Monday Memories: School Lunches

Recently, my husband and I got on the topic of our favorite school lunches. In elementary school, I mostly ‘packed’ in this lunchbox:

There you might find a peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat with Bacos. For the uninitiated, Bacos are fake bacon bits. You have to laugh at the irony of my mom buying whole wheat bread, but adding artificial ingredients to the mix. I can't really remember what else was included in my lunch besides carrot sticks or apple slices. I did not use the thermos but bought a tiny carton of milk for 5 cents.

Every once in a while, I'd get a can of pudding for a treat. The thought disturbs me now.

Very few people remember these, but I loved them. You might as well have been eating a Tootsie Roll though. It was Space Age eating at its finest and quite convenient in a lunch box.

Moving on to days I bought the school lunch.

My all-time favorite was tomato soup with grilled cheese. Unlike the photo, ours was the thin red Campbell's version and the grilled cheese was on Wonder bread with a thin layer of cheese. This was usually served on Fridays during Lent. I remember standing in line once and the girls in front of me commenting that the school's tomato soup was not good because they used water instead of milk. These must have been rich kids, because I only ever knew it to be made with water at my house!

Who remembers the ice cream scoop of mashed potatoes with yellow gravy? Another favorite of mine was the broasted chicken with mashed potatoes. I could not find a picture of the sort of chicken my school served, but it was definitely not fried like this photo. I remember the lunch ladies asking if you wanted white meat or dark meat. My mother grew up on a farm and hated chicken, so we never had it at home. To this day, I don't really know what broasted means, but it was good!

I would occasionally buy for spaghetti, also served via an ice cream scoop. It looked similar to this, all mixed together, and served with over-dressed iceberg lettuce salad.

My husband and I agree that the old school pizza burgers were surprisingly good. It was basically an open face sloppy joe with a criss cross of American cheese, baked up nice and toasty.

I really wanted to like the school pizza, but I didn't. Ours was this rectangle shape, but with a lot less cheese. It truly was like eating cardboard.

Of course, anytime this was included on the tray, I was a happy camper. The most exciting time was right before Christmas break when you would get an ice cream novelty treat shaped like a Christmas tree. I ALWAYS bought on that day.

My kids, on the other hand, had a greater variety. They loved Walking Taco day. From their description, it was a bag of Fritos with toppings? They also loved Breakfast for Lunch, which included french toast sticks, sausage, and hash browns.

By the time I was in high school, I either got the salad bar or the tuna plate, which consisted of the ice cream scoop of tuna salad, carrot/celery sticks, a few cheese wedges, and a pack of crackers. A funny memory of mine is one of my best friends in junior high would get the same a la carte lunch every day: an ice cream sandwich and a pack of Ding Dongs. She's a health nut now! LOL!

What was your favorite school lunch?

**Photos courtesy of Pinterest and Google Images**