Found pictures of my first lunchbox on eBay 
We went to an annex school (an old 4 room schoolhouse) in first grade because of baby boom overcrowding, so we had to bring lunch every day. There was no cafeteria. There was a cooler where we could buy milk for 2 cents.
I had a very brief stint with school-prepared lunch: my favorite was fresh, hot jalebis served once a week for dessert.
However there were many more gross (to me, not objectively - eg Irish mutton stew) things that tipped the scale, so we got switched over to āhome lunchā ā ie lunch made by my mom and delivered by the dabbawalas. (My sib has still not forgiven me, because they loved many of those āgross to meā things and really did not want to be eating healthy, mostly bland, homemade food instead 
.)
The contrast between Indian dabbawalas and Japanese bento boxes, vs. the sad, sad American lunchbox with the squished sandwich and a thermosā¦ Itās enough to make you think āMaybe weāre NOT the leaders of the free world we think we areā¦ā
There was a place on E Houston that served those. Awesome stuff.
I think objectively pizza day was a favourite at the time. it was bad square pizza. close to ellios as I can remember. but strangely, the thing that sparked my interest was the Salisbury steak. grey meat with a dollop of overcooked rice; but that mushroom gravy! that sent it over the top. I was young when that was served and soon after always brought my own lunch. for a time I would trade my devil dog for the rice with that gravy.
Our school pizzas werenāt square, but individual round ones. I liked them fine, at the time.
I went to a very small school and our āhot lunchesā were coordinated by parents ā there was no school cook, and the lunches were only a few times a week. Otherwise we brought from home.
My favorites were the spaghetti with meat sauce and boxed mac and cheese. One school-specific food memory was lumpia made by a parent ā they were often made for special events and started a lifelong obsession. Same for the almond Dutch letter (Kringle). 
Whistle Dogs in high school
Okay, what are whistle dogs?
Hot dogs topped with American cheese and bacon. Usually chopped onions, too.
I was hoping this thread would be about what people are sending their kids for lunch. I get the feeling that most people besides me and @ChristinaM and @ieatalotoficecream donāt have school-age kids. Maybe thatās a thread idea.
Milk cost a quarter when I was in Grade 1. My school had a milk vending machine that contained 1 cup servings of white milk, chocolate milk, and orangeade. My mom taped a quarter to the inside of my lunch box for my drink each day.
My lunchbox was a baby blue plastic Precious Moments lunch box. I found some online, but not the model I had.
In our area, Sodexo is the dominant meal purveyor.
All the districts are under contract except for Ashland which does their own thingā¦
pretty depressing.
Surprisingly I think square pizza day ranked low on the cafeteria school totem pole for me. I think I was spoiled at home with after school Stouffers French bread pizza
I donāt think Iāve ever met a Salisbury steak I didnāt like. School cafeteria, or anywhere else. Even at the hospital.
I think the only vending machines that existed when I was in elementary school dispensed cigarettes (NO, NOT in the schoolā¦). This milk was in a top-opening refrigerator cooler. Someone collected the pennies by hand. I donāt recall any vending machines at all in elementary school. We did have a āschool storeā which was a counter display - but it only sold school supplies.
If we were thirsty, there was the porcelain water fountain ā¦
The company that staffed the high schools and one college canteen in my city was called Beaver Foods. The same recipes were used at all the high schools. The company is no longer in business. The food probably was supplied by Sysco.
Elementary schools in my region in Ontario did not have cafeterias. Everyone brought their own lunch in a lunch box or brown paper bag. We had hot dog Fridays once a month, where for a small fee we could buy a hot dog on a bun, a carton of milk, and a honey dip donut. We also had a pancake lunch on Shrove Tuesday and a turkey lunch on Thanksgiving.
NYS is offering free breakfast and lunch this year at all schools, which is amazing. My daughter is at the point now where she is getting school lunch every day now.
While in our house we select our meat sources very carefully, Iām sure the same is not true of what they are serving at school. However, the variety of food that she is served and eats over the course of a month at school is way more varied than what she would ask for from home. Also, the amount of money - but moreso time and effort - her eating school lunch saves is a worthy tradeoff for me. She has also reported trying a lot of new foods (primarily veggies and cheese) that she probably wouldnāt have tried otherwise. Since the vast majority of her classmates take the free lunch along with her, there is an element of positive peer pressure there to try and eat what the others are eating. Iāll post some sample dayās menus. She is a pretty discerning eater from eating my cooking and out at restaurants and doesnāt have many complaints about the food.
When we were doing the occasional home lunch, she would take a bento box. She isnāt very particular about temperature, so often leftover beans (she is huge on beans), rice, avocado, dumplings, sushi, pasta, mini sandwiches (tuna, turkey, etc) would make it into the āentreeā section of her bento. She likes hummus, crunchy veggies, and crackers, and a fruit of some sort. She has gone through cheese sticks phases and she also likes babybel cheeses. The biggest problem with her bringing home lunch for me was food waste. She would often come home with more half her lunch still in the bento. They get very little time to eat and a lot of the food I gave her was just too time consuming to eat (think of a kid crunching on multiple carrots - can be a very slow endeavor lol). Now that sheās eating school lunch, I am certain there is some food waste, but I suspect it is less and at least I donāt have to see it.
What does your kiddo bring/eat?
We had an apple vending machine. Even considering our perspectives as tiny humans, that refrigerated thing was enormous. An apple would bump-bump-bump its way out of the machine for a nickel, and they were always ice cold and crisp. I didnāt even mind that they were Red Delicious, but maybe that was before they bred the flavor out of that variety.
All trips to East Asia thus far have made me acutely aware of how behind Europe and North America are. And yes, I feel comfortable with my broad brushstrokes.
To be fair, school systems vary vastly between continents and countries ā e.g. German schools K-12/13 rarely go past noon or 1pm, so most students will be taking their lunch at home vs some school cafeteria. The only thing we did in elementary school was picking between chocolate or regular milk at the beginning of the school year, which was delivered to our home room.
