How was school lunch? - Pre- and post-Michelle Obama stories, plus square pizza.

[Mega Man II Intro - GB]

I've seen it all. From the fake-tasting hamburgers, metallic-tasting spaghetti, and mysterious white vegetables of elementary school to dozens of boxes of pizza delivered to the high school every day. Lord it was unhealthy but it was the highlight of a sad day.

Even as a kid I thought Lunchables were the worst thing. Mom didn't understand about money so I had to learn quick. I could see that they weren't a good value. I understood that they wouldn't taste good. And yet I didn't know what healthy food was supposed to be. I just knew it wasn't like what I was eating.

Share your stories. Share your pain. Sip slowly.

 

[Skitarii]

Yeah okay, nice try groomer, go find a different middle school to stalk

 

[Just A Butt]

 

[Amphotericin B]

Nice try doxxxers, but I skimmed a Vox article about how the Nazi hacker chuds at Kiwifarms have a database of every district on Earth’s school lunch menu going back 40 years.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

The garbage used to be edible. Then it was inedible. The school had to start forcing kids to buy lunch then throw it out because no one was buying it.

 

[Quantum Diabetes]

We had this thing called a dough boy burger where they cooked a patty inside a nicely browned bread shell, 10/10 would take extra metformin

 

[Retink]

From what I remember it was rather generic but alright. You usually had a choice of a few different things and portions had a pretty good size, you could then buy additional stuff if you wanted. I don't think the food was particularly healthy but it wasn't unhealthy either, though maybe my memory isn't the best and I remember really liking the days where we had tomato soup with grilled cheese and other stuff, the two paired well. To this day I'll make some soup and grilled cheeses on occasion.

 

[trailcamwhore]

I'm old, so when I went to school the food was pretty good and very cheap, but we didn't think so at the time. It was great by institutional-menu standards, but not as good as everyday stuff.

There was a rule against getting extra pizza (very long and skinny triangles), cheeseburgers (steamy foil-wrapped ones), or grilled cheese + tomato soup, because they'd run out if they let the front of the line buy as many as they wanted. Brown-baggers with allergies and religious strictures would go through the line and resell the good shit.

You understand.

 

[MerriedxReldnahc]

I almost always brought lunch because the slop they were serving looked like a science experiment. I ended up with a very strong personal dislike of the cafeteria in general, our school had a thing where third graders would help out in the cafeteria, three kids would get picked to work over the course of a week or so. It left you with barely any time to eat so I didn't get to eat my own packed lunch, the lunchlady was kind of a bitch, and I never even got the free cookie that they promised us for the week of work. But I learned from that how all the food for every school in the district is made in one kitchen (the local prison, maybe) and sent out to each school, it wasn't re-heated at all which explains why it was always lukewarm at best. The cookies were actually sent to us rock-hard and practically frozen, they were sold and eaten nearly frozen. Unrelated but I watched a kid eat one topped with ranch dressing. He was a brave man.

But there were a lot of packing issues with the food sent to us. They used to do a meal with lukewarm spaghetti and a sauce-brick, on the side there was a slice of tepid white bread with a slice of watermelon served directly on top so that the watermelon juice would soak into the bread. The burgers looked horrifying because the buns would get wrinkly with moisture, like a creased brain-bun. It took until my last year at that school for the health inspector to come down hard on us and the district kitchen and all the packing and heating practices changed.

The one shining jewel in the pile of poop was the "Pizza Boat", it was a prepackaged hollowed out out bread bowl loaded with sauce and cheese. Actually heated/ microwaved on site, so it was hot and delicious. If you got really lucky, some foolish soul would give theirs up at the communal "share table" that was usually a purgatory of abandoned tuna salad sandwiches. If someone also left chocolate milk then you knew the Gods were pleased with you.

 

[Soycast Guy]

The food was either completely soggy, or hard and frozen. If the cheeseburgers or chicken patties were wrapped in foil they were soggy, if they weren’t they were hard. The fries were either rocks or soaked. The hotdogs were actually pretty alright though. If you dare ate the fries without ketchup they were nasty, the burgers in general were gross. The milk was thin and would give you gas, and that’s coming from someone who isn’t lactose intolerant. It got so bad at one point that I woke up the next morning, still with gas.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Pre-Michelle: I have never even touched a salisbury steak thanks to the turd on a tray my school served. You could make the best one in the world and I'd refuse to even look at it. Also refused to eat pizza bread for years due to associating it with school lunch.

Post-Michelle: Still shit but not as memorable as something that looked like actual shit.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I usually brought my own lunch because the shit the cafeteria served always looked questionable at best, worse than prison food at worst. That square pizza was always a go-to however because all pizza is good pizza.

Middle school I usually just brought the standard ham and cheese sandwich, small bag of chips, an apple or orange and a can of soda. High school I either didn’t bother eating lunch or I’d drive to Taco Bell or Burger King and get something

 

[Pignat]

I lived in a really shitty school district so we didn't have a lunch program. On the rare occasion there was a lunch we had to pay for it, (it was basically a PTA fundraiser), and all we got was a two boiled hot dogs and a chocolate milk.
A few years after I graduated they started a weekly volunteer hot lunch program. It was underfunded but with careful planning could produce a good meal once a week for students. They were strapped for volunteers and my employer was very community oriented, so they gave me paid time off to "volunteer".
Kids are both the easiest to please and the harshest of critics. Simple foods like spaghetti, sheppard's pie, and lasagna were all lauded by the children as the greatest food ever. Costco fries and barbequed hotdogs or burgers were the bare minimum of acceptance. If they got any soup without a solid side dish like a grilled cheese they would have crucified me if not for the laws of this land. One time in October I had so many complaints from parents for making squash soup I question my decision making skills to this day. Unfortunately my employer realized how much company time I was wasting by being a "volunteer" that they hired people to do what I was doing and returned me to wagie status.

 

[JethroTullamore]

Buffalo chicken sandwich day was the best, that’s all I remember.

Two of those with a bunch of ranch dressing and a lime tea cooler…..
They used to have a big tub with a pump where you could get as much ranch as you want, than one day they decided to ration it out in these much too small portions, and that lead to the Great Ranch Revolt of 2005……that’s a whole other story though.

 

[Manul Otocolobus]

Pizza was the only consistently edible thing.

 

[Phimosis Jonisis]

Man my favorite lunch was in middle school where they would give is mozzarella sticks and fries. And I would scoop up a huge pile of salsa and use it as a dip for both

Pizza was the only consistently edible thing.

Pizza was actually the most un-edible lunch time item in my entire school life