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Vesper started a thread asking about a particular recipe for tuna rollups. Got me to thinking......there are some recipes from school days that I would love to have. Anybody have the recipe for the rolls, or the peanut butter they used to make?
There are some school foods I actually miss and others, well, we all know the stereotype about school food.
The school I went to served a really good basic pizza. This was before the nearly complete junkification of school food, to coin a word, so it was probably less greasy.
I know it sounds like junk food too, but they also had some sausage in a red ketchupy sauce that was excellent. I would like to replicate that sauce. It was really the best part.
They also had 'substantial' entrees like Salisbury steak, fish on Fridays, mystery meat in gravy, etc.
When i went to school back in the pleiostene era (okay, maybe not that far back) the lunch ladies actually cooked much of the food. Now I understand they mostly warm up pre-packaged foods.
Good God, when they cooked goulash, watch out. The whole school stunk. Our hair and clothes probably smelled of industrial strength goulash by the time we got home. BUT it tasted okay actually. Served with a big slice of garlic Texas toast. The memories are coming back.
School food is a little like pulling off a scab before time. It hurts so good. Not gourmet, barely chow hound, but oh the memories of the dishes that got through the cooking process well enough to be palatable, to even build positive memories. And woefully, the stuff like the awful chili a kid accidently dropped on my shoes one day in kindergarten. The unrecognizable vegetables. The quivering gelatin desserts. Oh I wish it were the 70s again, especially if I could know then what I know now about life, the universe, and school food.
I went to public schools from grades 1 through 12. My food experiences were mixed. Elementary school, grades 1 though 6 saw me at the same school with a total student population of about 200. The lunchroom was in a semi-detached facility down a breezeway. It was staffed by several older women who knew how to cook, and cook they DID! Everything was fresh and from scratch...breads were baked daily, even the buns for hot dogs and such, by Miss Mollie, a sweet old lady who also attended my church. She was famous for her food. Breads were her specialty, and her rolls and biscuits (regular and whole-wheat) were outstanding. You got your bread with a big chunk of butter if you wanted it...if you cleaned your plate you got more bread as a reward! They made good meatloaf, oven-fried chicken, and chocolate/peanut butter squares in particular. On fried chicken days Miss Mollie would also let me have some livers...most kids did not like them...usually only reserved or requested by the teachers. Overall a good experience to have good food prepared with love by staff that cared.
And then came junior high school...
Grades 7 and 8 witnessed a new experience for me. The food was wretched...I mean eveything was awful. I was not accustomed to getting such bad stuff. Miss Melera, aka Miss Malaria, was in charge of preparing food for a much larger student body, about 800. I put most of the memories out of mind but one thing I remember was the incorporation of chunks of hard, unripe tomatoes in the canned fruit salad. I ended up taking a bag lunch with me for most of my sentence at that school.
For grade 9 I was bussed to a new school...this was the first year of forced bussing to achieve racial desegregation. My new school was a formerly segregated school, this time with a much smaller student body...about 500. The staff had been there forever...and again they were nice old ladies who knew how to cook...and the meals were cheap. Mrs. Johnson spoke kindly to all the students coming through the line and did her best to ensure the food was tasty and attractive. Very few students brought lunch from home because the food was so good and cheap. Again, fried chicken was what I remember as well as her pot pies, lemon bars, fresh breads, pork chops, and dressing. It was bliss.
And then came high school...
Grade 10 was a super consolidate school for ALL tenth graders in the county...about 1300. This school also was staffed by skilled cooks who had served the previously segreated school forever. Again, the food was good but I can't recall anything in particular since I did bring my own lunch about half the time. I DO recall that the desserts they prepared were eagerly sought out by students AND teachers...especially the homemade cakes.
Grades 11 and 12 were years of darkness...bad food at 2 different schools. Rarely did I eat on premises...everything was just wrong the way they did it. I was scarred for years to come...mistrustful of any institutional foods. I ate my own bag lunch or went out for my meals.
I know that pizza!!!! I had forgotten about the octagon shaped pizza thing! LOL Yep, always served with corn. This was in my junior high. In high school the pizza was just as good, but more square!
The peanut butter chocolate things! Oh My! Those were great too.
The red beets that would stain ANYTHING??? Yuk Yuk Yuk Yuk Yuk Yuk!
WOW, sounds as if ya'll have some memories of school food! I don't know whether to laugh or cry!
I know, it is crazy because the school food nowadays is so bad.
But I distinctly remember loving the chicken they made for lunch. It was baked, with the skin on, and big flakes of pepper on it. It was my favorite and I loved having it for lunch. That must have been about 3rd or 4th grade.
I also remember the bread and butter, one slice white and one slice wheat.
My school lunches were a far cry from the ones served at my son's prior school, which looked like airline food in these little packets w/plastic wrap on them. DISGUSTING. I mean so gross. I don't know how they expected the preschoolers to get into the things.
His school now is better but he is picky so I pack him a lunch.
Way back then it was always fish sticks on Fridays that were very good. Fried chicken was really good several times a month. I always was given extra cheese when those American cheese sticks were on the menu. The only 2 things I can remember that were ever really bad where the canned diced rutabagas and something pink made with pimento pepper. I enjoyed the same ladies that cooked 1-12. Our lunchroom was between the elementary and the high school. It is still there nearly 50 years later. What the food now is I don't have a clue.
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The memories are coming back.
Mixed experiences
They made good meatloaf, oven-fried chicken, and chocolate/peanut butter squares in particular. On fried chicken days Miss Mollie would also let me have some livers...most kids did not like them...usually only reserved or requested by the teachers. Overall a good experience to have good food prepared with love by staff that cared.
I ended up taking a bag lunch with me for most of my sentence at that school.
