What were your favorites growing up? If you were one of the weirdos that packed your lunch please move along.

I always loved the fiestada (Mexican pizza) and the regular old rectangular pizzas. Also loved haystack day, which was basically a taco salad with fritos.

The shredded chicken sammich was the bomb.

Packed most days, cause that food bill would get pretty damn high. But, we were on a 2-week rotation. Chicken nuggs 1st Tuesday, grilled cheese& tomato soup 2nd Wednesday, and street tacos (BBQ pulled pork, glazed pork shoulder and shredded chicken) 1st Thursday were the best. The daily selections that were solid were chicken wraps, cheeseburgers and chicken fingers.

Country fried steak, mashed potatoes, and corn. I'd demolish all of that.

At that age by the time lunch time came around I was so hungry I would eat just about anything.  The molded mystery meat they called a BBQ ribs was at the top.  Hearing the cadence of the lunch lady in high school say ".85 thank you" a dozen times a day as you slid your tray down the lunch line has been permanently embedded in my memory banks.

Bought basically everyday since first grade. $2 a day. Fiestada, pizza, and taco boat were all hits. Rounded out by fries and chocolate milk. But even the mystery meat cheeseburgers weren’t bad. 

I didn’t buy until Jr High but I was a big fan of our schools tacos. 

Hamburger gravy over mashed pot

Mystery meat (lol, who am I kidding...soy) burgers and overly greasy and often-under-cooked fries.

The best part of school cafeteria food was graduating so I wouldn't have to eat it again.

unreal how the one thing that hasnt changed in the past 30 years is the schools pizza.  

I packed almost every day until about 10th grade. Then I started buying one slice of stuffed crust pepperoni pizza, a bag of Doritos, and a Snickers daily.  On the rare occasion that I did not buy a la carte, I would get Saucy Stix (aka three breadsticks, three hunks of yellow cheese, and marinara for dipping), sliced turkey with fake ass mashed potatoes, or the square school pizza.

Also all of our lunches had goofy ass names with weird spellings. Pizza bobzz, saucy stix, chicken fryz, beef and chez nachos. Our lunch ladies loved a z.

posted by geeblock

Hamburger gravy over mashed pot

I’m going to go with this.  Except substitute mashed potatoes for the pot.  😁

My kids were big fans, speaking of weird names, bosco sticks.

I’m old enough that the lunches were good and nutrition didn’t dominate. Rectangle pizza...incredible lol, to this day when my school has it (once a month), I could eat an entire pan of it.

The turkey and gravy/mashed taters, roll w butter...carbs galore and it was hearty.

Chili was good, butter sandwich, celery/pbutter and either ice cream cup or apple crisp.....best all around lunch...milk was 2% then too.

Chocolate peanut butter bars were awesome.

Lunches have stunk last 15 or so years at the elementary level

posted by geeblock

Hamburger gravy over mashed pot

Yes clicked out on your tray with an ice cream scooper.  Then a dip of gravy.

Fishtail sandwiches were really good too. Used to have pork tenderloin sandwiches as well.

Now we have pancakes in a bag for breakfast and lunches are just bad 7/10 days

I must be a bit older than all y'all.  We didn't have fancy things like shredded chicken, tacos, or BBQ ribs.  Of course, this was in the Lyndon Johnson years, lol.  

Kindergarten - milk and cookies snack every day.  Just for that year, the half-pint cartons had a flat top with a foil strip on one corner which you peeled off and pulled back to drink.    Only time I ever saw that

Mom packed my lunch to save money, but would let me buy every other Friday.  I would peruse the menu each day and build up the anticipation.  For all of my elementary years, lunch was 25 cents - if you just bought milk it was 2 cents my first year, 3 cents afterward.   Mom would take the coins, wrap them in a Kleenex, and tie it in a knot so I couldn't pull it out of my pocket by mistake and lose it.  

 Here the classic grade school lunches that I remember:

• Hamburger Day!  w/crinkle-cut fries or tater tots, veggie, dessert.  Hamburger was almost always on a Friday.  And who didn't "draw" a smiley face using ketchup on their bun and meat before smashing them together?  
• Fish Sandwich Day!  w/tater tots, etc.  And the cooks put out bowls of large pitted black olives on our tables during Fish day.  I could gross out my classmates by eating those
• Western Day!  Ham, white bean soup in a bowl, cornbread - and apple crisp!
• Roast Beef Day!  Thin, tough, impossible to chew.  With the aforementioned mashed taters in the ice cream scoop.
• And ...... (drum roll, please) ..... Jonny Marzetti Day!  Well, that one was hard to get excited about, but I could tolerate it. 

Once in a while it was chocolate milk, which we loved.  Other favorite items were chocolate no-bake cookies, and cherries for dessert (basically, pie filling in that gooey reddish-brown sauce).  Lima beans, succotash, baked beans.  Great stuff

posted by Zunardo

I must be a bit older than all y'all.  We didn't have fancy things like shredded chicken, tacos, or BBQ ribs.  Of course, this was in the Lyndon Johnson years, lol.  

I went to a private/independent school. So of course the cafeteria food prices were pretty outrageous. But, it did result in much better food as a result. 

I’ll always remember that my grade was the first year that never got to have lunch off campus. 

I also remember growing up my brother got in trouble for putting horsey sauce all over a plant at Rax. Rax called my parents and told them the plant cost $700 to replace. My mom told them she wanted the plant he “ruined” and bought the same plant at a store for $25 and dropped it off and never heard another word from Rax. 

She then took the “ruined” plant and made my brother keep it in his bedroom and take care of it until he graduated. BTW the plant was fine it just had to be wiped off.