Joints in the parking lot.
What?
Pizzaburgers- a scoop of seasoned meat on a bun topped by a melted slice of mozzarella.
Turkey and Gravy- a scoop of potato formed to make a lake of gravy and chunked turkey. As I recall the gravy was almost green in color but was riddled with shreds of turkey.
Half-pint glass bottles of chocolate milk. Those were a nickel. The whole hot lunch was 40 cents. If you were a big spender, you could buy a strip of 5 lunch tickets for $1.75.
My high school (late '80’s, open campus) gave up and let McDonald’s open a franchise in the cafeteria. Didn’t matter much, as we were all at Taco John’s or Abo’s anyways.
Crappy rectangular pizza day was Friday. And we naively looked forward to it.
Taco bowl!
Bean chowder day cause it was always served with the above mentioned awesome, gooey cinnamon roll…mmmmm mmmmm good!
I’ve always wondered about that. I saw that a lot in high school: people skipping lunch to go smoke–why would you skip the one time of day when you can resolve your munchies?
Back in caveman days…the only thing I really, really loved were the little glass dishes of apple crisp topped with a dab of ‘hard sauce’ (butter and powdered sugar with a dash of brandy is how its made, though I doubt they put actually liquor into it). … The rest of the food not very good, mushy and bland, though it always smelled good. The meatloaf tasted like baked cat food. There were always a scoop of mashed potatoes or some green beans or corn, and they dumped a ladle of - I don’t know, melted margarine? - over that so everything was swimming in a yellow puddle. (I remember complaining to my parents and the fools just drooled down their shirt fronts, thinking it was actual melted butter and how yummy a ladle of melted butter would taste. Uh, NO.)…I hated being on late lunch, though. Bad as the food was, everything was gone by the time late lunch came around except for ‘teachers food’ - wedges of lettuce with pukey salad dressing laid across. Or those mysterious egg salad sandwiches, greenish grayish with white chunks, that were also sold at thruway rest stops before the franchise chains took over…My friend worked as a cafeteria lady for a big school the last ten years and says everything came from food service places, pre-made, all they had to do was prepare (say, burritos, or a vat of instant mashed potatoes), heat and serve. Though they did bake their own cookies once in a while, and of course make Jello and pudding. Basically she said they served pre-made turkey and gravy, heated up pre-made burgers, frozen prepared pizza squares, and endless chicken nuggets and tater tots. Also, all school foods had to be of American origin, so pineapple chunks was taken off the menu when the only pineapple they could get was from China.
But the school lunches in my daughter’s high school were much better. She could get a sub sandwich, any kind of salad, grilled chicken cutlets, or individual pan pizzas provided by a chain, I think Little Caesars or Pizza Hut. Better than overbaked ziti, side of overcooked green beans swimming in yellow oil!
Seriously! WTF? Loved that shit. PLEASE don’t make me bring lunch, Mom. Not on PIZZA day!
I miss school pizza. And Chris Farley.
My high school lunches were abysmal. I have put them largely out of my head; I recall that my senior year I ate a lot of lunches that consisted of two hard boiled eggs and a can of Sunkist orange soda, because that was all that was palatable.
My grade school, however, had awesome, made from scratch food, lovingly prepared by the mothers of the 1st, 2nd and (one of the) 4th grade teachers. Real mashed potatoes, incredibly light and sweet yeast rolls, pizza made from scratch with real cheese and tomato sauce that didn’t come from a can, delicious, crispy fries made in small batches and served hot, broccoli with real cheese sauce, tacos with either beef or beans, this incredible rich, hearty potato soup and an apple crisp that if I think hard enough about, I can still taste 25 years later.
It was all available a la carte, with menus sent home at the start of every month, so I could bring a vegetarian entree from home and add to it as desired.
I think I might have to send the lead cook a Christmas card.
I’d eat too.
This wasn’t a past time of mine, just an occasional hobby.
Chili and Maple Bars, They were the best maple bars I have ever eaten. They were not fried like a doughnut but instead made with that super soft yeasty bread and they came out on sheet pans by the hundreds.
I also liked the chicken sandwiches and curly fries. For a condiment I mixed ketchup with real mayonnaise. I had no clue what real mayo was until high school, finding it was like a religious experience.
Not a lot, peaches maybe. The little cartons of chocolate milk.
Our kids are probably the only ones that insist on taking lunch on pizza day. It used to be good, and they used to love it: but they did something to the sauce and they’ll no longer eat it.
Ugh. You know, I liked the pizza and hot dogs and hamburgers, and the steak nuggets. At the time. I wonder what I’d think of them now… honestly even then I saw the steak nuggets as a mysterious license to eat gobs of grease.
But the canned fruit, the pudding full of other people’s spat-out gum, the “California mix” steamed vegetables, the instant potatoes… all horrible. Then, in middle school, being molested in the lunch line. I longed for my parents to pack a lunch for me.
My middle school made the best spice cake. You could get a huge block of it for 50 cents. We made it as a home ec assignment once. Damn, I wish I kept that recipe!
They also had these delicious fake eggrolls. Nothing like a real eggroll- enormous and stuffed mostly with ground chicken. For some reason, they were never served fresh, but could only rarely be found in the wrapped hot food section hiding under the hamburgers and hotdogs. Trader Joe’s chicken egg rolls are actually a pretty good approximation.
Write your old school.
You might be suprised.
And hey; how much is a stamp?
The yeasty smell of fresh baked rolls wafting out of the cafeteria in elementary school. Nothing like it. Well, there is, sort of. Driving through Lawrenceburg, Indiana, when you’re downwind of the Seagrams factory, the whole area smells strongly of yeast. Reminded me of elementary school.
I don’t remember anything other than slop and frozen burritos just like the kind you get in the supermarket for 39 cents each with little packets hot sauce. I ate my fill of frozen burritos in middle and high school. I can’t say I miss them, though.
O dear it’s all coming back to me. If I had to make one choice, it would be the stromboli. God I loved all that cheesy greasy goodness.