What was your favorite school lunch?

Grilled cheese and tomato soup

The horror. The horror.

Meatloaf and mashed potatoes with gravy, hot roll with honey butter on the side.

In high school we had salad/baked potato bar and a grill that served burgers, fires, and shakes,

^Fries

We lived fairly close to the school (s) and I never had a school meal in the 14 years I attended.

Gummy rice they served with an ice cream scoop. If they had extra they would sell it towards the end of lunch period for 10 cents a scoop. Delish!

I loved the sloppy joes and the special sauce they served on the hamburgers. I hated the English peas and in first grade our teacher would patrol the tables to make sure we all ate our vegetables. We outsmarted her by cramming them into our milk boxes.

The little pizzas with what looked like rabbit droppings on them. They had a "Mexican" version too that was always so tasty.

School lunch pizza "Square" - thick, crusty and ooey gooey cheese.

Spaghetti and meat sauce. The school cafeterias were staffed by old Italian ladies from the neighborhood (most of them classmates' nonnas) and they made the most of their budgets.

I usually brought lunch from home and occasionally walked home for lunch. When I bought lunch (40 cents!), it wasn't cafeteria-style-choose-what-you-like, you got a cold pack and a hot foil pack. Typical kid, I liked taco, hamburger, pizza and spaghetti day (we used to make a sandwich with spaghetti inserted between the sliced "french" bread that came with it, weird). The cold pack had a little fruit cup or a blurb of salad or stuff to top your hamburger/taco and sometimes a dessert item like pudding in one of those pleated paper side cups or a cookie. A carton of milk was 7 cents if you bought it to go with your lunchbox food. I don't remember the bad school lunches because I never bought on those days.

Yes, the square/rectangular pizza!

And cheese enchiladas with meat sauce (grew up in Austin, TX)

I have tried to replicate the fresh rolls to no avail.

Sloppy Joes!!!

I liked pigs in a blanket and lasagna.

Does anyone remember lil smokies? It was usually paired with mac n cheese. That was the winner for me in elementary school.

Toss up between pork roll sandwiches and chicken turnovers.

R15 mmm Lil' Smokies! yum

I was gonna say the Mexican Pizza thing that r8 mentioned, but I swear they had a name for it that I am forgetting. I think they were hexagonal shaped like a stop sign? Picturing them now I am sure they tasted like cardboard but man I loved them at the time

Chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy.

[quote]I loved the sloppy joes

[quote]Sloppy Joes!!!

R7 and r13, were they this kind of Sloppy Joe?

Or this kind of Sloppy Joe?

My grammar school served every sandwich slathered with sweet butter, PB&J and butter, bologna and American and butter, ham and Swiss and butter ....loved it

They also had these “meatballs” that, as a kid, I LOVED. If I had one now I’m sure I’d vomit.

R9, we had that same pizza square and it came wrapped in plastic-wrap!

The only good thing I liked was the fruit cocktail, and for breakfast, they'd give out these french toast squares with syrup. Yum!

IN GRADE SCHOOL, a cafeteria worker made HOME MADE bread in the kitchen ovens and all of us kids would go back for 2nds and 3rds and 4th to eat this bread with the jars and jars of cafeteria peanut butter instead of going to the playground for recess...can still remember the smell of the bread baking!.....delicious it was and delicious memory..

Loved the square pizza, which alternated on Fridays with "grinders," which I also liked. Couldn't stomach the mashed potatoes, which came from a box of dehydrated flakes and had the oddest taste. We only ever had real mashed potatoes at home, so I found the instant variety an abomination.

Went to late-70's American public schools here.

The rectangle pizza thing always was the most popular. Anything comfort food won. Hamburger day or Sloppy Joe day, always served with tater tots (but never fries, if I remember right). Also Taco day was kind of a thrill. Everything was so soft and bland but really satisfying.

I remember they printed out the menu for the month or week (mainly so parents would know what their kids were eating) so you always knew.

I remember there was that weird thing for a while where they started serving breakfast before school started, optional. I feel like it had to do with some sort of national initiative on nutrition and learning, or maybe low-income students. I never ate it but it was weird of arriving at school in the morning half-awake and you'd smell breakfast and see a handful of students bussing their breakfast trays in the cafeteria. Always seemed surreal to me.

Does anyone remember the morning radio shows announcing what the local school lunch menu was serving?

Corn dog day! Yum

Did anyone else have the cafeteria lady who would make Sloppy Joes by scooping up the loose meat in a gloved hand and plopping it on the bun?

Either Sandy Hook or Parkland, although Columbine is an oldie but goodie.

[quote]Did anyone else have the cafeteria lady who would make Sloppy Joes by scooping up the loose meat in a gloved hand and plopping it on the bun?

At our school, we had a wonderful new invention called a "serving spoon."

R20 is a Sloppy Joe.

I don't know what R21 is but if they call it a Sloppy Joe somewhere it must be a regional thing. Sloppy Joes are mostly known to be flavored ground beef in sauce, in a bun.

I remember Chicken Croquettes. They were so good. I'm pretty sure they were just salt licks for children with a few pieces of something vaguely resembling chicken but I loved them!

R33, yeah, your idea of a Sloppy Joe is what I always thought they were, too. But in the Jewish delis of central / north New Jersey, apparently it's a deli-style sandwich held together by Russian dressing. I always called those a _____________ (fill in contents) sandwich, but in NJ, that's a Sloppy Joe.

I grew up in Atlanta and my school cafeteria served some sort of breaded mystery meat cutlet that I loved. No idea what it was...pork? beef? Who could tell? It was delicious when I was 8, though I’m sure it would be revolting now.

That's New Jersey for you, R35. The state where self-service gas stations are illegal.

i remember something called "bun burger" where the inside of a bun would be "carved out" and then the hamburger would be placed in the new "hole" and cook and then the bun would be "toasted"... tasty, but weird!..

then there would always be one "left over day" where a mishmash of hamburger, green beans, cheese all mixed together in a HUGE mound of mashed potatoes! it was disgusting to even look at, much less eat, and everyone would drink their milk and stuff this concoction in their empty milk carton and throw away...

I have never eaten lunch since I grew pubes. It's annoying. Then when I reached 25, I just stopped eating breakfast and lunch altogether.

My late mother, who was a schoolgirl in the 1950s, told me that her school lunch back then was 50 cents.

But, Hershey bars were only 5 cents at the Five and Dime on the way to school, so sometimes she’d just buy 10 Hershey bars for lunch.

And no, she was not fat.

In the 1970's in the UK they were under 25p (40-50c) by law, at least half of the children didn't have to pay anything.

[quote] which alternated on Fridays with "grinders,"

What part of New England are you from, R26? I remember the first time I ordered a grinder after moving to NYC and the guy behind the counter looked at me like I had ordered sex on a bun.

I fondly remember "spanish rice". It was not Spanish at all - just rice with tomatoes, ground beef, onion and peppers. I loved it.

I always loved the hot ham and cheese sandwiches on a hamburger bun. I always wondered where I could get a thick ham patty like the ones they had on those sandwiches, but don’t know where to this day.

The veal (patty) parm with mashed potatoes and peas, corn or green beans at various times.

Chicken Chow Mein with those crispy fried noodles out of a can.

The tuna heroes

The ice cream they used, sandwiches, bars, that wasn't available in any supermarket.

This was all from my JHS days. My elementary school was bring your own lunch always, so there it was the tuna sandwiches my dad would make and my HS was so horrible and dangerous that I feared walking around more than I had to and I ate at whatever place was nearby mostly pizza, falafel, Chock Full O'nuts or if I and some others were going to cut class a more leisurely lunch at a nearby cafeteria, a commercial, not a school one. There was amazing food there and so many fabulous desserts that you could get a sugar rush just looking at them. My class after lunch was gym so I sure as hell could not do that after eating at this cafeteria. I think for a lunch platter of some kind of protein, chicken, beef, lamb, whatever, a starch, potatoes, rice, or pasta and a vegetable, just about every kind in season, a great dessert and a drink, soda, tea, coffee hot chocolate or milk it was maybe $1.50 - $2.00. This was Brooklyn, NY in the late 60s to 1970. I graduated in 1970 so it had to be then or before then.

Chicken nuggets

R39 Guiliana? Is that you? You also haven't eaten dinner in years. Or breakfast or lunch.

Chicken fried steak, BBQ brisket sandwiches, frito pie, rectangular pizza, burgers, tater tots.

Fabulous Classic Goulash

[quote]What part of New England are you from, R26?

I grew up north of Boston, R42. I also ended up moving to NYC, but by that time, I knew better than to, say, refer to a carbonated soft drink as "tonic."

Same here R5, and I can’t remember one thing that my mother made for lunch in all those years.

R44, you went to Erasmus Hall, didn’t you?

R5 and R50 Going to school in the 1990s/2000s, I can't fathom being allowed to go home for lunch, even if you lived next door.

I’m 64 years old R52. Back in the day if you lived close by, you went home.

That Fabulous Classic Ghoulash.

My Mom packed my lunch every day through high school. My favorite lunch was a stuffed pepper sandwich with cheese or an eggplant parmigiana sandwich with Swiss cheese. She always wrapped them with waxed paper. I would have a soda (most often Pepsi). I still pack my lunch for work, and if I make a sandwich I'll wrap it in waxed paper.

From the time I was in fifth grade on, my Mom taught high school and before she left for work, she'd make sure breakfast was ready for my Dad, brothers, and me. And she'd pack lunches for my brothers and me. I never thanked her often enough. Fuck, I was a lucky kid and man. I miss her so much.

Not many people know this but if you're rich (like me) you can eat school lunch food everyday as a grown up. I do (I am rich) and it is delicious. If I had to choose just one school lunch I like best, I couldn't, and fortunately I don't have to because I'm rich. Everyone says so.

Meatball parmigiana hero, though as others have said, if I had it today it’d probably be nasty.

R35, the sandwich you’re describing is a Reuben.

Corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on rye.

I went to public elementary school in Michigan in the 1960s. While I eschewed most cafeteria fare, I always bought the hot lunch on Fridays. That was the day they served Pope-friendly fish sticks, which I happened to like, along with tasty tater tots, and innocuous canned corn. However, the REALLY heavenly item was dessert: warm, yeasty, homemade cinnamon rolls! Even today, I crave them! BTW, the whole shebang, plus a mini carton of milk ,cost 25 a quarter. Yup. The olden days.

Those sandwiches have cole slaw, r58, not sauerkraut, so they're not Reubens. Also, a Reuben is grilled. Scroll down in this menu from Eppes Essen.

As published in the Kansas City Star for the weekly menu, Yum Yum on Bun

Mock pizza, bien sûr. Ground beef in pizza sauce on a toasted English muffin half with cheese melted on top.

We had a salad bar and I made the same salad Monday-Thursday all throughout high school — romaine, spinach, grilled chicken, red bell pepper, hard-boiled egg slices, red onion, cherry tomatoes, croutons, and creamy Italian dressing*.

The salad bar was closed on Fridays because that was the day they’d replace the everyday pizza with pizza delivered from a local restaurant, and that’s all anyone ate.

*Waiting for the Italian-food police to descend en masse and shriek about the American abomination that is creamy Italian.

R61's creation would give me the trots.

[quote]I’m 64 years old R52. Back in the day if you lived close by, you went home.

I went to a small grammar school that had no cafeteria. In the first and second grades, we would go home for lunch, which I always enjoyed. My mother would already have something good waiting on the table. But in the third and fourth grades, we had to bring our lunch to school. The middle school I went to had a cafeteria, so hot lunches became an option for me for the first time. Bringing lunch from home was still an option, but the kids who did were called the "cold lunch people" and forced to sit at segregated tables in the cafeteria. It felt a little déclassé, so I usually chose the hot lunch, a decision one could make on a week-by-week basis.

There were two. The one I liked best was called spoonbread I think. It was essentially one of the rectangular pizza slices shown above but it had a soft baked crust topping as well. The second one was chili because it was always served with a huge, "homemade," cinnamon roll as well. Even the teachers and staff were happy on chili/cinnamon roll day.

Turkey Twizzlers from Bernard Matthews washed down with Green(!) Cola, followed by chocolate custard and chocolate cake.

Yes, I'm a fat bitch.

Yes R51! Are you from the neighborhood? If so than you know the cafeteria was Garfield's and to this day I miss it. I lived a bus ride away, in what's now Kensington but back then was just called Flatbush. I went from a lovely little JHS, Ditmas JHS, to Erasmus and was shocked by how old, broken down, horrid and dangerous Erasmus was. The first week I was there 7 girls were raped (and being male and only 14 I was stupid and naive enough to think that couldn't happen to a boy but I did fear being beaten up) in this long deserted corridor somewhere in that medieval looking place. I thought it would be cool to go there and found out how it wasn't my first day. I don't even know where the cafeteria is in that school. I miss everything that was around that neighborhood back in those days but I don't miss Erasmus, not for one second since the day I graduated. I only knew two other people from Ditmas JHS who went there. Everyone else I was friends with either went to a private school or were able to pretend to be from another neighborhood so they went to Midwood or someplace better than Erasmus.

Oops, R51 = R44. Sorry about that.

R60, thirty three bucks for a fucking sandwich at a deli? That’s criminal.

Not on my watch, r67!!!

We were lucky enough to have a salad bar by the time I was a senior. And my favorite thing to make was a taco salad.

Shure, it gave me gas, but I always let off silent ones, so that someone else could easily get the blame.

I know, r70. Even splitting one at $16.50. Oy.

Fish sticks and corn

I knew it R68. I graduated from Erasmus in 72. I hated every single second that I had to spend there. The stairwells were just as dangerous as that corridor. I went to Ditmas too, and PS 179.. I lived on East 5th between Cortelyou and Avenue C.

I usually brought my lunch in elementary school but bought on Wednesdays because it was pizza day. Square slices made in huge baking trays. We were such an underfunded working class school district that the meat pizza option used sliced hotdog circles in place of pepperoni

Ocean Parkway between Ditmas and Cortelyou. Wow, we were neighbors. Wasn't Ditmas a great school. I loved it! Erasmus was hell on earth. You are so right about the stairwells. I would literally tremble between classes until I was safely in my next class. I actually thought of dropping out. My family didn't know anyone in another neighborhood so that I could use that address. It was so dark and depressing, besides dirty and dangerous. I was 2 years ahead of you but there might have been one year when our paths could have crossed. It is so cool that you recognized the school I was talking about by the places I mentioned. Lunch out of there and leaving the school at the end of the day were the only moments of peace I know from those god awful years.

Ditmas was a beautiful school. Some things are best left in the past. Erasmus being one of them.

Nice to connect with you R77. Stay well.

In elementary school it was the bread bun with cheese baked inside it.

In junior high it was my P.E. teacher.

In high school it was my history teacher.

You too R78 and you're so right.

R62 our mock pizza was on a hamburger bun, not an English muffin, but yeah, that was definitely a day to buy lunch instead of bring.

Also, whatever was on the tray the day they had the graham cracker pudding - vanilla pudding with blitzed graham cracker topping.

Other than that, mom usually packed me a baggie of celery and carrot sticks, apple slices, and a bologna or Buddig dried beef sandwich with mustard.

I graduated in 1984 and remember that lunch cost $1.00. Out of curiosity I looked up the menu on the school’s website and today it is $3.50. Not bad. However it is contracted out to one of those corporate institutional catering company. And the kids have so many choices. The featured entree or a choice of a deli sandwich, hamburger, bagel with cream cheese, pizza, hummus and chips, salad bar. No wonder so many of those little fuckers are so fat.

When I started buying hot lunches in the fifth grade, they cost 25 cents. You'd have to pay by the week, though: $1.25, for which you got a punch card. No money changed hands in the cafeteria.

In elementary school, buying lunch was the set tray only, and we used the tickets our parents bought - no cash. Not until you got to junior high and high school did you have the option of buying a la carte with cash. We had the best freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, still warm, about 5 inches diameter. The pizza was still the rectangles, but you could have it every day if you chose. This was the 80s, and despite not having great eating habits, only a few kids could be called "fat" and none would I call "obese."

Creamed chicken sandwiches. OMG, so, so good, but so fattening.

Rectangular pizza.

And the years I went to high school in Sweden, every Thursday was pea soup and blood pudding.

[quote]And the years I went to high school in Sweden, every Thursday was pea soup and blood pudding.

Suddenly those mashed potatoes from a box aren't sounding so bad.

"Grilled pizza sandwich" -- white bread sandwich with pepperoni, cheap white cheese, and tomato sauce, baked to a crisp

Lenten Friday meals of macaroni and cheese, peanut butter half sandwich, green beans, fruit, and three little sugar wafers (one each of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry)

Chili

Spaghetti

Turkey Manhattan, green beans, fruit, and a gooey pumpkin cake square with Cool Whip, served the day before Thanksgiving break

When I was teaching, I almost always packed, but everyone bought on walking taco day. This is (for the uninitiated, a single-serve bag of Doritos or Fritos, opened and topped with taco meat, cheese, salsa, lettuce, and sour cream. Refried beans on the side.

[quote] When I started buying hot lunches in the fifth grade, they cost 25 cents. You'd have to pay by the week, though: $1.25, for which you got a punch card. No money changed hands in the cafeteria.

Same.

And the reduced or free lunch kids also got cards. Although I think they were a different color. But no money changed hands for most of the students.

The senior high had an option to buy some extra things (chocolate milk) or a second serving in cash, but you still paid the basic lunch with a card.

Crispy fishsticks.

Which I've never eaten again.

Lunch? School?

I always loved pizza day.

And they did these things called "Pizza-like sandwiches".... open-face toasted bun with American cheese topped with pizza sauce and broiled. Very odd, but very tasty.

dessert was either vanilla pudding, sliced apple pie or jello like orange jello with diced carrots or strawberry jello with sliced bananas...

milk in a carton always smelled "funny" and chocolate milk cost more and was thus rarely had....

we had these small red plastic chips we had to turn in for our carton of milk, all of us kids would chew on them so they would be all torn up, later we would get new chips,which of course were the same old chips for the next time we wanted milk...

My favorites were hamburgers and potato chips and also corn fritters and bacon.

At one point during lunch, the school nurse would ring a bell and we had a moment of silence for the war dead. They never said which war. The rogues among us would keep an eye out for her, and when she approached the desk where the bell was, we would stuff food and utensils into our mouths to make a grotesque picture during the silence.

I also liked turkey à la king on biscuits. The amount of flour in the “gravy” almost made it wiggle

[QUOTE] [R5] and [R50] Going to school in the 1990s/2000s, I can't fathom being allowed to go home for lunch, even if you lived next door.

Probably because it wasn't uncommon for kids who went home for lunch not to return to school in the afternoon. Lunch breaks were much longer also, I seem to remember them lasting around an hour and a half to two hours.

r5, what year were you in school and how long was your school day? In middle school we had 20 minutes to eat lunch in the cafeteria and 20 minutes for recess, which meant go outside, to the library or gym to shoot baskets. By high school lunch was down to 20 minutes and then on to the next class. In elementary school I am not sure how long we had but I hated recess in the winter. I used to purposely not finish my work so I could stay in the classroom after eating lunch to finish my work and not have to go outside. The teacher finally caught on to me, and let me stay and help her correct papers on very cold days.

R96 I went to school in the 1970's/80's in the UK.

The day started at 9am, lunch was 12pm - 1:30-2:00pm and we finished at 3:30pm. We also had a 20 minute break every morning and afternoon.

Added complication at secondary (Grammar/High) school ( age11-16) was that it was on two sites and took 15 minutes to get between some of the classes. It did mean that if you got bored it was really easy to just disappear and go home. Classes later in the day were not well attended.

I went to school in the hood

Cold bologna on white bread

Fish sticks and tots.

Chocolate milk.

I miss the food fights.

[quote]R27 I remember there was that weird thing for a while where they started serving breakfast before school started, optional. I feel like it had to do with some sort of national initiative on nutrition and learning, or maybe low-income students.

I was hearing on the radio that schools’ average test scores go up where they serve breakfast. Students can’t concentrate when they’re hungry - and really sadly, for some, cafeteria food is the only real meal some kids get all day : (

r99, my mom was an elementary school teacher in the 70s and 80s. She instituted snack time in her classroom because so many kids started losing their shit before lunch time and as a mother of 5 she knew it was because they were hungry. She also kept cereal and milk in the nurses office for kids she knew didn't get breakfast at home. Her district finally implemented state-subsidized breakfast for qualifying kids in the late 70s, I think.

grade school in the 70's we had snack time before or after lunch depending on when the teachers who were the ones that brought us snacks wanted to give it to us, we also had "nap time" a time when we were told to put our heads down on the desk and take a short nap of maybe 15 to 30 minutes... and i'm talking from 1st grade to like 7th grade!...

didn't realize how good we had it back then!..

Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, Mutilated monkey meat. French fried flamingo feet. French fried eyeballs swimming in a pool of blood And me without my spoon!

Scab sandwiches with pus on top Donkey vomit and camel snot Eagle eyeballs drenched in blood And for dessert we had some mud!

I didn't eat the standard school lunch, at least during high school. I would go to the dessert/snack line and get this huge molasses cookie every day and chase it with a Coke. Or, I would just eat snacks stored in my locker that were brought from home (popcorn, chips, whatever).

[quote] Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher guts, Mutilated monkey meat. French fried flamingo feet. French fried eyeballs swimming in a pool of blood And me without my spoon!

Wow. We sang it “...mutilated monkey meat, chopped up baby parakeet...”

r103 were you a fat kid? Are you fat now? No judgment, just curious if your bad teenage eating habits caused any damage.

Cube steak on a bun, Calico rice, carrot coins, Apple brown betty

Who are you rich fucks? So you were all eating hot lunches while I was choking down my bologna sandwich. Fuck you.

I loved the spaghetti with meat sauce! The cafeteria ladies would grab the pasta with their rubber gloved hands and use an ice cream scoop for the meat. The spaghetti was like thick, fat earth worms. My mother only cooked very thin spaghetti al dente, so to me this was a special treat. For dessert, the ice cream sandwiches were delicious, all washed down with a waxy carton of Shenandoah Pride whole milk.

R105 No, have always been lean.

I loved the classics: the rectangle pizza, spaghetti with meat sauce, grilled cheese with tomato soup, chicken nuggets, turkey with mashed potatoes and gravy (which in my school district was pretty good).

The burgers were awful. Gray, slimy discs, vaguely plastic flavored. Luckily we had two options for an entree, and the other option was rarely so bad that I had to get a burger.

Anyone else remember those tiny little round containers of vanilla ice cream with the flat wooden spoons?

We call them Hoodsie cups in New England, where I grew up, R111. (Made by Hood Dairy.) I no longer live there, but I heard they're not packaged with those little flat wooden spoons anymore, which just seems wrong, somehow.

Think I've tried to forget that I ever ate school lunches. The teachers had a difficult time getting me to eat my lunch I think they asked my mom to make a lunch for me. In high school I never ate lunch. Not once.

I'm also the poster who refuses to eat potlucks or in buffet restaurants. I'd rather go hungry.

In high school, my favorite lunch was a joint and a couple of Marlboro Reds, and a cup of coffee.

To R68. I went to James Madison HS in Brooklyn and had similar experiences. I never saw the cafeteria or even knew where it was. The place was so dangerous I was afraid I'd be killed just walking in the door. Me and my friends cut class often cause we were afraid for our lives. No wonder I'm so fucked up. I spent three years in abject terror Monday to Friday lol. The teachers and school staff couldn't give two shits about either.

r111/r112 We've had those in my area seemingly forever. All the corner candy stores used to sell them when I was a kid, and we called them 'dixies." Perhaps because they sold for a dime? The wooden spoon sometimes made your tongue feel weird, but no one actually minded.

I always see them in just about any supermarket frozen treats dept. that I shop at.

^^ Maybe they were called "dixies" because they resembled Dixie cups?

They were called Dixie Cups in New Jersey. I always assumed they were made by the company that made Dixie Cups.

My Mom packed my lunch every day so I rarely got to eat a school lunch. We had chocolate milk on Fridays, which I always enjoyed, but I also didn't mind the regular milk we had the other four days. Do they even have kids drink that now at school? We had a milk break every afternoon after recess. Everyone drank it; no exceptions.

Fish sticks and gummy white rice, chocolate sheet cake for dessert.

We had pizzaburgers, sauce, and a slice of cheese on a hamburger patty.

Whoops, on a hamburger bun, not a patty.

I am with the cutlet, mashed potatoes, corn, and yeast roll crew. I would buy an extra roll for a dime which I would scoop out and fill with the other items. The other roll was consumed as just a roll.

I liked hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes. In the sixties it was real food.

Spaghetti with meat sauce, fish sticks, tuna noodle hotdish.

[quote]I liked hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes. In the sixties it was real food.

Made with hamburger stock, no doubt.

I grew up in Florida during the NASA space craze, when everything was branded as rocket, lunar, Martian, etc. We were served this delightful heap on a weekly basis. They called it a Flying Saucer. It was a slice of fried bologna, a scoop of mashed potatoes, topped with a slice of melted cheese. So gross.

[quote] Me and my friends cut class often cause we were afraid for our lives. No wonder I'm so fucked up.

It shows.

[quote]Spaghetti with meat sauce, fish sticks, tuna noodle hotdish.

Is that a single dish?

[quote]Made with hamburger stock, no doubt.

Well, yes. Flour or corn starch and some liquid would be added to the greasy run-off from the cooked hamburger.

Chili over a scoop of rice. Toasted cheese sandwiches.

American school lunches break my heart.

I remember in elementary school, around Thanksgiving we'd have a special meal of "diced turkey," which we all nicknamed "turkey slop." It was basically turkey meat cut into cubes, mixed in with hot gravy and poured on top of mashed potatoes. Loved it! Served with a side of creamed corn and cranberry sauce.

I also loved when they would serve sloppy joe's.

Either beef stew day (with peanut butter and honey sandwiches to go with it) or friend chicken day (with real mashed potatoes and home made yeast rolls to go with). We had a tasty school lunch program.

[quote] I also loved when they would serve sloppy joe's.

Sloppy joe’s what, though?

[quote] or friend chicken day

How sad you never had kids for friends in school.

[quote]Sloppy joe’s what, though?

Sloppy Joe's slop.

Quarterback cum

R138 just got me hot and bothered.

When I was in second grade at Aliso School in Carpinteria, CA, in 1951, a regular feature in the school cafeteria was something called "Hopalong Casserole" (in homage, of course, to Hopalong Cassidy.) I can't remember anything about it, but it was fucking delicious. I would kill to have that recipe today. Funny—I can't name a single ingredient it contained.

[quote]was something called "Hopalong Casserole" (in homage, of course, to Hopalong Cassidy.)

NEVER would’ve made that correlation.

[quote]Funny—I can't name a single ingredient it contained.

How can you not remember a single ingredient? Did it have ham or tuna? Shit on a shingle or oysters? Surely you must remember the basic premise of the dish.

r134, they served beef stew plus a peanut butter sandwich? That's two lunches.

[quote]was something called "Hopalong Casserole" (in homage, of course, to Hopalong Cassidy.)

[quote]NEVER would’ve made that correlation.

I'm sure that a worldly bon vivant such as yourself would not have to be reminded who Hopalong Cassidy was; however, DataLounge includes amongst its readers people who were born up to 40 years after Hoppy ceased to exist, and who have no idea who he was.

[quote]How can you not remember a single ingredient? Did it have ham or tuna? Shit on a shingle or oysters? Surely you must remember the basic premise of the dish.

I was something like 7 years old at the time, and was never a fussy eater. If I liked something I ate it, seldom questioning what its ingredients were—or what it actually was, as with casseroles, stews, etc. I know there was no fish involved, because that I'd remember. I'm guessing that Hopalong Casserole was some kind of meat/pasta/potato amalgamation, but I'm not sure.

Mashed potatoes with parsley butter

grade school: tuna salad

high school: we were allowed to leave and McDonald's was across the street so that's where we ate. Hamburger fries and coke cost the same as an in school lunch. 35¢

Here's a recipe called Hopalong Cassidy. Maybe it's a variation on Hopalong Casserole.

HOPALONG CASSIDY 1 lb. ground beef 1 med. onion, chopped 1 can Spanish rice 1 c. grated cheese

Brown in skillet, ground beef with chopped onion. Drain excess fat. Add Spanish rice to meat mixture and pour in casserole dish. Top with grated cheese. Bake in oven about 20 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees. If desired, more cheese can be used.

Love ya, r143!

Just havin fun with ya.

Oh, and I’m definitely no bon bon. I’m lactose intolerant.