school lunch
 

In case any of you forgot what a school lunch looks like.

Hmm…no enchiladas. Must a regional thing, huh.
Every Wednesday was Mexican food day for us in my elementary school.

Well I dont know but....

bog standard school dinners in the UK (in the 70s and 80s at least) .... I mostly remember dodgy custard....and chocolate custard and strawberry custard....

Butterscotch tart, jam roly-poly, treacle pudding, semolina, and, yes, SPOTTED DICK!!!!! Mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

what were they THINKING?!?
 

One of the elementary schools I went to (there were a few) served things like corned beef hash (which I liked, but what a weird thing to serve for lunch) and pickled beets. I don't remember anyone eating the pickled beets. Why did they serve pickled beets to children? Do any of you know a child (or an adult for that matter) that will eat pickled beets without being threatened with dire consequences? I tell ya...

pickled beets
 

I would take my skinny milk straw and use it like a cookiecutter, alternating between beets, carrots and peas (can you believe they gave us all three on on day?) until the maroon, orange and green stripey bits would overflow from the top of my straw and fall onto my tray. No wonder I was skinny as a kid.

my favorite hot lunch was either fun fish or french toast sticks. fun fish were basically fish sticks shaped like fish and other fun aquatic things, like anchors. french toast stick were just cool because you were having breakfast food for lunch.

now i've got "fame" songs in my head: "shady sadie / servin' lady...."

Ok...I just went back and looked for the pizza that was my Friday favorite and suddenly I wonder where my good sense was as a kid.

it's all about chalupa, dude. CHALUPA WEDNESDAYS! at my college there's a little chinese place on campus called "fresh and natural" [fresh and nasty]. people swear they can hear puppies crying in the back room. nasty fake food.

Growing up in Lunch Lady Land, I have to tell you, government funded lunches were only good covered in a ketsup and mustard decor.

i agree with the enchiladas thing earlier- they were actually somewhat edible- though we always thought it looked like someone puked on the tray- hmm... still makes me wonder...

another thing...
 

another horrible thing i remeber about elementary school-
the puking! remember how everyone always somewhere was puking? i'd hate to be a janitor there... favorite puke story-

I had just gotten my little tray of nasty food from the cafeteria, and i was on my way to my assigned seat, and i went down a row- and looked on the floor- it looked like someone had spilt their food on the floor. It looked exactly like something my mom fixed, it was peas and carrots in a white chicken broth sauce. I thought, oh? the thought that they weren't serving that today never crossed my 5 year old mind. A lunch monitor (remember those? kept the food fights in order) intercepted me and told me someone had lost their lunch right there, and I needed to go around. I thought, yea! they dropped it! and proceeded to my seat via another route. It wasn't until i sat down, commenced unwrapping my PB&J that i realized what she meant, and couldn't eat my lunch that day. Fun stuff.. i just wasn't all there as a 5 year old.

Excellent point, Katester. Who could forget the kitty-litter-like substance they'd sprinkle over the puddle? It had that eerie rose smell, thus forcing me to link the scent of roses with vomit.

In addition, I was always intrigued with the fact that green beans were almost always included in these patches of puke.

It all brings new meaning to "Wake up and smell the roses..."

-Ng

another puke story
 

ok- i have a lot of puke stories

Were any of ya'll in an afterday care thing called Extend-A-Care?
yea, it sucked. We always had to eat unripe pears (rocks, we called them) and stale crackers, it was jail i tell you!!

But one day we actually had oranges, and one girl named Angela (yes, i remember her name... how sad... do i need therapy??)
managed to swoller' a seed, or attempted to, which sent her careening towards the trashcan on wheels, which she came about 5 feet short of. The rose-smelling puke soaker uper was brought out, and before my eyes, the puke was crumblized and swept away.
I didn't believe it actually worked though, so I avoided that spot for weeks afterward... i was such an odd child.

school lunch --> puke
 

I have a puke story, too!

When I was in Kindergarten, we would all sit on a big oriental rug to listen to the teacher tell stories and whatnot. There was an oval shape in the center of the rug, that was the most coveted seat of all, just because it was the center I guess. Until the night of the school play (I played half of a barn and sang "squeek squeek squeek squeeksqueeksqueeksqueeksqueeksqueek" which is harder than it looks). A little boy named Kyle (hehe.. I remembered, too) got some stage fright and threw up right in the sacred, coveted center oval. Of course, they cleaned it, but to all of us it was tainted forever. No one wanted to sit there.. I think occasionally the boys would jostle each other into it to be mean though. Other than that the school play went great, except I haven't quite gotten over not being cast as a cow.

How about the questionable cafeteria hot dogs that were sorta olive-ish in color. Or Beef-a-roni.


:)