Dec 25, 2018
3,124
America, awful. Eating dog food practically to me.
american-school-lunches5.jpg


Skipped lunch for 2 years because of how disgusting it was to me.
 
Oct 28, 2017
22,596
That looks about right. Dont forget the totino-like pizza that came out on big sheets. Then the cafeteria worker cut it into many rectangles.

And milk cartons that never opened correctly so you just jammed the straw in it.
 

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,417
it was okay if not basic.
the chicken sandwiches and pizza were good.
the pizza went to shit as soon as the school started making it on their own tho rather than ordering local. the pizza the school made was basically oversized quesadillas with no tomato sauce.
 
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psynergyadept

Shinra Employee
Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,932
American here it it was awesome! Well the high school was; I still think about the cheese steaks they served at my high school. Had our own salad bar/make you own sandwich/a little snack shop/ and two other student ran snack bars located at different ends of the school. Also were we located near the downtown area so if you could sneak out you were golden!
 

balohna

Member
Nov 1, 2017
4,303
No school lunches where I live (Canada, Vancouver area). My mom made me a sandwich usually. They were pretty good.
 

Nida

Member
Aug 31, 2019
11,421
Everett, Washington
Went to school in rural West Virginia so... it was bad.

Anyone have the breakfast things that were like a ham/cheese/egg concoction covered in breading? Also remember breakfast pizza, those brown doughnuts that always tasted strange and came in a hot plastic bag.

In middle school we had Domino's every Friday.
 

diakyu

Member
Dec 15, 2018
17,706
Motherfuckin buffalo chicken tenders and fries. I lived in a pretty privileged area with a good public school so I got it pretty well.
 

EliR

Banned
Jan 22, 2020
632
In Netherlands you gotta go home on a lunch break. It lasted about 1 hour. Food was whatever your parents/sitter/caretaker made for you.
 

nano

Member
Oct 26, 2017
413
Berlin
Basically didn't exist in Germany, and still isn't widespread. You usually only had school until 12-13 o'clock anyway, so you'd be home for lunch.
 

Sly Chimera

Alt Account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
1,643
You could get better food outside the cafeteria at mini stands if you paid more at our school. Kind of fucked up. I don't think I ever actually ate the cafeteria food though.
 
Oct 27, 2017
7,592
Horrific as a UK child in the 80s at primary school. I still can't bear raw carrot and beetroot 30 odd years later after being forced to eat an entire plate of it by an angry dinner lady. Forcing me to shovel it in through my tears, all chased down with tepid water.

When they gave my scrambled eggs and gravy my mum decided enough was enough and switched me to packed lunch.

Then of course the 90s happened, I went to secondary school and the school dinners were amazing, great big piles of sausages and chips and cakes, none of this Jamie Oliver too much salt/fat/sugar/fun bullshit, just good honest junk food for 90p. But of course I was still a packed lunch kid so I was stuck with marmite sandwiches and an apple.
 

FaceHugger

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
13,949
USA
Everything was extremely cheap but I still loved some of it. The burgers were this weird combo of beef and I suppose soy, but man they tasted so good to me. The chicken sandwiches were the bomb - my high school had Tabasco packets available on chicken sandwich day.

The pizza was pitiful but I still ate it. On chicken chow mein day I just ate fries because the chow mein was oddly gooey and I couldn't stomach it.

During my senior year I only had three classes because I had taken summer school courses the previous year, so thankfully I left around 11AM to my job at my sister's restaurant where I got to eat some good food.
 
Oct 27, 2017
3,837
I went to schools in mostly wealthy suburban towns, so my cafeteria lunch experience was usually pretty decent. Not great, but edible.

In elementary school my mom used to pack me a sandwich, rarely ate the school food.

Middleschool I ate cafeteria food every day. We had a "homestyle" line, stuff like mashed potatoes, green beans, chicken fried steak, etc. We had a "Spanish" line, beef and cheese nachos, quesadillas, etc. An "Asian" line, stuff like fried rice, egg rolls, teriyaki, etc. And of course a pizza line that was always packed, but the pizza was like worse than the stuff you buy frozen at Walmart lol.

My highschool actually had worse lunch than my middle school for some reason, even though it was located like right across the street lmao. It lacked diversity for real. Like they only served the interesting meals like once or twice a week. So it was almost always corn bread, Mac and cheese, chicken nuggets or some kind of pathetic excuse for a burger or chicken sandwich.
 
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Tagyhag

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,766
In Elementary it wasn't healthy but it was pretty good! My favorite was this pepperoni calzone and they gave us with this delicious brownie that normally you'd buy off the machine. The 50 cent giant cookies were amazing as well.

In Middle/High school the food definitely got worse in general but sometimes had some good stuff like the buffalo wings in middle school and a kung pao chicken rice bowl in high school.

I actually miss some of the food, if I had fuck you money I'd totally open up a restaurant with the best of the school lunch options, if anything just for me to have whenever I want.
 

CDX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,481
America, awful. Eating dog food practically to me.
american-school-lunches5.jpg


Skipped lunch for 2 years because of how disgusting it was to me.
I'm also in the US. Those seem to be the exact trays we had at my elementary and middle schools.

The meal itself doesn't look too far off from what was served to me. Although we never had that dark blob of whatever the hell that is in the lower corner of the tray. And the top center spot was ALWAYS for a tiny carton of milk, nothing else that was offered would fit in that spot on the tray.
 
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BlackNMild2k1

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,340
Bay Area, CA
In middle school (6-8) we got Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, regular cafeteria stuff, and the infamous Cheese Zombie (bread bun with melted cheese inside)

In HS, we had all the above, plus Hotdog Zombies and Hamburger Zombies as well.

needless to say, we enjoyed school lunch.
 

Chainshada

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,713
8th and 9th grade I'd make my own lunch, 10th and higher we didn't really have lunch because they started an hour earlier than the lower grades, but were allowed to go home at the start of lunch, so we'd be out of school at around 1:10pm, so it was usually just a big breakfast, then a snack around 10am, then lunch at home. We did have a really nice Fish & Chips shop right across the road from school, so once or twice a week we'd sneak over the road to get that for morning tea..The break was short so we'd need to eat too fast, a couple of teachers were cool with it if we gave them a few chips like my Tech Studies teacher, was nice doing school work while eating hot chips.
 

pheobo

Member
Nov 26, 2017
38
Went to a small private school during my elementary years and we had this older Italian lady making our food. It was pretty amazing, I'll never forget those Italian Fricadellis they were delicious!

During high school we didn't have a canteen, but instead got this lunch card we could use to eat at restaurants in the area. Man I miss those years with great free food!
 

Deleted member 5334

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,815
It was...

...not great, honestly. Also, looking at some food that my niece has shared with me that students around her age are also seeing, I can't tell if it's gotten worse or about the same. She definitely doesn't seem to be a fan of the school lunches, just from how she's talked to me, however.

EDIT: One thing I'll say. My High School had some legit really good Chicken Nugets and I can never, ever, find anything similar. I know Chicken Nuggets themselves are not the most healthiest thing, but I'd say they'd beat out any frozen or fast food ones I'd ever tasted, at least. My High School's soups were also one of the few things that our Cafeteria staff there was able to make with the limited budget they had, and honestly, those were actually really good.
 

Ary F.

Member
Oct 30, 2017
736
Went to private school in 3 different countries so the lunches varied by country. They were all superior to US public school lunch, which let's be honest, is not a high standard to leap over. I attended US public school during high school and was apalled by the quality. I never ate lunch at the cafeteria ever again. If I was hungry I took a sandwich bag of almonds with me from home or plucked cherries from my neighbour's tree.
 

Cort

Member
Nov 4, 2017
4,383
Above average.

School went bonkers when it was Spicy Chicken day, even faculty would push kids over just to get on line.

Everything else was meh.
 

Malverde

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
America, awful. Eating dog food practically to me.
american-school-lunches5.jpg


Skipped lunch for 2 years because of how disgusting it was to me.

This looks good as hell, what the fuck are you on about? Chicken nuggets, barbecue sauce, a fruit cup, AND beans and mac and cheese. Y'all some spoiled motherfuckers to be talking shit on this.

Growing up we got those tiny trays like the one pictured below, except you only got the option of picking one side (a bag of baby carrots, an apple, or an orange) in addition to one milk (chocolate or plain) and whatever the main item of the day was.

hS9VrzFEVlcQNt2c8wU_X6iwzsW7yckFeFn6RXyF5qHnTVV-TkTs_kDsE9YFb7j7vKMNNSOXS1EMuf1-xvgKIHdCIEYkj_p9DRtIB9sfWcs


I've worked in some rough schools before with high rates of homelessness/motel families where school lunches are the only things some students eat all day, and y'all pretentious motherfuckers calling it dog food and bragging about refusing to eat it. SMH.
 

Aeriscloud

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,208
Florida
6624229_square_cafeteria_pizza.jpg


This image I found is pretty close to the same thing I ate in rural central PA 91-97.

Good days were ham patty or chicken patty. On very rare days Mashed potatoes and turkey.

The horrific days were the taco boats and pizza like above, never with anything but cheese.
 

Dan Thunder

Member
Nov 2, 2017
14,282
UK here and I used to love school dinners. You'd get stuff like chicken/cottage pie, mash, veg, gravy and a proper pudding like chocolate sponge or jam roly-poly.

You also got your food on an actual plate rather than these little convict trays they all seem to go for these days.
 

Menchin

Member
Apr 1, 2019
5,227
I never ate school lunches

I snuck outside school grounds and ate the sandwich my dad would make for me every day
 

NameUser

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,183
Everyone talks about them being shit, but I remember them being somewhat decent. This was in the 90s/Early 00s in Northeast Ohio. Idk, maybe my memory is bad.
 

orava

Alt Account
Banned
Jun 10, 2019
1,316
Finland. Always home cooking level greatness. Eaten from proper tableware.
 
Nov 8, 2017
3,532
I never had school lunch beyond Infant school (up to age 7). I was a super picky eater, so my mum would always just pack me some sandwiches instead.

The only thing I remember from the Infant school lunch was something they just called "meat", which was just like some minced meat in gravy or something. It was pretty bland from what I remember. And the terrible mashed potato. And the rice pudding that I'd never eat. I can't really remember anything else. Beyond Infant school, it seemed like all the other kids would just eat chips, baked beans, and fish fingers (or similar) every day.
 

uzipukki

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,722
99% the time they were good, but sometimes there were things I wasn't a fan of. As a whole, Finland has really good school lunches though.
 

J_ToSaveTheDay

"This guy are sick" and Corrupted by Vengeance
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
19,051
USA
It was all trash but out of necessity I developed some favorites.

I remember really liking my school's gumbos growing up. None of them were REAL gumbos, mind you (no real seafood in it), but a pretty good spiced sauce over some bland shredded chicken and decent rice. That was my absolute favorite and it seemed to get served at least once a week. Can't quite recall what else I took favor to, but I couldn't survive the school day without eating and I couldn't afford anything better.
 

wvan13

Member
Oct 25, 2017
455
I'm not sure if every school had rumors like this but kids I knew talked about finding bugs and things inside the food. As a result I almost always just got those prepackaged Smuckers Uncrustables sandwiches and a bag of chips or something. The only time I'd ever not get something sealed like this, or not bring something from home, was when the school had a pizza day sort of thing and they ordered from a local delivery place.

Elementary and probably the first part of middle school were like that, but I changed schools and the food seemed better quality. From then on I'd just eat whatever they had, usually.