'm older than most of you, okay, all of you, and I remember Fish Stick Friday. I also remember the valuable lessons I learned from the ladies in the lunchroom.

One Friday I asked a lady working in the lunchroom why we had to have fish sticks every Friday. "It's for the Catholics, Hon. They don't eat meat on Friday. It's the same reason we never have ham or pork. Jews can't have ham or other pork."

"We don't have any Catholics and we sure don't have any Jews. Everyone is Southern Baptist."
"Well, we could get one of those others some day and it never hurts to be nice."


Good lesson. But, the best lesson came one day as I watched people ahead of me in line pissing and moaning about lunch to the ladies working there. They looked so sad. So, as I went through I said nice things to them about the lunch and I got smiles. I got smiles every day and kept saying nice things. Years later, I did the same thing when I was in the military. The cooks did the best they could with what they got and I told them so. When it was time to get a couple of gallons of fruit cocktail or crackers and cheese for a party I was the one that would go down to the chow hall and beg food from the cooks. I always got it, too.


And when I was at the Menninger Institute in Kansas for a training program I was in the lunchroom and the ladies working there were being extremely nice to me. A psychologist who worked there whined, "Why are you worrying about him? He's just here for a week. I work here and I don't get that kind of treatment."


I looked at him and said, "I would have thought a psychologist could figure it out. I don't treat these ladies like crap." All the ladies broke into big grins and the psychologist looked like he was having a stroke. "Give it a try, Doc."


But, you kids with chocolate milk, tater tots, pizza, and hot dogs really had it easy.

[Mr. Claws]

My two favorites in gradeshool were:

PizzaBurgers, with a small square of Government surplus American cheese melted onto the half of a hamburger but open faced thing. We got two of those per lunch. I usually traded my dessert for a third.

Peanut Butter (probably Gov surplus) and (Gov surplus) butter sandwiches. Those things would curl your toes.

From there it all slid downhill. As Jimmy Carter folded the economy in HighSchool and College, it devolved to Beef, Low Grade but Edible. Really, it said that on a box in the dumpster. This was the genesis of Dominos.

Come on now, Dominos' is a great value for the money... not only can you eat the pizza you can eat the box it came in too, no discernable difference!