Question du jour

[vanillafluffy]

If you ate school lunches as a kid, what menu item did you most dread seeing on the week's menu list? Or, if you more often brought a lunch from home, what did you hope wasn't inside your lunchbox or bag when you opened it up? What made this item so revolting for you?

Mostly, I brown-bagged it. Sometimes I'd have school lunch (You could sign up ahead of time, and I'd nag my mom if there was something "good" on the calendar). I avoided the Salisbury stead, but I adored fish sticks. And it seems to me that the chicken was pretty good. Alas, somewhere around seventh grade, they stopped cooking in the cafeteria and brought in pre-made meals ala TV dinners.

Unfortunately, my mom wasn't terribly inventive when it came to lunch. Peanut butter, peanut butter, peanut butter! (and jelly). Not every day, but an awful lot. It was years before I could eat peanut butter after grade school! Or, worse, a slice of American cheese between two slices of white bread. Ugh! Nasty yellow wax! Sometimes there'd be leftovers, like a roast beef sandwich, or meatloaf. Those were the good days!

I liked tuna, but she was always worried that it would spoil if the weather was warm. This was long before the days of insulated coller bags and those plastic freezer cubes. I did have a wide-mouth thermos, but it tended to leak, so that didn't get used much.

And now I'm craving fish sticks, which I don't have on hand....

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Comments

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

In elementary school, I went home for lunch every day except every other Friday, we had Hot Dog Day, when I got a hotdog. The choice was "with mustard" or "without mustard".

I dislike hotdogs, now.

In high school I either took my lunch or (when I had money from babysitting) bought cafeteria food. It was garbage, of course. That's where I learned my dislike of gravy on french fries.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Mustard on hot dogs? Only if it's half and half with ketchup. These days, though, hot dogs are few and far between because the sodium KILLS me. And when I do, I'm very picky about the brand.

My high school cafeteria did mostly pizza, which was edible, at least for the indiscriminate student. I wasn't introduced to "wet fries" as they're known around here, until well after HS, at a 50s-themed diner, and it was love at first bite. The diner is closed, alas, but sometimes if I'm at a BBQ place I'll order fries and gravy on the side. Yummy as long as the fries are fresh.

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[thru-the-blinds.livejournal.com]

I've always loved tuna and my mom had no issue with brown bagging it for me. I quickly learned, however, that the lingering aroma in my locker wasn't worth it, which is the same reason I won't take it to work with me. Nothing like smelling fish in the office for days on end! LOL

On another note: my mother grew up loving Braunschweiger on bread and at least once a month she'd send my brother and me to school with the same. UGH. I can *still* smell that stuff in my minds-eye and I'm turning green even while typing this. I was happy to go hungry when I found that stuff in my lunch box!

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

My dad loved Braunschweiger/liverwurst, I thought it smelled like something died. But it was great for giving Lady pills or luring her into a bath.

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[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

Thankfully there wasn't an entree I couldn't bear to eat in elementary school, but the frequent appearance of turnip greens as a side dish was BLECH! Almost no one ate them because cooking them stank up the cafeteria for hours beforehand. The pizza we got was rather weird, kind of like a Bisquik hamburger pie instead of having a yeasty crust, but it was edible. The hamburgers were actually soy burgers, but put enough ketchup on anything and children will eat it. :D

One thing I loved about elementary school lunch was the desserts: a slice of cake or a big cookie every day. We rarely got desserts at home, so that was a major treat.

I usually brought my lunch in high school, as the food wasn't that good and the lines were so long that we had to bolt it down once we got our trays.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Hamburger pie! Geez, I haven't had that in years! Heck, probably not since high school, come to think of it. Add it to the list of things I've got a sudden craving for.

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[ang5fam.livejournal.com]

There was no item on our elementary school menu that was bad~ the lunches were .40 per day, all homemade and wonderful. Fried chicken, rice with homemade yellow gravy, scratch yeast rolls and giant cinnamon rolls that we could smell baking while walking down the hill to school.
Once we got to high school, it all changed and we were in shock.
Some days, I would walk home for lunch since it was only up the hill just to get a break.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Sounds great. I love a *good* cafeteria. I miss Piccadilly! Dad and I used to go there after church a couple times a month. I usually had the fried chicken, and he always got the egg custard. Comfort food....

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[ang5fam.livejournal.com]

I adored Piccadilly! Usually got the veggie plate with a cornbread stick and strawberry pie. Fried chicken and trout almondine were also faves~ with mac and cheese. can't understand why it closed down as it was always busy.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

My guess would be the Mall got greedy. Whatever Piccadilly was making serving affordable meals was swallowed up by whatever rent they werre getting skinned for. Or, they demanded Piccadilly recorate/update or the like---that was why Lane Bryant left; M.Square wanted a remodel, and they refused.

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[ang5fam.livejournal.com]

Seems like that tired, old mall would be happy to have tenants, esp a nationwide one like LB.
Makes you wonder~~

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Right?! Aside from the occasional movie, I go shopping at the mall maybe twice a year? Three times max. I went after Christmas and got some athletic shoes, and browsed a little before my movie last month (didn't buy anything). Maybe I'll wander around when they're doing tax-free in August, but I wouldn't Christmas shop there, for instance.

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[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

the school lunches where i went to school were disgusting. I always brown bagged it and felt sorry for the kids who didn't.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a reason people usually make jokes about cafeteria food!


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[fufaraw]

The smell of the vat-sized kettles the cafeteria made tomato soup and tomato-based vegetable soup in lingers, and sickens me to this day. H stole two sets of industrial-plate silverware from his college dining room for our first apartment, and I couldn't use them--they tasted the way the cafeteria smelled.

I used to dread my mom having packed a hard-boiled egg. I was too lazy (found out later it was ADD and lack of focus) to peel the egg at lunchtime, so to "protect" it she packed it in an egg-shaped and sized aluminum tea ball. So by lunchtime the slick eggwhite was streaked with black. Yeah. NSM. We didn't have lunchables and fruit cups, so it was PBJ or baloney and cheese (one slice each, with mustard and mayo) on white bread, and an apple--usually a windfall from our own tree, small, wizened, bruised, and totally unappealing. I skipped a lot of lunches, hunger being a more pleasant companion than nausea.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

For some reason, my mom didn't do a lot of lunch meat, and the only kind of bologna we ever had was lebanon (which I love). I hardly ever got dessert in my lunch, unless it was right after Halloween or Easter (candy) or heading into Christmas (cookies). Even then, my weight was an issue.

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