My mom’s a lunch lady. She has access to all the recipes and can replicate anything I want. And my uncle owns an A&W, which happens to sell the same kind of pizza burgers my high school served, which were amazing and disastrously bad for you. They dripped grease.
The only thing I really miss is hot ham and cheese, which is easy enough to make at home. Mmmm, hot melty cheese product and salty ham.
People liked school lunches? I think I bought lunch twice in elementary school because I forgot my lunch. Now that I think about it, I probably didn’t buy lunch in high school either. Everyone brought a sandwich and bought ice cream or something like that.
Give it up, Miss Purl. We* want the pizza recipe!
*By which I mean me.
I’m pretty sure it’s just pre-packaged crust, canned pizza sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Cook it until the crust is done. Mom always comes home covered in pizza sauce on pizza days. But I’ll be sure to ask my mommy what the exact recipe is. Promise on a little red pony saddle.
Edit: Just got off the phone with my mom, and I’m afraid the pizza is purchased. Many apologies. It’s probably available from most restaurant supply companies, though.
We had a really good cafeteria at the school I went to for K-8 (little Catholic school). There was a lady who made all the desserts: wonderful brownies, excellent apple crisp. I had several favorite lunches: mac & cheese (real, no icky canned sauce - I’ve come close to duplicating it, but never gotten it down exactly), shredded chicken in gravy over mashed potatoes, shredded beef in gravy over mashed potatoes, excellent sloppy joes, other stuff I’ve forgotten. We never packed lunches.
GT
My high school made the best cornbread. I was talking about it the other day with LillithFair and she has a friend who is one of the school lunch ladies…she says they buy a pre-made mix these days and just squirt it out of the bag. I don’t think that kind of pre-processed stuff was as available back in 1975 as it is today…I want to hold firmly to the belief that they made it from scratch.
When I went to Kent State, the cafeteria I went to the most often made the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had. The next year, it was crap. I asked the staff about it, and they said that cook moved to another cafeteria across campus. So once a week I would faithfully travel all the way to front campus to eat in a cafeteria where I didn’t know anyone, just for the mac and cheese. This is probably where I picked up my habit of eating alone.
I miss the fried veggie sticks. Those were my favorite.
Tater tots.
I only went to school in the U.S. for one year. And I remember the tater tots with huge affection.
As for the rest of the food, it was…meh.
Nachos. At my school you could get a whole tray full smothered in cheese sauce and all kinds of other toppings for $2.00. It was great.
College, grilled cheese and fries…also the alfredo pizza.
don’t miss anything from elementary, jr high or high school…does anyone remember how in elementary school EVERYONE would get so happy when it was pizza day?
The one I miss was something called the “cheese zombie”. It was a fluffy piece of bread (sort of like a soft version of a calzone) with a cheese center. The problem is I’ve never seen it on a menu, and even when I mention to others my age they usually don’t know what I’m talking about. Did it go by a different name, and where can I find it?
When I attended elementary school, back in the Middle Ages, the lunch ladies made the food in our cafeteria. You could tell even the burger buns were homemade, because they were rock-hard, square, and lumpy, just like the dinner rolls. I remember liking the greasy thick-cut french fries and the Frito Pie (on Fridays, usually, and that was the only day you could get chocolate milk), but the one thing I still crave is the peanut butter cake. I have never found a recipe that duplicates it - the cake was moist and fine-crumbed and it had a subtle peanut flavor, and the frosting was just peanut-buttery enough. I really miss the cake.
Peanut butter squares.
Big squares of peanut butter (like the inside of a good buckeye candy) with a not-too-hard-but-not-too-soft chocolate top. Those were 50 cents and a peanut butter ball (same thing but smaller and ball-shaped) was 25 cents.
My buddy and I ate nothing but a peanut butter square and a Chilly Willy orange drink every day for lunch for an entire semester. I think I spent the money I saved up (from lunch money) on cigarettes :o
At my high school we had “bagel cheese hashbrowns” which were exactly what the name implies. Yummm.
I went to a Catholic school that was two blocks from my house. Every day I walked home from school at lunch time and ate lunch with my mother, my older sister and my little brother. What I miss most is spending that half hour with my mother.
All through elementary, junior and high school the school cafeterias made their own bread. The rolls were the best I’ve ever had. They made all their own hot dog and hamburger buns too. Oh and the cinnamon rolls… best ever! Big cinnamon rolls loaded with cinnamon, raisins, and tons of that gooey white sugar frosting stuff. MMMMM…
YES! YES! PIZZA BURGERS!
And the mass produced, square pizza they sold, too.
Generous helpings on the pizza, as I recall.
Lemme see…
Chips?
Pop?
Having no other options because the lower grades were allowed to go to lunch first and they bought all the good stuff? (No, I’m not bitter…much)
Alright, honestly I do somewhat miss the garlic fingers from high school, and in elementary where were a couple special days each year where lunch was a ham & cheese kaiser and potato chips–I loved those days. I think those were the same days they gave us sundae cups for dessert.
The mushy potatoes and gravy that I use to spread on the large buttered soft rolls. The combination was fantastic, and it only costs 15 cents.
I take my lunch to work pretty often and I will follow your example. Over the weekend I will buy myself a Super Hero lunch box and swear to use it from this day forth and only in the pursuit of good not evil. If this thread is still up I will tell you which SH I got - hopefully someone cheesey.