Sorry. I was speaking more generally. Elementary school lunches are a very different animal.
1 Like
Waitā¦ even broader brushes?
j/k 
1 Like
Besides a 2-year stint in public school during the pandemic for K/1, my kid has attended independent schools, where sadly, families have to pack the kidsā lunches. Here in MA, public schools offered free lunch for all kids during the pandemic (not sure if they still do), but they were appalling ā it was all packaged food that he turned his nose up toā¦I canāt remember if there was even a piece of fruit to offset that. The only day I didnāt pack lunch was on make-your-own pizza day once a week or every 2 weeks, so Iāve had to pack lunch basically throughout his brief academic life (Grade 4 now). Itās definitely a struggle to find something heāll eat consistently, but it goes in waves (some weeks, his bento comes home with almost nothing eaten, and others, everything is gone). Heās an excruciatingly slow eater, so eating during the allotted time at school is a struggle for him. He doesnāt like sandwiches (except for burgers, which would be gross at room temp). Iāve tried assemble-your-own tacos, which I havenāt tried in a while and I canāt remember if he liked them (he likes them for dinner), so maybe Iāll do that this week. Things that he has liked: pepperoni pizza; a cheese plate of sourdough bread with cheddar cheese; thermos meals of oatmeal, udon noodle soup with tiny tofu cubes, bratwurst, or pasta +/- meatballs with marinara. He generally likes my farro/wheatberry/red or forbidden rice mix with some protein on the side, like a chicken katsu. I sent him with sushi a few times, to the envy of several of his classmates. Somewhere along the way, he stopped liking dumplings. Itās unfortunate that schools donāt allow peanut butter, which I understand, because he loves PB and gawd knows he needs all the protein and fat that he can get. He always gets some fruit and on some days, we have to pack 2 snacks.
Bottom line, why canāt he like the food the way his dad and I do, and additionally, just hoover it down?!?
1 Like
Forgot to mention that he took a cooking class at afterschool for 2 semesters, which he loved, so there is hope! Iāve been trying to leverage that to get him involved in his lunch plans.
1 Like
We also had fish on fridays a lot despite it not being terribly catholic. I liked the fish sticks, I recall.
1 Like
I will always remember that the whole meatless Fridays and weird Lemt rules are the reason for the existence of the Filet-o-Fish. Which itself was the SECOND attempt at a non-meat burger, the first being a āHawaiianā burger which replaced the beef with a slice of pineapple(!).
2 Likes
1 Like
Chiming in late here - my favorite thing was probably American chop suey (goulash for those outside New England), which came with Italian bread and real butter. I liked to butter the bread and then pile the hot goulash onto it as a buttery, open faced sandwich. Hot dogs with bbq sauce (we never had bbq sauce at home) on buns were also a treat. Speaking of chop suey, occasionally they would serve us chicken chop suey with white rice and would put out these enormous gallon size food service bottles of soy sauce which were impossible to control well and would inevitably drown the plate with too much soy sauce.
I loved the idea of taco day, but those American style hard shells were a mess waiting to happen, so Iād just crush them into the nachos in waiting they wanted to be anyway.
I think, in the 80s, I was in the tail end of food actually being prepared on site at school. The stuff the kids get in the school I work in now is food service company stuff that is just heated on site (other than the salads, but Iām pretty sure the āgrilled chicken stripsā in the Caesar style salad is made elsewhere. The freshest options for kids seem to be the sandwich bar and those salads.
2 Likes
I used to work in the cafeteria.
Best job ever on spaghetti day. #LeftoversRock
3 Likes
All of our food was prepared on site in elementary school. We had aluminum cafeteria trays and probably melamine plates. Nothing with food sections. All the food was dished out in line by cafeteria ladies. I think that began to change in seventh and eighth grade, but I donāt remember the food from those 2 years. I started going to a private school in ninth grade and that cafeteria was an adventure - not entirely in a good way - itās changed a lot since then. Our big treats were Hawaiian punch and you could actually get a can of diet rite. If you didnāt like the entrĆ©e of the day, there were shelves on the wall where you could select premade sandwiches, BLT or PBJ.
2 Likes
Today the school cafeteria had a taco meal for lunch. I will grant them that the current iteration seems less greasy than what I grew up with, but overall not something I would get again. The banana peppers were from the salad bar.
3 Likes
Do all the teachers eat the same food as the students? Do some (like you) bring their own lunches?
I usually bring my own lunch. Some teachers buy, but a lot bring. Usually when I buy, I get something from the sandwich station. Today was curiosity about the hot meal option.
1 Like
