school lunch question

[Alpo]

I'm reading this webcomic. These are third graders. And for lunch today they have hamburger patties - not a hamburger with a bun just the meat - and green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy.

 

Mashed potatoes with gravy in a school lunch?

 

I realize it's been 52 years since I went to school, but I absolutely do not remember ever being served mashed potatoes. French fries. Occasionally tater tots. But that's the only kind of potatoes I ever remember getting.

 

So there is my question - do they serve mashed potatoes with gravy in elementary school lunch rooms?

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

When I was in Elementary School, ('60-'66), we brought bag lunches, or since this was before bussing, and our schools were actually in our neighbor, AND since back then most moms were homemakers, we might go home for lunch.

[Sheriff Dill]

When our children attended public school before we started homeschooling the menu they got to choose from was quite large. They had a daily lunch special and then always had pizza,sandwich and salad options. But I remember many times them having mashed potatoes and gravy if you wanted . The chef at the time was implementing everything be handmade vs frozen food for the school system using local ingredients.
 

They would have harvest dinners for parents to come and eat with the kids. The food including the mashed potatoes and gravy was pretty good especially for school lunch. 

This was within the last 12 years 

[Blackwater 53393]

I went to nine different public and private schools before I graduated from high school.  At every one of those schools, at one time or another, I was served mashed (whipped) potatoes and gravy!  I was also occasionally served ground beef patties without a bun, most of the time with corn or green beans. We also had spaghetti once a week and chili every other week!

 

In the schools in the northeast, where much of the student body was catholic, we had fish on Friday, every Friday. There was “shepherds’ pie” on some days at every one of those schools.

 

My personal opinion was that the food was mostly lousy and I usually brought my lunch or, where it was allowed and convenient I either went home for lunch or went to a local deli for a sandwich and/or some soup!  I could get a ham and cheese on good rye bread and Coke or milk for about a dollar and I’d sometimes splurge and have a Reuben or a roast beef or Italian sausage sandwich for an extra quarter!

 

Back then, a lunch ticket at the schools was $.50 a day. I’d bring lunch from home a couple of days a week, spend a nickel for milk, save the $.45 and have $2.40 to spend on lunch at the deli a couple of days a week! Pop bottles, beer bottles, and grocery bags could be turned in for deposit, so I almost always had a buck or two that I could use for lunch or ice cream or baked goods after school!  The bakery, the deli, and the ice cream shop were all within a block or two of the school!

It was only seven blocks from where I lived when we were farthest away! At one time, in third and fourth grades I was less than a block from the school. It was the early ‘60s and we could get to nearly anywhere in town in ten or fifteen minutes on foot!

 

 

Edited October 2, 2025 by Blackwater 53393

[Wallaby Jack, SASS #44062]

Way back in Primary School* (60+ years ago) we had to take our own lunch, or go without.

Vegemite sammiches, or whatever, sat in our school bags which hung on pegs on the outside wall under the verandah roof; summer and winter.

Considering the summer heat, it's a wonder we didn't die from food poisoning because our lunch was at ambient temperature for about 4 hours.

 

* we don't do 'elementary'

 

my first 6 years of school life was in a 2 teacher/ 2 room country school; then OMG high school and a (gasp) tuck shop.

 

I had absolutely no concept of a cafeteria  🙃

[Rye Miles #13621]

My mom always packed my lunch in elementary school, I had a Roy Rogers lunch box. I would buy a chocolate milk for 3 cents.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

I don’t remember anything but a bag lunch and a nickel for milk

[Alpo]

2 hours ago, Rye Miles #13621 said:

My mom always packed my lunch in elementary school, I had a Roy Rogers lunch box. I would buy a chocolate milk for 3 cents.

One of the few things I remember about second grade.

 

The first day of school the teacher asked who brought their lunch. I raised my hand. She told me to bring it up to the front of the class so she could twist the top.

 

I sat there puzzled, trying to make some sense out of that. So she repeated that I should bring my lunch up to the front of the class so she could twist the top which would keep ants out of it.

 

I reached down next to my chair and lift up my Zorro lunch box, and just hold it up in the air.

 

"Oh. Never mind."

 

I also remember we were doing tenses - parts of speech. She wrote the word TAKE on the board, had somebody come up and write the past tense - TOOK. Then I was called up there to write the past participle. I wrote TOOKEN. She told me that I had misspelled taken. I told her that I had not written taken. I had written tooken. That wasn't correct?

 

And we were having a math test. Word problem. Tommy and Billy had a candy bar. Tommy cut it in two and gave a piece to Billy. Billy complained, "You got the bigger half". Is there such a thing as a bigger half?

 

I didn't know, so I copied off Twila's paper. We were both wrong.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Bag lunches.  Catholic school, and no cafeteria.  In 6th grade some of the moms decided that we needed something different, so Thursdays were "Hamburger Days." About a dozen of them would cook burgers in the parish hall kitchen.  By class we'd go and buy our lunch if we wanted to.  Burger, small bag of chips, and doughnuts.  Table with pickles, mustard, catsup.  I think the burgers were 50 cents, doughnuts and chips 25 cents each.

In high school I went to public school.  No cafeteria, but "lunch windows," much like a fast food thing.  The only thing I ever bought there was milk.

[El Chapo]

I'm pretty sure 30+ years ago, some of the most terrible powdered mashed potatoes you have ever had were served at my elementary schools. 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

1 hour ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

I don’t remember anything but a bag lunch and a nickel for milk

Well, ok, I had a Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox

[Stump Water]

1 hour ago, El Chapo said:

I'm pretty sure 30+ years ago, some of the most terrible powdered mashed potatoes you have ever had were served at my elementary schools. 

 

This^... except it was 50+ years ago.

 

Mom refused to pack us lunch for school.  When I got old enough I started doing it myself.  Brown paper lunch bag which I had to use for more than one day.

[Cypress Sun]

 

I still make a Potato Turbate casserole in an attempt to replicate a meal served at the school cafeteria in Pinellas Co. when I was young. Kind of a Shepards Pie...but different. 

 

Had the green beans, smashed potatoes and gravy stuff also, liked it also.

 

The cafeteria thing may just be a deal that whomever was in charge of the cafeteria called the shots back then. Southern schools had southern recipes and Northern schools had theirs's also.

 

I distinctly remember being served mashed potatoes and tater tots, don't remember French fries though.

 

I have no idea what they serve these days..

[Windy City Kid]

50 minutes ago, Stump Water said:

Mom refused to pack us lunch for school.

My mom packed my lunch until I was in HS, despite working her job and maintaining a house. Don't think I ever thanked her. 😞

[Rye Miles #13621]

2 hours ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

Well, ok, I had a Hopalong Cassidy lunchbox

I had a Roy Rogers lunchbox! 

[Smokin Gator SASS #29736]

I graduated high school in 71. I don't remember eating in  a cafeteria with food served until high school. Maybe they did but I always hand lunch from home. In high school I would get 2 of the little cheeseburgers and a chocolate drink. I'm pretty sure it wasn't actual chocolate milk.

[Sedalia Dave]

 

 

On 10/1/2025 at 11:11 PM, Alpo said:

I'm reading this webcomic. These are third graders. And for lunch today they have hamburger patties - not a hamburger with a bun just the meat - and green beans and mashed potatoes with gravy.

 

Mashed potatoes with gravy in a school lunch?

 

I realize it's been 52 years since I went to school, but I absolutely do not remember ever being served mashed potatoes. French fries. Occasionally tater tots. But that's the only kind of potatoes I ever remember getting.

 

So there is my question - do they serve mashed potatoes with gravy in elementary school lunch rooms?

 

Back when I was in school that was called Salisbury Steak.  I remember having it a few times.

[Alpo]

For it to be Salisbury steak, doesn't it have to have a mushroom gravy on it?

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

21 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

Back when I was in school that was called Salisbury Steak.  I remember having it a few times.

They CALLED it a Salisbury Steak. It was just a hamburger covered with gravy.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

1 hour ago, Alpo said:

For it to be Salisbury steak, doesn't it have to have a mushroom gravy on it?

No

[Sedalia Dave]

1 hour ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

They CALLED it a Salisbury Steak. It was just a hamburger covered with gravy.

 

2 hours ago, Alpo said:

For it to be Salisbury steak, doesn't it have to have a mushroom gravy on it?

 

The Interesting History Behind Satisfying Salisbury Steak 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2025 by Sedalia Dave

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Late 1940s and early 50s we got a lot of surplus canned goods.

 

To this day I can't eat lima beans, green beans, stewed tomatoes, powdered milk, canned eggs, potato soup, SPAM, oleomargerine,  and a few dozen other "delicious delicacies" food products.

 

Things got A LOT better around 1955 and I started eating school lunches instead if Mom's home made  sandwiches.

Edited October 8, 2025 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[John Kloehr]

47 minutes ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

Things got A LOT better around 1855 and I started eating school lunches instead if Mom's home made  sandwiches.

That explains your low SASS number. 

 

At some point, I just stopped eating school lunches. Item by item, I got to the point where I would rather just be hungry.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

31 minutes ago, John Kloehr said:

That explains your low SASS number. 

 

At some point, I just stopped eating school lunches. Item by item, I got to the point where I would rather just be hungry.

Oopsy daisy. Damn dyslexic key board.  I got it corrected.  Thanks.

 

(I'm old but, really...not that old.)

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

10 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

Oopsy daisy. Damn dyslexic key board.  I got it corrected.  Thanks.

 

(I'm old but, really...not that old.)

Seriously? I've ssen you remember when Christ was a corporal.

[Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770]

25 minutes ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

Seriously? I've seen you remember when Christ was a corporal.

I believe that you said he was in your Squad. I'd about bet that the only reason that you weren't in the Last Supper painting is that you'd gotten up to refill the Bug Juice pitcher.

Edited October 9, 2025 by Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

14 minutes ago, Sgt. C.J. Sabre, SASS #46770 said:

I believe that you said he was in your Squad. I'd about bet that the only reason that you weren't in the Last Supper painting is that you'd gotten up to refill the Bug Juice pitcher.

Nono, I was in his platoon.

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

To answer your question, I have no idea what they put forth in this modern, Godless and plastic age for lunch.
I know what it was half a century ago.

My lunch box was painted like a covered wagon.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

8 hours ago, Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103 said:

To answer your question, I have no idea what they put forth in this modern, Godless and plastic age for lunch.
I know what it was half a century ago.

My lunch box was painted like a covered wagon.

I thought your lunch box WAS a covered wagon.

 

I'm sorry.  I just couldn't pass that up.  

Edited October 9, 2025 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Alpo]

Covered wagon lunch box. That was Roy Rogers, wasn't it?

 

Just went and looked. They have several different covered wagon lunch boxes. But this is the one I was remembering.

 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

[Alpo]

I had this one in the second grade.

 

 

I think the rest of elementary school I carried a sack lunch. And then from junior high on I bought my lunch. But second grade I had Zorro.