Not.a.thing. We had most of what has been mentioned up-thread, and it was all horrible.
Reading through, however, I’m wondering what the connection was between chili and cinnamon rolls. That was a classic pairing in my grade-school years, as well.
I recall the school fund-raisers. We had an annual fund-raiser at one of my elementary schools called the “Dime-O-Dip” dinner. Each ticket cost 10 cents, and each entree or side cost one ticket. Chili-glop, green-bean glop, potato-glop, you name it - 10-cents a serving, and sky’s the limit (as long as you got the tix). Our whole neighborhood showed up for that one.
ETA: I should add that where I live now, and some 55 years after grade-school, our local schools do a terrific job of providing fresh produce and a varied diet for our students. Our local elementary school has a huge pea-patch garden, and our middle-school has a similarly large orchard - all cared-for and maintained by students. We have numerous pea-patches in town, also, the produce from which goes to support the local schools. Things have come a long way…
We tried to switch our kids school lunches back to locally cooked meals.
The contract with Sodexo was not breakable. They have most of the districts sewn up.
Meals made at the airport commissary and delivered by truck.
Our school fund raisers in elementary school, run by the PTA, were (1) covered dish suppers (I always homed in on Pyrex dishes with scalloped potatoes) (2) candy sales, which were supplied by a local candy maker miraculously still in business, and (3) hoagie sales.
The bread . We didnt have a cafeteria in grade school. Catholic school.
I was so jealous watching that well to do kid . Unwrapping his toasted bread slathered in butter. Wrapped in foil .
This was toast at my house growing up no matter what the sandwich was, so much so that when I was first at a friend’s house for lunch and the mom asked if I wanted bread or toast I was horrified when my sandwich came out with two whole pieces of toasted bread. I still eat most of my sandwiches on toast with the toast cut this way. I have never met anyone else who even knew this was a possibility!
@Bigley9 - so toast at your house / lunchbox was always 2 thin-sliced (equatorially) pieces from a single piece of bread? I’d never heard of this until @mts mentioned. What other breakfast and sandwich secrets have you folks been keeping??
I’m pretty sure even with a brand new serrated bread knife, attempts to cut a single slice of white sandwich bread into two thinner slices seems destined to lead you with bread shreds.
It works and it is actually very easy! I’ve been doing it since I was allowed to handle a knife! Just toast the bread and then slice with a serrated knife.
Anytime we had toast for sandwiches we sliced the bread equatorially, any kind of bread! I’m actually very excited to hear that someone else knows about it!
Did you have this in the grade school cafeteria?
I found the discussion on goulash mentioned in this recipe interesting.
What I knew as ‘goulash’ growing up was inedible.
