What did you eat for lunch in grade school?

Grade school – - – I brought my lunch from home; PB&J, bologna and cheese, left-over fried chicken and sometimes a hard-boiled egg with salt & pepper.

I ate the hot lunch in the cafeteria. My mom didn’t make us lunches, The only time I took my lunch was for field trips.

One time my mom made me a turkey sandwich on the Monday after Thanksgiving/ Without my knowing it, she put cranberry sauce on it, which ruined the sandwich and the white bread it was on. Disaster.

In grade school I ate the hot lunch in cafeteria also. My mom didn’t fix our lunches.

My mom would pack a lunch for me Monday through Thursday. On Fridays we would have catered food from various local establishments (this would have been third through eighth grade. The catered food was an option but I always opted in). My mom would usually pack a sandwich, apple slices, and maybe some chips or fruit snacks. I didn’t go to schools with cafeterias. They weren’t common around here.

When I was in grade school (mid-1970s), I remember having a lunch box (one of the tin ones that’s vintage now) and my mom would make cream cheese and jelly sandwiches, and there would be a piece of fruit and the Thermos with milk in it. She used wax paper, so now, whenever I see wax paper, it reminds me of my childhood. Occasionally she’d give me a ham sandwich or liverwurst.

When I was in 5th, 7th and 8th grade (I skipped 6th), I went to private school and they had decent food in the cafeteria. I remember chicken a la king being on the menu. Now, no school cafeteria would make that but that’s one of the things on the menu there.

Whatever mom made. Where I grew up, in the early 1960s, we went home for lunch. Most women were stay-at-home moms.

Mostly school lunch like hamburgers, pizza, chicken patty or nuggets, salisbury steak, etc… All plates in elementary through junior high were the meat, bread, veggie, dessert formula, but small portions.

In the school cafeteria we had amazing spaghetti and meatballs way too rarely. I can actually picture this huge lady behind a two foot deep stainless pot, dish up the pasta as her arm went up into the air and she’d have her tongue sticking out. At least once a week they’d
serve stewed tomatoes , from cans I think, that I disliked but was
starved so I ate them. That is all I recall. At home mom would stir whole milk into canned tomato soup and I would float Velveeta on the top. Sometimes I’d have a grilled cheese sandwich with the soup and dip the sandwich into the soup. Tomato soup does not taste great anymore. I also loved vegetarian vegetable soup and chicken n stars.

Well I brought my lunch to school every day. It was usually some kind of sandwich and chips. Then I would buy the little carton of milk. In the winter I got soup in a thermos a lot.

Very rare did we have lunch and even then it was one thin peanut butter and jam half sandwich.
Most of the time we had nothing.

@Inspired_2write That is so sad! Were there no options for any kind of help from your school ?

@anniereborn

Not at that time in the early 1950’s/1960’s and we grew up thinking that was normal.

Each kid was provided with milk (vanilla, chocolate, or plain). The rest of my lunch, I brought from home. I had a very special Pocahontas lunchbox with two levels. I remember cheese sandwiches and little plastic containers with applesauce (I would never have eaten sliced apples at that age. Brown spots. Ugh). Sometimes there were some healthy cookies, often slices of carrot or cucumber. And when I had a scary maths test, my mum included little notes of encouragement, as well as one of my toys for good luck.

I still have the lunchbox i used all those years. I had the same lunch box for my entire time in grade school. My mom always asked if i wanted a new one, but I didn’t. It was some psychological thing. I just needed something consistent in my little life.

Btw it was a Charlie Brown tin lunchbox