Thread Number: 55196
Scool Cafeteria Food.. |
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Post# 775905 , Reply# 1   8/6/2014 at 20:28 (3,521 days old) by toploader55 (Massachusetts Sand Bar, Cape Cod)   |   | |
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Ditto everything you said.
Fresh baked rolls, then in the early 70's caterers took over with premade food made in a town 70 miles away and shipped in hotboxes. Quality went down, cost got cut, and ended up bringing what I call scraps ( leftovers } to school. But My family made tuna, cut celery, chicken all on a wood cutting board without Clorox wipes and all that other sanitizing crap, and none of us ever got sick. Feh !!!!!!! |
Post# 775909 , Reply# 2   8/6/2014 at 20:41 (3,521 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E)   |   | |
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....The second-best vegetable-beef soup I've ever had in my life (the best was my grandmother's).
We got really delicious made-from-scratch mac 'n cheese, which I never, ever got at home, because Mom didn't care for it. Everyone in the family turned into a mac 'n cheese fiend when they left home. There was peach cobbler that was so good you hated to take the last bite, because then it was gone. There was very good cornbread - not as good as I've ever had, but certainly better than most. And it was always served on days we had the soup I've mentioned. There were some things they were bad at. The turnip greens were always canned ones, and pretty ghastly. Chocolate pudding always sounded good on the menu, but always had bits of "skin" from where it had been refrigerated after cooking; the lunch ladies just broke up the skin and stirred it back into the pudding. And that damned canned cream corn was served about sixteen times a month, it seemed like. But when it was good, it was good. |
Post# 775911 , Reply# 3   8/6/2014 at 20:45 (3,521 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E)   |   | |
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Post# 775919 , Reply# 4   8/6/2014 at 21:32 (3,521 days old) by wayupnorth (On a lake between Bangor and Bar Harbor, Maine)   |   | |
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My High School had both a set hot lunch line and a "cold" lunch line. Back in the early 70's, I could get 3 huge rolls, 3 Italian Sandwiches on hamburger rolls, bowl of soup and orange juice for 95 cents in the cold line. Was 45 cents for hot which had milk that I cant drink. No way I could eat that much now.
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Post# 775925 , Reply# 5   8/6/2014 at 22:09 (3,521 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E)   |   | |
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....We had the same thing - a hot lunch in the cafeteria, and cold sandwiches in the "snack bar," which also served to sell school supplies.
Hot lunch was 45 cents (up from a quarter in grade school), and you could upsize it by asking for a "jumbo" and paying an additional quarter, boosting your total to - gasp! - 70 cents. Jumbos were a damn popular option on days when fried chicken was served, trust me. And spaghetti - they made excellent American-style spaghetti, as well. Other days, not so much. |
Post# 775928 , Reply# 7   8/6/2014 at 22:45 (3,521 days old) by ultramatic (New York City)   |   | |
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Post# 775929 , Reply# 8   8/6/2014 at 22:53 (3,521 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c )   |   | |
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The food at her school, Oak Hill School" which was a county school that was 1st thru 12th grade.."She graduated in 1947"..was the WORST food ever!, She said the vegetable soup looked like dirty dishwater with a piece or 2 of okra in it!!LOL |
Post# 775953 , Reply# 10   8/7/2014 at 05:38 (3,520 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))   |   | |
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You know that smell, when you walk into an apartment building and smell everybody's cooking and you say "what in the world are they cooking?" (I live in just such a building.) School cafeteria: That, plus crap. (Fat Bawstard, Austin Powers.)
When I didn't bring a PB sand or go out for a cheeseburger, that's my memory of school food. They did have good rolls if you caught them just right out of the oven and not burned. That and a small bowl of corn was pritmuch all I ate from the school cafeteria. Wait, tomato-burger-macaroni was edible. The local AM rocker had a 'school menu' segment where they made fun of the published menu. One feature was "schoolburgers" which they described as made from chair stuffing. Might have been a pseudo sloppy joe, I dunno. The smell from that wing of the building pritmuch put me off eating altogether. |
Post# 775964 , Reply# 13   8/7/2014 at 07:10 (3,520 days old) by kenwashesmonday (Carlstadt, NJ)   |   | |
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I remember the "pizza" we had in elementary school:
1 Slice of white bread 1 Spoon of tomato sauce 1 Slice of American cheese A little oregano on top Bake
Later, in middle school, we got "real" frozen pizza on pizza day.
Ken D. |
Post# 775983 , Reply# 14   8/7/2014 at 09:13 (3,520 days old) by polkanut (Wausau, WI )   |   | |
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I went to a Lutheran parochial school that had 3 of the best school cooks ever! Yes they would make traditional Lutheran foods like casseroles and Jell-O, but they also made loaves and loaves of homemade french bread. The smell of that bread baking in the morning would permeate the whole building, and everyone would be craving it by lunch time. It was usually served with WI style chili-mac, homemade chicken dumpling soup, or spaghetti w/ made from scratch meat sauce. I worked in the cafeteria in 8th grade to help defray some of the cost of hot lunch, and we got extra portions. What a bonus! Hats off to Valeria McDonald, Marianne Henkelman, and Doris Weinke. |
Post# 775998 , Reply# 15   8/7/2014 at 10:44 (3,520 days old) by mrb627 (Buford, GA)   |   | |
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Our school lunches were pretty damn good, as I recall. I still search for recipes to duplicate some of the things we enjoyed.
Our pizza was fresh made dough (deep dish style), meat sauce (made in house), and cheese. It was quite good for the .50 being charged. And finally, the big cookies that came out of the cafeteria were some of the best. We used to get a single butter cookie that was about 7" in diameter. Sooo good! Malcolm |
Post# 776017 , Reply# 18   8/7/2014 at 12:11 (3,520 days old) by xraytech (Rural southwest Pennsylvania )   |   | |
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There were very few things that were good from the school cafeteria, and they were from elementary school.
The first one being pizza burgers, which was fried ground meat mixed with pizza sauce, cheese, and herbs to make a spread, put on hamburger bun halves and broiled with mozzarella cheese on top. The only better pizza burgers are the ones my aunt makes. The other thing I loved was the Jell-O poke cake with cool whip as frosting |
Post# 776061 , Reply# 20   8/7/2014 at 15:29 (3,520 days old) by xraytech (Rural southwest Pennsylvania )   |   | |
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Post# 776086 , Reply# 21   8/7/2014 at 17:49 (3,520 days old) by norgeway (mocksville n c )   |   | |
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It varied from region to region...when I left Lower Creek for middle school in the 7th grade, the food was badddd..everything was floating in grease!!certainly not up to Lower Creek Standards!! |
Post# 776120 , Reply# 22   8/7/2014 at 19:59 (3,520 days old) by Frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie)   |   | |
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The lunch program at the school I attended (grades K-12 in one huge complex) was excellent. Nearly every lunch was like a home-cooked meal. I graduated in 1977. Today, many school lunch programs consist of fast food: Chicken nuggets, pizza, burgers, hot dogs, commodity items. It's sad, but schools just don't have the money to fund lunch programs with a full staff of cooks.
This post was last edited 08/07/2014 at 20:42 |
Post# 776132 , Reply# 23   8/7/2014 at 21:18 (3,520 days old) by danemodsandy (The Bramford, Apt. 7-E)   |   | |
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We pulled one of those in my high school in, I think it was, my junior year. My school had been drastically expanded and remodeled, and we'd been given a new cafeteria. The only problem was, the quality of the food went wayyyyyy downhill; portions became tiny and a misguided effort to be "trendy" resulted in alleged pizza with a crust made of bread-roll dough, a ketchup-y sauce entirely innocent of herbs or - God forbid - garlic, and rat-trap gummint surplus cheese. There was also a so-called "hamburger" that had so much textured vegetable protein in it that no food manufacturer would have been permitted to call it meat. What meat there was in it inspired jokes: "Somebody musta gotten a bargain on gristle."
Back in 2012, I wrote about the strike in the thread linked below: "I also participated in a lunchroom strike in high school. Every morning in homeroom, they read the day's menu to us, and took a count of those who intended to buy the school lunch. Well, lunches had been so bad for so long that we struck. We ran the lunch count up during the homeroom check, and then No. Damn. Body. bought lunch. Before it was over, the dietician was on the intercom blubbering about how "this is no way to behave," and the air was thick with threatened investigations of who was behind it all. Nothing came of those. Lunches improved, dramatically and immediately. That waste charge had to be answered for up and down the line." CLICK HERE TO GO TO danemodsandy's LINK |
Post# 912127 , Reply# 24   12/22/2016 at 09:13 (2,652 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI)   |   | |
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For a while my daughter got her lunches in school provided by her school cafeteria, just for the stuff to be found to be very turn off:
So it's the same Nutella (or another brand of Chocolate/Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread) and either Apple Jelly (which the over-use forced us to run out of & am reluctant to replace--we've got tons of jams, jellies & preserves in EVERY FLAVOR!) or Strawberry (that I was willing to buy another jar of & it goes better with) but still can't understand why Peanut Butter still has to be out-lawed... (Yeh, I know--Allergies!--but why STILL?! Can there still be no better effort to make it better for you?)
And she won't even eat my favorite--that's every morning, before school, easier to make: Bologna and/or Cheese...!
-- Dave |
Post# 912262 , Reply# 27   12/23/2016 at 06:16 (2,651 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan)   |   | |
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Chanukah Dave!, and happy holidays if you celebrate both. I bet you're very busy this week. Enjoy your time off with your families once the store closes Christmas eve. I know it is short. I used to usually have to be back to work early the day after. |
Post# 912345 , Reply# 28   12/23/2016 at 17:59 (2,651 days old) by Brib68 (Central Connecticut)   |   | |
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At the number of people on this thread with positive memories of school lunches! Our program in the small Ohio town where I grew up (70s grade school, 80s jr high/high school) was pretty awful for the most part. Starting with, elementary schools got left overs from the previous day's menu at the Jr High and High School. There was a Hot Pack and a Cold Pack to the meal (a foil pan covered with foil and a crystal-polystyrene tray covers with plastic wrap. The cold pack held the spork and near-useless napkin and featured a dessert or jello salad. Very often the dessert was a square slab of red gelatin with a thin layer of white foam. The apple Brown Betty was very good. "School pizza" was the most revolting slab of I don't know what that anyone ever set eyes or taste buds on. Late in my grade school years they introduced Tony's pizza (the cheap supermarket frozen stuff) and we were out of our minds with how "good" it was! (Come to think of it, I guess Tony's and Totino's were probably the best around back then I don't remember even seeing Tombstone or Red Baron until the 80s)
Most days I carried my lunch from home in my Charlie Brown (later Six Million Dollar Man) lunch box. Hm, wait...I think at some point I had a Wee Pals lunch box. I think that was the name...uber-diverse group of little kids teaching valuable lessons. |
Post# 912547 , Reply# 30   12/25/2016 at 11:12 (2,649 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI)   |   | |
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Well, knock Bar S if you must, but it doesn't say Pork HEARTS like Oscar Mayer does--and I always feel guilty having anything that brand in our house (my sister will go as far as to buy only Kosher Bologna and Kosher Hot Dogs that are NOT Hebrew National, while as for the latter I do, too...) --And too much, really, to elaborate on now... 'Cept Bar S has those annoying BANDS around each piece, and an ODD NUMBER of meat in each pkg. but I buy two or more anyway--just to have regular, regular-thick, beef, each in the 1 LB and the 1/2 pound of regular, just to make a good variety & I feel sorry for stuff that doesn't sell...
(My sister's old school-crush that I worked with at Arbor Drugs gave slow selling stuff the "Nobody ever buys this stuff" comment & you saw where some of his pay from working there went...)
So happy holidays to you all--and now my wife & I are the Mom & Dad who can hardly wait for school to start again!!!! (LOL!)
-- Dave This post was last edited 12/25/2016 at 14:30 |
Post# 912603 , Reply# 31   12/25/2016 at 22:47 (2,649 days old) by petek (Ontari ari ari O )   |   | |
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Post# 912612 , Reply# 32   12/26/2016 at 00:21 (2,649 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI)   |   | |
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I don't know--might be because that there are only seven, as opposed to the proper eight--that is why I don't often buy them unless I put 'em in crescent rolls...
Really, the reason is she will go to the kosher store for the bologna, so it's a matter of convenience to buy the Aaron's brand of both the hot dogs and bologna, that store carries; that's what I once did for the former...
Though my brother-in-law drank up my Pimm's drink I made to go with the special dinner I made that one day....
-- Dave This post was last edited 12/26/2016 at 01:53 |
Post# 913072 , Reply# 33   12/29/2016 at 22:45 (2,645 days old) by DaveAMKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI)   |   | |
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Well,while we're on the subject of bologna (or baloney) and bologna sandwiches, what about another brand I've rediscovered, that I didn't know or just plain forgot even still existed & that's Eckrich! My latest (though hard to get the open packages, as opposed to the other products, to pose!) sandwich creation:
(And let's not forget those neat commercials w/ those Keebler-like characters, Georghe & Ralph w/ their mother ending w/ the line: "Behave, Ralph!" or "Ralph, Behave!"... The jingle was "Eckrich brings good meats from the heartland, and the secret ingredient is Mom...", as well as 'When you want to eat good, Come to Our House..."...
-- Dave |
Post# 913112 , Reply# 34   12/30/2016 at 08:22 (2,644 days old) by vacerator (Macomb, Michigan)   |   | |
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some Ekrich hot dogs last week. It was on sale. Bar S the week before. Son eats them, so good enough. Where I was born, they call balogna Jumbo. They had chipped ham too. I think Lawson's stores used to call it that up here. They were like a 7-11 but with a deli. |
Post# 913147 , Reply# 35   12/30/2016 at 12:04 (2,644 days old) by petek (Ontari ari ari O )   |   | |
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I didn't eat much in our h.s. cafeteria as we lived close enough to walk home for lunch if not that then there was always McDonalds close by or more often the White Knight restaurant in a nearby plaza we'd go and order some fries, coffee and sit around and smoke. What I do remember about the cafeteria was that the vast majority of kids would dump their bagged lunches into the garbage and order fries and gravy and corn or something like that. The food waste was enormous. Only a couple or three years back my old highschool held its 50th anniversary so I had to go and see what had changed.. It looked much the same but now only has about 500 students compared to around 1600 when I attended in 69 - 73. The shops are mostly gone and empty as is the library having few books, more puters, the rifle range gone, and all the vending machines only dispense "healthy" choices, no chips, candy etc.. bummer.
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Post# 913151 , Reply# 36   12/30/2016 at 12:36 (2,644 days old) by Iheartmaytag (Wichita, Kansas)   |   | |
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I can honestly say that most of the food was pretty good.
In my day, the food was actually prepared in the school kitchen by the lunch ladies. It was served hot in the divided trays and was of good quality most of the time. Of course, there was the occasional meal that you didn't like, I never did take a liking to their Chli-Mac. The mashed potatoes were made from real potatoes not instant, and almost always had a fresh hot roll, biscuit, or cookie every day.
Now, the lunches my daughter receives in middle school are prepared in a central kitchen, served either cold, or having been kept at temp or rewarmed are soggy, mushy, or dried out. Her favorite lunch day is Thursday, that's when they can order a slice of Pizza Hut pizza that is delivered hot.
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Post# 913159 , Reply# 37   12/30/2016 at 14:02 (2,644 days old) by kenwashesmonday (Carlstadt, NJ)   |   | |
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In high school, we had a hot lunch line and a cold lunch line. I liked it when they had Chicken Chow Mein. Because it wasn't popular, the hot lunch line was short, and the lunch ladies really piled it on! |
Post# 913169 , Reply# 38   12/30/2016 at 15:22 (2,644 days old) by twintubdexter (Palm Springs)   |   | |
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When I was in grade school, cafeteria lunches cost 35 cents. The most hated thing they served was canned spinach. You could smell it cooking early in the morning. The kids organized a sort of "spinach boycott" paying for their lunches in pennies. This really slowed things down and caused some definite problems, but we inmates had little power and the guards remained in control of the prison. The spinach continued.
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