My K-12 school experience was in the LA City School system. In hindsight, I would say they had centralized purchasing and standard recipes because across the years of elementary-junior high-high schools, the food was pretty similar. Nothing memorable other than fruit machines in junior and high schools that had cold oranges and crunchy apples.

Oh yes, I remember it was in the high school cafeteria that I had my first taste of cottage cheese salad with chunks of pineapple and shredded cheddar on top. Try it. It is a very good combination.

Wow, lots of memories in a short amount of time! It's a good question, Sue. :)

We usually took cold lunch, which was generally ok with me. However, my sister and I were lucky enough to go to a brand new school in elementary school, and we too had the lunch ladies who cooked mostly from scratch and big cans o' veggies. Everything was served family-style, a new concept for our schools. The very best lunch and the one we'd beg our mom to pay for was spaghetti (ok) with THE most awesome cinnamon rolls. They were so good that many requests came in for the recipe in the days waaaaay before computers. Anyone from Portland remember seeing this recipe in the paper in the 70's?

the Pizza!

When I was in grade school my father was an officer in the military. It would make his soooo angry because we qualified for free lunch. 5 kids qualifies you I think. We had no choice but to eat hot lunch--no way could mom put together sandwiches for less than they charged for hot lunch my dad would say. (of course he NEVER filled out the paper work for free lunch). I am blessed to not be a picky eater. I really shake my head at the parents and kids who find most food not good enough for them. As my dad would say "They don't know what it is to be HUNGRY". My favorite school lunch was cheese enchiladas when we lived in New Mexico. Even to this day I have not found a restaurant that can duplicate how good they were. My kids also ate hot lunch EXCLUSIVELY--the expense of the JUNK one buys to fill up a lunch box is reason enough but then think about the lack of nutrition..well mine loved the school Chicken Alfredo. Sadly gone are the made from scratch, lunch ladies who actually COOKED...chances are nutrition does not exist another failed initiative of the Obama administration.

My favorites were the hamburger stew over mashed potatoes (which my mother learned how to make and taught me how to do and it's still one of our favorite foods) and the peanut butter sandwiches because the peanut butter was sweetened. I never did find peanut butter like that in the store but a friend was able to get some when they were in Connecticut. I was in Wisconsin at the time. I really disliked the hot lunch on Friday because it was always fish and I have never eaten fish and I remember being hungry on Friday a lot. LOL

Lunches from the cafeteria were completely different in Florida. You could order a hamburger and they had a table with all the condiments so you could dress your burger the way you wanted, you could get an egg salad sandwich or a chocolate shake, it was very casual and it seemed a lot more fun. And you didn't have to eat in the cafeteria either. I used to take my lunch and go and sit in the hall in the art department. I was new at the school and really shy and didn't want to sit at a table all by myself in the cafeteria.

When I was in elementary school, I walked home for lunch.

Don't remember the food at all from junior and senior high school. I do remember that lunch cost 35 cents. When I was a senior, in 1964, a bunch of us used to go to MacDonald's once in a while. A cheeseburger, fries and a coke were 37 cents.

Elementary school was in the 40's for me! I'm old :o)

Oh the days of those good home cooked school meals....Funny this came up today...our Home Ec teacher was the head of the kitchen, as well as teaching assignments....and bless her, she passed away yesterday at the wonderful age of 95!..so some of us have been remembering her on Facebook today. I am think some of my very favorite meals was spoon burgers ( kind of like a double sided pizza with a lot of wonderful filling)...and of course everyone loved chili and home made cinnamon rolls.....happy memories!

We never had pizza or enchiladas. The only sandwiches I think we were served were sloppy Joes. Desserts were some kind of fruit made into cobbler, pudding, cake, cookies or fruit. There were no vending machines in school and no soft drinks. You had your choice of white or wheat bread. This was a brand new school when I started school and it was out in the country.

Sue

My favorite school lunch was on Fridays, when we had cheese enchiladas (with optional meat sauce on top), rice, beans and salad. The cafeteria ladies did all the cooking back then!

Only thing that stands out in my mind is peanut butter brownies with chocolate frosting. I still make them.

Went to school in the fifties, in the North. The lunch ladies at my school never served fresh baked rolls or any other great tasting food. I can recall spaghetti being a favorite. The only other meal I have always remembered was hot dog day. Boiled hot dog was tolerable, the straight out of the can sauerkraut I remember tasting like scorched rubber bands . Years later I learned how to cook and make great sauerkraut. Have always thought about that school lunch when I start to make my sauerkraut.

It's where I was exposed to chop suey over sticky white rice. Still a favorite! :)

I'm surprised at all those who had a choice--the only choice we had (mid 1960s to mid 1970s) was whether to buy an extra lunch, exactly like the first one.

arcy, please, just because one packs her children's lunch does not mean it contains JUNK, or is not nutritious. What I fed my kids was just as nutritious as the food offered at school, even if it wasn't hot. My grandson takes his lunch most of the time, and it's all good food.

Elementary school, walked home for lunch every single day and if it was cold enough for the principal to let us brown bag it that winter day brought our own lunches. There was no cafeterias in our schools then. (1960). MIddle school there was a cafeteria in that school but had to brown bag it but loved the french fries days and so would line up with zillion other kids and buy some. I have no idea what they served and kids ate. High school, same thing brown bagged lunch. Again no idea what they served and ate. ON fridays this restaurant was built and we would sneak off the school grounds and cross the road and buy fries as the huge thing that came out was fries and gravy but ugh, soggy they were so only fries for me. I missed the days of walking home and eating lunch especially in the winter a hot lunch. Didn't like the sandwiches my mother made me in brown bagging to school and would actually throw them out, ugh.

I don't remember there being hot lunches, just milk cartons. I do remember the paper bags though and the same old squished peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches every day with an apple or banana and occassional cookie. Not fun and by the end of 6th grade I hated p&j. LOL

There was no cafeteria at the teeny, tiny school I went to grades 1-8. Last couple of years, you could buy milk....2 cents a carton. Went to the town next to us for high school where they did have a cafeteria but I rarely ate there. We were allowed to walk downtown and get lunch there. The times I almost always ate at the cafeteria were when they had this gingerbread cake, topped with a caramel sauce. Everything was homemade by 3 cooks. Years later, I lived next door to one of them. I asked if she had recipe for that sauce. She did, however it was for 600 people. ☺

When I went to work at our local school here, I'd always eat when they had mac n cheese. Still can't find any as good.

FlamingO: Mind sharing the hamburger stew recipe?

Grade school lunches: the best square pizza, chocolate milk. Always on a Friday for some reason. They also made a ground beef with gravy over rice dish I have tried and failed to duplicate. It was so good.

I also loved those little square pieces of pizza. I remember loving the school lunches and thought it was all quite yummy! But I mostly remember the dessert they would have these square pieces of no bake chocolate oatmeal cookies. I remember trying to get my mom to make some but they never tasted like the school ones. Finally after many years, long after I was out of school, someone made these and I got the recipe. They were exact. I've also heard that GFS has the pizza but when I went to see, they didn't have them.

Mostly I brought my lunch from home. In elementary school (mid-sixties) kids who weren't buying lunch could buy a carton of milk for 5 cents. On Fridays, the school smelled heavenly because the lunch ladies made huge trays of cinnamon rolls. Kids could buy one for a nickel. I've eaten many a cinnamon roll from many a source since then, but never have I had one as good as those were.

Hamburgers in waxed bag on Thursdays - yuummie. Don't remember eating hot lunch. Brought my lunch most days. Lemonade bars and orange juice bars. Apples in the vending machine. Thanks for the post, such fun to remember back when we were little.

Early 1960s for me, and I really don't remember a lot of what were our school lunches. I do remember peanut butter and honey sandwiches, I think there was a kind of Johnny Marzetti, maybe mac&cheese, maybe a plain hamburger. Somewhere along the line there might have been a "chili" that was nothing like the chili my mother made. There must have been some fruit -- like canned peaches or pears -- and a vegetable but I absolutely don't remember. We had to bring in our "milk money" every week but that was for in the classroom, not at lunch. I still remember the taste of slightly warm milk in the paper cartons.

I don't think we were given things like chips because those were always a rare treat for me -- and I longed to carry my lunch and have things like Hostess Snowballs or cupcakes like other kids (in reality my mother would never have bought such junk!) I do remember that I looked forward to the days when we were given "rolled oat cake"; I absolutely loved that.

Hmm, I think I will have to do an internet search to see if I can find an old lunch menu.

LAUSD coffee cake! Served on a wax paper square with a grease stain:)

"Sadly gone are the made from scratch, lunch ladies who actually COOKED...chances are nutrition does not exist another failed initiative of the Obama administration." I tend to wonder if it's true what they say. Is ignorance really "bliss"? LOL Anyway to respond to that comment, I can tell you I worked for school districts in the 70s and 80s and cooking was disappearing then. Thank your favorite deity that ketchup became a vegetable during the Reagan administration. That makes it more nutritious apparently. BTW, I had a red light while driving to the store today. I suppose that's ANOTHER "failed initiative of the Obama administration" too! :)

But back to the lunches. Wow, where to start. Some really good, some really bad, some mediocre. I often brought my lunch during grade school, had school lunch thereafter most of the time. First thing I remember was how annoyed I was, and remain to this day, how a group's superstition can prevent a large group from having a hamburger (or stew, chili or myriad of other things) on Fridays. Whatever happened to separation of church and state? Where were all the lawyers looking out for our civil rights? (End of rant) So Friday was minnow muncher day as it was known. Fish sticks, grilled cheese or PB sandwich, tuna salad, "fishwich" and creamed tuna over shoestring potatoes were common Friday offerings so often I'd skip Friday lunches except I did like their fish sticks. They were real fish then, nice flaky stuff with great taste. Can't buy them anymore. (And no, not because of Obama! LOL)

Butter was subsidized so obviously a lot of butter was used. Elementary schools would mix butter in with the peanut butter as an extender but it was actually good. Secondary would go two-step. Butter it, then peanut butter. It was real butter - not margarine. Most every meal included a peanut butter bread. Not a true sandwich with 2 slices, just a piece of bread topped with a good heavy helping of peanut butter. When they'd have grilled cheese, you'd get a grilled cheese sandwich and a piece of bread with peanut butter but you could opt for 2 more pieces of PB bread in place of the grilled cheese if you preferred.

More bad stuff: Their burgers and meatloaf were bad. SO full of filler and the burgers were baked into hockey pucks. With them so full of filler (I assume oatmeal was a part of it) they should have qualified for Fridays AFAIC. The "oven baked french fries" were always so greasy and limp. Terrible, but kids are required to love french fries so everyone did.

Good stuff: The HUGE cinnamon rolls but it was only on tuna salad day so many like me would buy it for the roll and dump the rest. Good sloppy joes, great pizza burgers - open face 1/2 a burger bun topped with a seasoned meat/sauce mixture, topped with a little dab of cheese and baked. One of the few things I make to this day, although it's my variation of it. Hamburger in gravy over mashed potatoes (aka "Gravy Train") was OK.

Other: The bowls of ketchup and mustard on the tables. Kids would lick the spoons and put them back in, some would spit in there and time how long it took for the ketchup to absorb it. Good memories! Oh yeah, milk was one offering. No chocolate milk, no 4 varieties. One. That was it. IIRC by high school they changed from whole milk to 2%. There was no ala cart option, you buy a lunch and get what they give you. The lunch was split into 3 shifts. Last shift had advantages & disadvantages. The good part was if they had leftovers they'd give it to the kids on last shift. But if it was a popular item day they might run out and you'd get whatever they could put out, usually PB sandwiches.

Lots of memories! My sister, a friend and I were talking about this a while back. Interesting to remember the different perceptions on it. Good topic. Glad you posted it.

I feel like a weirdo since never in 12 years of public school did I ever eat a school lunch. I always walked home for lunch even when I was six and lived a mile from school...one way. Four miles a day.

I never ate lunch at school. I always went home for lunch.

In elementary school there was no lunch room, everyone went home except one family of kids who were bussed from too far away, they stayed but brought their own lunches. Other kids were bussed home for lunch because they didn't live too far away; most walked or their parents picked them up.

In junior high and high school I walked to school and came home for lunch, I could see the school from my back garden (down one hill and up another, so I really did walk uphill both ways to get to school).

In junior high the bussed kids used the high school cafeteria (we didn't call it a lunch room). I may have eaten there once or twice when I had to stay at school during lunch for drama practice, but I always brought a sandwich. A lot of kids brought their own lunch but ate it in the cafeteria (you weren't allowed to eat lunch in your classroom, and they were locked over the lunch hour anyway).

I think the cafeteria sold things like fries, hot dogs, hamburgers, soup and maybe that's it. I really can't remember anything else.

There was no cafeteria food in grade school, so it was bagged lunched every day. What I recall with great affection was liverwurst sandwiches and Devil Dogs. Yum.

High school cafeteria food was pretty disgusting and I still remember the fries being labeled, "low grade but edible".

Yuck.

I usually brought a lunch consisting of a sandwich and a piece of fruit. I was a very picky eater, so most of the lunch options the cafeteria offered didn't interest me.

I remember "Johnny Marzetti" -- essentially spaghetti with meat sauce, but with macaroni noodles instead. Vegetables were always from a large can, fruit as well, and always in a sweet syrup. Fridays were fried fish sandwiches, which always came with canned peas, and baked macaroni and cheese. Another day they would have meatloaf, with mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans.

In high school, they had an ala carte option where you could get a (rectangular) slice of pizza, or a hamburger or cheeseburger with tater tots..

I also remember in elementary school students could help clean up after lunch, and would receive a free lunch, I don't remember how students were selected for this task, but you would receive a tray from a student, rinse it briefly, and put it in a square rack that would go through a steaming hot dishwasher. The silverware would be put in a round plastic basket which would be rinsed and also sent through the dishwasher.

One time when I was working there the other student, was rinsing a container of silverware over the jumbo garbage disposal, and he dropped it into the disposal. By the time he was able to turn off the disposal, it had mangled all but two of the spoons.

I notice many of you had fish served. We never had fish and we never had cinnamon rolls. We did have hot dogs on occasion but not in a sandwich, they came with kraut, which I really liked. Never had Johnny Marzetti either. We had beef and noodles and chicken noodles and of course with mashed potatoes. These were real potatoes and they had a machine the potatoes were dumped in and the peelings scraped off. No elementary children were allowed to work in the kitchen or help. The jobs you did from Jr. high up were to get the dirty dishes from the stack and the trays and rinse them and put in a rack or dry dishes if they were wet and I think they were when they came from the dishwasher. No students ever put dishes into the dishwasher. There were 12 grades and there were only 20 to 30 students per class. We never had ketchup or mustard on our tables just the peanut butter with honey and you could eat all of that on more bread that you went back and asked for. There was no walking home or walking to school where we lived very few brought lunches from home as the meals were cheap and very good. No one brought a brown bag, if you brought lunch it was in a lunch box. I started out with a green metal lunch box, shaped like a man's, the dome top. I did not use it much and then it was in the beginning. I saw that box a few years ago, it was sold in my Mother's auction.

Sue

My high school and elementary school were on the same property and only a block away from where I lived. I went home everyday for lunch.

We didn't have a cafeteria in elementary school so you either brought your lunch or went home. We did have special days such as pizza and hot dogs.

In Grade school we didn't have a lunch room that I recall. Most kids walked home for lunch but we did have a milk break where we were given one of those glass bottles of milk. No cafeterias in grade schools. There must have been a class room in Junior High for kids to eat their lunches that lived further from home but you ate the lunch you brought. Secondary school was the first experience with a school cafeteria. I would always have French fries with gravy, a chocolate milk or orange juice and a vanilla half moon. Other days I would have a tuna sandwich, chocolate milk and a bag of chips. Never did I bring a lunch from home except maybe an apple. I think I ordered a hamburger for lunch once and I am sure there were other things they served but I don't recall. For some reason I stuck some of the empty chip bags into my notebooks and I still have them. They were thicker foil bags not like the bags you get now. Except for high school I always walked home for lunch, my grade school was 2 1/2 blocks away and my junior high was 6 long blocks away. High school was a mile and a quarter walk away so I ate there

bob_cville, I just found my Aunt's recipe for John Marzetti that she wrote out for me when I was 13 years old I always thought that was a name she made up! I loved when she made that dish.

In the '30s and '40s, in my elementary (local - 25 kids or so) and high school days (local - 60 kids so) ...

... if you didn't bring your own - you went hungry!

o j

As a student, if you helped serve lunches in the serving line, your lunch was free. We could volunteer for a week at a time. I volunteered as often as they would let me. Apparently not everyone enjoyed it as much as I did, because I got a turn often. Three food items stood out for me. I'm not a huge fan of cornbread, but whenever spaghetti was served, they also served cornbread sticks. And I loved them. They were crunchy and made me think of Fritos. And after lunch, one of the ladies managed a cookie cart, selling chocolate chip or peanut butter cookies about five inches in diameter. Soft cookies. I liked the peanut butter especially. But the real standout was the green salad! It was nothing but lettuce and they dressed it with Heinz distilled white vinegar and a bit of oil. Mom never served salad when I was a kid. We Germans ate a LOT of things made with one or another kinds of dough. That started a lifelong love of all things vinegary.

Funny how school lunches are so full of memories. I remember getting the week's menu and then signing up for cafeteria lunches on the days when they were serving something I liked. I can't remember what that was now. There was always a hot platter, a variety of soups and sandwiches, too. I often brought my lunch in my lunchbox or sometimes in a brown paper bag. I remember my sandwiches were wrapped in folded waxed paper. I had PBJ, lebanon bologna or tuna salad. My mom saved baby food jars and put her homemade applesauce in them. I had milk in a thermos or purchased in those little wax boxes. Dessert was usually Tastykakes! I remember the aroma when you opened your lunchbox, which had been sitting in the cloakroom all morning. Guess we didn't worry about refrigeration and no one ever got sick. One time the hot platter had stewed tomatoes, which I had never eaten in my life and was not about to start. We had a mean teacher who stood by the garbage cans where we scraped our plates and she would send children back to the table to finish their uneaten food. She told me to eat the tomatoes and I said I was allergic to them. Ha! Smart kid. I love tomatoes and have never been allergic.

I remember that the platter cost 35 cents. My mother would give me my lunch money on the days I bought lunch. I remember doing the same for my boys.

In high school, I was on the last lunch period of the day and would be starving. I had a class near the cafeteria and would dash through the sandwich line during first lunch period for a pbj to take to class with me and wolf down before the bell rang.

Our fancy new high school has a cafeteria that is out of this world. I bet the kids' memories of lunch will not be as good as ours.

With the exception of kindergarten, I went to Catholic schools (including college) my whole life. My mom was the cook at our grade school and the other mothers would come and take turns helping and serving. I usually brought my lunch unless it was something I really liked. I remember how exciting it was to start 2nd grade and be allowed to have chocolate milk at lunch!! From that day on, I never had white milk at lunch. My mom would sit at the table and make out her menus for the month because she had to order the food needed. Our bread came from the bakery just around the corner from the school. My friend's family owned it and man, that was some great bread, cookies, donuts, etc.

My mom loved working there. It got her home before we got home and gave her extra money for the family.

When the school finally stopped serving lunches, my mom was given some of the little dishes that she used. I still have them. I started grade school in 1957 so those dishes are pretty old!!!

It's funny that I don't have any strong memories of lunch in high school.

My favorite cafeteria foods were Johnny Marzetti with garlic bread; cheeseburgers with pickles and chips, and bagel pizza. I attended parochial schools and meals were included with tuition. I ate lunch in cafeteria every day unless I didn't feel good.

I attended high school in the 1950s and our school did not have a lunch room. The students brought a bag lunch from home and ate in the bleachers in the gym. My typical lunch was a sandwich, a fruit, and a pastry. We high school kids carried our lunch in paper bags. If I was careful with my bag, it could be folded after use and slipped inot my back pocket to be used again. I usually got 3 days of use out or one bag.

My one room country grade school lunch experience was different. I carried a lunch box with themos. The thermos liner never lasted an entire school year before it was broken. Most of the time it broke when dropped of when I fell during my journey between home and school. One time it was broken when I used my steel lunch box as a weapon to defend my self from the school bully.

Times were difficult for my family during my grade school days. My sandwiches were made with cuts of cooked, home cured pork on slices of home-made bread, I remember once when we ran low on luncheon material, I had a bean sandwich. This was navy beans between two slices of bread, one slice was buttered with home made butter. During those times, once I had a raw turnip to munch on. In the fall, I'd grab an apple or two from a tree in our small orchard on my way to school.

I remember in 4th grade the kids complained about not liking beets.....little half inch cubed ones. I said I liked them and suddenly 3 people dumped theirs on my plate. :0)

Friday was hamburger day and sometimes on Thursday we had fried chicken. Lunch was 35 cents and I usually skipped lunch and saved my money and I bought another horse.

Real yeast products, rolls, cinnamon rolls, etc. I didn't eat in the lunchroom, but I'd swing by on my way to my hangout and pick that up if they were having it.

Fried bologna cups filled with mashed potatoes....wouldn't eat that now for a million bucks but loved it then!

We never had bologna at school but I eat it now whenever I want :)

Sue

Cherryfizz, would you mind posting your recipe for Johnny Marzetti? We had never heard of it before my aunt served it and got the recipe much later. I quite like it and would like to compare the two recipes, if you have time to post. (We thought it was called Mezziti. :) )

sjerin, I will look through the recipe box and post the recipe

sjerin, here is that recipe for Jo Mazzotti as my Aunt called it and as she wrote it on her recipe card

Cooked together until well browned

1/4 cup butter or other cooking fat

1 1/2 pound lean ground pork or ground beef

8 large onions sliced

Add

3 cans concentrated tomato soup or 1 can tomato paste and 2 cups water

1 pound mushrooms sliced

1 bunch celery diced

2 green pepper cut fine

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound sharp cheese cut small

Simmer 15 minutes to make a rich sauce, Meanwhile in a deep kettle of boiling salted water (1 tsp salt for every 1 quart of water) cook 1 large packet of broad noodles until tender. Drain and mix well with the sauce. Cover closely and cook slowly for 1 hour on top of the stove or in the oven at 350 degrees.

Serves 12 to 16

haha we came from large families so this was the perfect amount. I haven't had this in years and years and if I made it now I would use canned tomatoes instead of soup and I would add garlic and some other types of cheese

Hamburger gravy with mashed potatoes was one of the few lunches I bought---really liked it. Funny, since now I really don't like gravy.