Does anyone like school lunches? I hear both parents and their children complain about them. According to my local school district’s website, today’s high school menu is:
Menu – October 24, 2019
Main: Italian Entree Choice
Grill: Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Salad: Italian Entree ChoiceSmart Sides: Caesar Salad, Celery Sticks
But, is it worse than school lunches a hundred years? Somehow I just can’t imagine students today getting excited about Jellied Salmon.
A Hundred Years Ago 
Well, it looks better than a sample menu, dug out of my memory, for an English girls’ grammar school, c.1958. Spam fritters, mashed potato, cabbage. Spotted Dick and custard. Hungry, anyone?
Mmmmm, spotted dick. You do know how much fun we Yanks have with that, right? Juvenile, I know . . .
You’re not alone ….
I’m definitely going to pass on the Spam fritters.
So you should. Poke your fork in too deep, and you’ll get a shot of warm grease in your eye.
I noticed that jellied salmon right away. Two thoughts came to mind: it must have been cheaper then, and, ‘jellied’? I can’t imagine that passing muster today for anyone: at least, not for me. Say ‘school lunch’ to me, and the first thing that comes to mind is sloppy joes. The lunchroom always got down to business when those were served.
I went to a public school, but we generally had fish on Fridays. Back then I really liked fish sticks and fish fillets – so I always looked forward to the Friday lunches.
Jellied salmon?! ick, ick, ick. Preparing food for a whole school must be really difficult but I have no fond memories of cafeteria food at all. Except maybe the little cups of ice cream and the tiny wooden spoons that came with them . . .
At the elementary school I attended, they served chocolate milk about once a month. We kids always considered those days to be special.
Our biggest seller was french fries and gravy! And they wonder about childhood obesity.
There is so much unhealthy food.
I had the same thoughts on the jellied salmon and Spotted Dick. I have seen the Spotted Dick in our grocery store and it is in a can. That just adds to the mystery.
I was on a college visit with my daughter to my school and we ate in a school cafeteria. It was still just as bad. It was my only source of food in school and I never gained a pound.
There’s a larger variety of foods served in school cafeterias now than when we were young – but it apparently still is not very tasty.
The jellied salmon brought to mind the horrible jellied salads we had at school when I was a kid. Jello encasing carrots, green beans, and shredded lettuce. I shudder even now.
I didn’t care much for the cafeteria food when I was a child – but I guess I should be thankful that at least we didn’t get vegetables encased in jello.
It was the worst! And I couldn’t figure out why they kept serving it since only one kid in my entire class ever ate it!
I’m not a big fan of anything “jellied” but overall the menus don’t look too bad. There seems to be something for every kind of palate! I don’t remember high school (Ii think we went home for lunch) but college was another thing when I lived in the dorms.
When I was a child, I was always a little jealous of the students who lived close enough to the school that they could go home for lunch. 🙂
Interesting choices in that old menu.It goes to show the extra time they took with the foods. I didn’t give school lunches much thought until high school when they had Pizza day. Lol They made a fortune on Pizza day. Kids that normally didn’t spend money on anything but chips and soda-pop, out of the snack machines, would stand in line and eagerly await their turn to buy a slice of pizza. We all loved it. 😀
Pizza Day sounds like fun.
My dad would have been five years old in 1919. As far as I know, my parents always took their lunch to school. Did that mean they were satisfied with what they had? My heavens! No! Dad told about his mother who was an older parent. She was thin as a rail and prepared dainty lunches. The worst, according to him, was a pineapple and cheese sandwich on white bread. He thought he’d won a jackpot when he persuaded a farm boy to swap his hearty lunch of biscuits and country ham.
Yuck – pineapple and cheese on white bread seems like a strange combination. I see the term “dainty foods” from time to time in hundred-year-old magazines. I have the impression that lighter foods (that often seem strange now) were very trendy back then.
My grandmother was not attuned to the needs of a very active growing boy who was large for his age. I think he was 12 years old when he drove their car.
Wow, it’s amazing how young he was when he drove a car. I’m guessing that drivers’ licenses were not required back then.
No license was required, but he took the car out while his parents were away! He was staying with his first cousin next door. He had watched his dad teach his mom to drive, and that’s how he knew what to do. He and his cousin drove around all weekend. When the gas was low, he pulled into the gas station and told the attendant to fill it up and charge it to his dad. Everyone knew everyone else in the small town, so the tank was filled. My dad was a character!
Interesting choices. I wonder if the kids liked these choices. I thought kids went home for lunch back then, but I guess not.
This was the era when large consolidated high schools were being built in many areas. The new large high schools could offer many courses and tracks (academic, business, etc.). I think that the students in home economics classes in these schools sometimes prepared (or helped prepare) the school lunches.
Junket.. now that word brings back memories! I loved when mom would make a big bowl of junket! Wonder if one can still buy junket tablets… Never had to chose from a school lunch menu… a packed lunch is all I knew. Now off to google junket tablets😁
Hope you found junket tablets. I haven’t thought about them in years.
I did! And at Walmart no less.😄
Wow, I’m amazed they are sold at Walmart. I’ll have to look for them.
My fav was always ground ham and butter pickle sandwiches that my Mom made.
mmm. . . it sounds like a tasty combination.
I only went to a school with a cafeteria for two years when I was very young. I remember having to eat everything we were given and we were given rutabaga!
Your comment reminds me of how the teachers used to say that we should eat all the food because there were starving children in Africa. I never could quite follow the logic of those statements.
On the West Coast where I grew up the starving children were in China!
Jellied salmon? Yikes!xxx
No jellied salmon for you?
Jellied salmon? Sounds too fancy for school lunch. You current high school menu sounds good. Some schools offer pizza and hamburgers around here.
I think that I saw pizza and hamburgers for other days on the October high school menu.
We didn’t have a canteen in primary school. If you lived close enough, you had to walk home for lunch. Everyone else sat in a sort of hall and ate a lunch they had brought. I always wished I didn’t have to walk home every lunch time.
And, I lived far from the school, and rode a bus in each day. I was always just a bit envious of the students who could walk home for lunch. 🙂
There are two meals on there that look good and one that I don’t know what it is. But all in all there’s some weird stuff on there. But I was just telling my husband the other day that I used to pick up my school lunch sit down at the table smell the food and then get up and throw everything on the tray away. Sorry for the lack of commas.
I also remember that much of the food at the school I attended wasn’t very appetizing.
Ours was truly awful. Except the chili and cornbread.
I was surprised that such comprehensive school lunches were available in 1919. I remember being served junket at boarding school in the 60s. I was hungry so I ate it but it was far from pleasant to my taste buds.
In the early 1900s many large high schools were built in the U.S. – and they typically had a cafeteria. In some cases, the students in home economics classes would help prepare the food.
Since I am hungry right now, Sheryl, everything on the menu looks good:) You are right on the jellied salmon. Green pea soup used to be popular not too long ago. I don’t see Cool whip anywhere, likely a good thing. A lot of fun to see 100 years ago:)
It’s nice to hear that you enjoyed this post. I’ll take whipped cream over Cool Whip any day. 🙂