Discussion » Questions » Food and Drink » When you were in school, what were the grossest things they served for you lunch?

When you were in school, what were the grossest things they served for you lunch?

For me, it was definitely the corn dogs in elementary school.  I threw up on my desk twice after having them for lunch.

Posted - June 7, 2022

Responses


  • 44578
    I still don't understand why mom served those. None of us liked them.
      June 8, 2022 12:45 PM MDT
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  • 53478

     

      I have had never even heard of nor had I ever seen wax beans until I was about eight or nine or maybe ten years old when they started a Children’s Community Garden next door to a nearby elementary school. It wasn’t a school that we attended; ours was on the other side of town, but a large vacant lot was cleared out and plowed under to make space for about twenty* or thirty* of us to join this new program. The community garden was set up in a way that children planted seeds or bulbs of pre-started plants that were predetermined not only on which vegetables but also where and how we would place the rows in our garden plot so that each child had an identical garden space. Wax beans were one of the vegetables on the list. Everything that we harvested there we could take as much home as we could use, but the wax beans were the only things that we never ate.


    Here’s what we planted.*

    1 Sunflower in one corner of the plot
    Tomato plants along one fence line 
    Row of corn
    Row of lettuce
    Row of peas
    Row of onions
    Row of green beans 
    Row of wax beans
    Row of squash 
    Cucumbers




    *If memory serves me right after more than three decades.
    ~

    This post was edited by Randy D at June 14, 2022 10:22 AM MDT
      June 8, 2022 7:31 PM MDT
    3

  • 5451
    I don’t ever remember having wax beans in school.
      June 14, 2022 10:15 AM MDT
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  • 13277
    Obviously, we didn't attend the same school.
      June 14, 2022 12:12 PM MDT
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  • 53478

     

      I don’t remember any specific school lunchroom food that was terrible, that’s not to say it was all great; I’m sure there must have been something terrible, it’s just that I can’t call it to mind.  I’m sure that mayonnaise must have been included in several lunchroom choices, but I don’t think I ever saw or had even heard of avocados/guacamole until I was in California after I turned 18 and enlisted in the Marine Corps. I can’t remember when I first came across avocados or guacamole, but I sincerely doubt it was in boot camp at the chow hall. No Vegemite was served in my Midwest school lunchrooms; I encountered that morass when I went to Australia about a year after joining the Marines. 
    ~

      June 8, 2022 7:44 PM MDT
    2

  • 16725
    Your taste buds are IN your a$$ if you prefer PB. It looks, smells and presumably tastes like the contents of an infant's diaper.
      June 14, 2022 12:36 AM MDT
    2

  • 5451
    I remember having tacos at school but guacamole wasn’t a part of it.
      June 14, 2022 10:17 AM MDT
    2

  • 16725
    Carried sandwiches and crackers from home. Mum volunteered in the canteen once a fortnight, so I had a bought lunch on that day only - usually a hot meat pie.
      June 9, 2022 7:53 PM MDT
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  • 5451
    I never had my mom volunteer in the school cafeteria.  I have a hard time imagining my mom making some of the stuff that was served in the school cafeteria.

      June 14, 2022 10:28 AM MDT
    1

  • 53478

     

      When my children were in elementary school, it was common for parent volunteers to be in the lunchroom. One year, I was on the evening shift at my job, so I had time during school hours to help out, so I did it too. I was the adult line monitor who scanned the barcodes on the students’ lunch passes. The students who paid cash for their lunches formed a separate line to go to the cashier.
    ~

      June 14, 2022 10:50 AM MDT
    2

  • Panchukers

    panchuker is similar to a corn dog. It's a hot dog that is dipped in pancake batter and then deep fried. Panchukers are usually street food. I don't think they're gross. The panchukers that were served in school weren't completely cooked. The batter was still runny. The hot dogs weren't hot. I thought that was gross.  
      June 13, 2022 10:13 PM MDT
    3

  • 5451
    Eww, I think you’re just trying to be mean and make me throw up on purpose.  I don’t ever want to hear about something that involves undercooked hot dogs dipped in undercooked batter and has chuke in its name.  This post was edited by Livvie at June 14, 2022 9:07 PM MDT
      June 14, 2022 10:33 AM MDT
    2

  • My parents never considered the taste of school lunches when they chose my school. It wasn't important to them. My school lunches were bland and often undercooked.

    I make delicious panchukers, unlike the cooks in primary school. I think you would like them if you gave them a chance. They can be made with a variety of sausages. I add cheese into mine. They go well with different sauces.
      June 14, 2022 9:15 PM MDT
    2

  • 5451
    If you make them, I’ll eat them.
      June 14, 2022 11:08 PM MDT
    2

  • 53478

     

      Hold on a second, that sounds like a sandwich!  I’ll be right there! *Randolph D books a flight to Buenos Aires.

    ~

    ~

      June 15, 2022 7:12 AM MDT
    2

  • I'll seat Livvie on the opposite side of the table so I can make sure that she keeps the mayonnaise away from you.
      June 15, 2022 6:44 PM MDT
    2

  • 53478

     

      Mama! Whenever you’re not looking, Livvie keeps kicking me under the table!
    ~



      June 15, 2022 7:51 PM MDT
    3

  • 5451
    Tattle tale. 
      June 15, 2022 9:01 PM MDT
    3

  • 13277
    Tattle tale Tattletale
      June 15, 2022 9:33 PM MDT
    1

  • 5451
    No, I want to sit next to Randy!
      June 15, 2022 9:01 PM MDT
    3

  • 53478

     

      I can see how this one ends. She’s plotting something, I just know she is. Grrrrrrr.
    ~

      June 15, 2022 9:57 PM MDT
    1

  • 3719
    Thinking hard about it......

    ..... None of the food I had in schools was "gross", which I take to mean "badly cooked". Merely disliking something as a matter, literally in this case, of taste, is not a judgement of quality.


    Of the three State-education schools I attended and where I had School Dinners, from Infants' to Grammar, I do not recall any food I did not like. I was particularly partial to some dishes, and as far as I recall, it was all well-cooked.

    Nor was any what is sometimes now called "junk food" - a limited menu of poor nutritional value, given a wholly-spurious air of being "fashionable" aimed at children by the low-value-at-high-price, fast-food chains.

    One example of what grown-ups love to moan about when recalling school dinners, is tapioca pudding (children nick-named it "frogs' eggs" - perhaps not having been taught the amphibious ova are called "spawn"). I loved tapioca then, and still do, even if for me nowadays it comes ready-cooked in milk, in a tin!

    '''''

    It was a works restaurant, not a school cafeteria, that served the most disappointing dish I can recall.

    Once a week or fortnight it offered something called "Chicken A La King" - a bizarre linguistic tangle for merely roast chicken on rice. It was well-cooked but extremely bland, having almost no flavour. After a few tries, I called it "Chicken Lacking" and plumped for the tastier vegetarian option.
      June 14, 2022 3:26 AM MDT
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  • 5451
    Tapioca pudding is good.  It sounds like your school lunches were pretty good.  Thinking back, I didn’t hate most of the school lunches in elementary school, but nothing stood out as really great food either.  I just really remember the bad ones.
      June 14, 2022 10:40 AM MDT
    4

  • My school was the opposite. Nearly all of the meals were badly cooked. That made them gross. The foods they served would have been delicious if they are prepared by good cooks. The cooks at school didn't care.
      June 14, 2022 9:20 PM MDT
    3

  • 3719
    I wonder if the bad memories many people seem to have of poor school food stem from it having been badly cooked, not by what it was.

    Any food can be ruined if it's not cooked and served properly. 

    As for deep-fried hot-dogs... I will eat a hot-dog on rare occasions, usually from a snack-van, but I think I'll leave the deep-fried ones to others! (I have never seen one, though.)
      June 25, 2022 12:17 AM MDT
    0