Lunch

Yes. I am aware that it has been a long time.. possibly even forever and a day. I haven’t forgotten about all of you out there, but to be honest, I feel like it’s been so long that I need to come back with something big. The longer I put it off, the more pressure I feel. Then I go and start reading something like  NeverSeconds, written by a young girl from Scotland. It’s photos and descriptions of her school lunches, and photos of school lunches around the world that others send in.  Take a boo, it’s good!

It also makes me think back to the day where we all used to gather in the cafeteria with our trays, anxiously waiting to see if it was fishsticks that day or… wait…. sorry, my mistake! (Insert cranky old lady voice here) Back in my day there wasn’t a school lunch program, or if there was we didn’t know about it.  We brought our lunches from home! Suuure, we had “hot lunch” days, usually a hot dog or a piece of pizza, followed by a “Texas Donut” – a donut shaped pastry as big as your head, but that was a treat!

(fade back into “Sarah slowly speaking out loud to herself as she types” voice)

I remember in Grade five when our class started a Pizza Hut program where you could buy an individual pan pizza off of us. We save all of the money we made and went away for a few days at the end of the year. I ate pizza every week that year I think.

Grade six was around the time where my mom was on her sixth (and thankfully final) year of peanut butter and jam sandwiches (there was a bologna streak in elementary, but who knows what happened to that).  I, being the super picky eater I am now, even back then, refused to eat the simple peanut butter and jelly day in and day out, and would leave the sandwiches to fester in either my locker or my backpack. Instead, I would spend whatever allowance money I had on a pizza pocket. The magnificent pizza pocket was supplied in the school cafeterium for the low price of a buck or a buck fifty. Again.. lots of pizza.

In highschool the cafeteria favourite was the seasoned curly french fries. People would send their friends to run out of class as soon as the bell went and jump in the line, which was always waaay too long and the poor sap at the end always ended up spending fifteen minutes in line for nothing. There were other choices,  the chocolate malt for example, and I seem to remember that there were main course types of things, but I can’t remember what they were.  Often, we would eat out. The church would offer cheap meals (instant noodles for 25 or 50 cents, or you could pay five bucks and get a real meal of chicken fingers and salad or something), but the burrito place (name unknown to me now) was the best.  Breadsticks were a close second, and would run you three fifty for a bag.  They even opened a McDonalds in my town when I was in Grade 10. That was a good year.

If you look back on it all, you might notice a little bit of a trend. The food was not great.  Really tasty, but not great in a healthy way.  There was no salad bar at my school (and I doubt there are many around now actually). Most of it had been previously frozen. Or from a vending machine. I remember going through something like three slurpees and a can of pringles a day in my grade 11 year. There was some info on eating right available, but even my in home ec. class they tought us to make stuff like cakes and cookies. I do remember a fruit salad once, but it was flavoured with half a can of Sprite.

This, Kids, was the end of the golden years. I mean, the golden deep fried years, or just the plain brown food years. We used to eat hot dogs at birthday parties. Or Kraft dinner. Sometimes you’d mix the two (KD with fried weiners, all drizzled with a giant spiral of ketchup was still one of my favourite foods right up until December 31st last year!), drink up some of that McDonalds Orange Drink (do they still make that stuff?) or Tang, slurp up some Jello, Dairy Queen icecream cake (or the cheap white cake from Safeway) and call it a day. If it was a high end party, you’d have it right in the McDonalds and get a tour of the kitchen, or pizza would be delivered to the bowling alley. I wonder what would happen now if a parent served gluten filled processed hot dogs at a birthday party? Anyone out there with kids want to do an experiment?

Anyway… reading this girl’s blog has done a few things for me. It has reinspired me a little (thanks kid!), it has brought back some fond memories of some really trashy food, and it has opened my eyes to the fact that even though lunches are aparently provided at school now, they still don’t look all that great all of the time. For example.. the fact that her dad had to print off an email from the council so the kid could get some fruit? Scary.

Anyway.. bon apetit. Let me know what you ate as a kid.. favourites? The thing you dreaded most? What was worth the most lunch currency in your school? Fruit by the foot was worth..ohh… about 2 mini chocolate bars and an apple in mine. Also, Momma: I’m sorry about the peanut butter and jam thing.. but I still can’t eat them. At least not unless they’re toasted.

Happy eating, and thanks for sticking around!