6 Old School Cafeteria Meals We Can’t Believe We Used To Eat

Given the linoleum floors, heat lamps, and intermingling aromas of unidentified food, the thought of public school cafeterias stirs up nostalgic memories for most of us. Better yet, depending on what year you attended grade school, the food itself may be the most memorable part of all. Sure enough, while public school lunches have certainly evolved over the years to include more fresh ingredients and varied meal options, for Gen X’ers and millenials, these midday meals were often a free-for-all in terms of strange, oddball dishes and food combinations. Next to the old school cafeteria lunches that give us major nostalgia, such as sloppy Joe’s and macaroni and cheese, most of us were occasionally served a meal or two that had us scratching our heads in confusion.

It’s no surprise that food habits have changed drastically over the last few decades. Given the fact that cafeteria lunches throughout the 1970s were highly influenced by the popularization of fast food while federal budget cuts in the 1980s led to more processed, money-saving meals, many of us (even in the ’90s) consumed school lunches that didn’t always adequately cover the primary food groups. Needless to say, whether or not these one-off meals were nutritious or tasty, many of them certainly left a lasting (sometimes unappetizing) impression. Out of all the options to choose from, these are some of the strangest, most unconventional meals.

While there certainly was a time when Jell-O salads represented wealth and status, school kids in the 1960s and 1970s may have seen Jell-O in a different light. Sure enough, lime- or lemon-flavored Jell-O studded with raw, shredded carrots or chopped cabbage was sometimes used as an enticing ploy to get kids to eat their vegetables. Next to the usual cheeseburger, fries, and pudding cup, kids were guaranteed to find a blob of neon-colored Jell-O studded with bite-sized salad fixins in the corner of their plastic trays. Savory or sweet, this is one cafeteria side that left many perplexed.

While tuna melts are generally considered a fan-favorite sandwich, the smell of warm tuna wafting through school hallways before and after meal time was enough to put students off this fishy staple for lunch. Nevertheless, tuna bumsteads were a rotational mainstay for many school cafeterias. They consisted of white bread or hot dog buns stuffed with a classic tuna salad recipe composed of canned tuna, hard-boiled eggs, mayo, and pickles. The assembled buns were then covered with cheese, wrapped in foil, and slowly heated until lunchtime. Unfortunately though, most tuna melts need a bit of extra crunch with one necessary component, such as toasted bread. Many school kids found these packaged sandwiches not only foul-smelling, but also soggy.

Many kids in the ’80s and ’90s experienced pizza dog roll ups, which were halved hot dogs baked in biscuit dough with pizza sauce and shredded cheese. While some may cheerily refer to this old school meal as “cheesy blasters” thanks to an old episode of “30 Rock,” pizza hot dogs were one cafeteria meal that was either loved or hated by school kids far and wide.

Apart from serving kids the best (and worst) frozen chicken nuggets, some schools took it a step further by serving up processed chicken in the shape of snack-sized rings. While breaded and fried chicken rings didn’t differ too much from classic chicken nuggets in terms of ingredients and texture, their peculiar shape definitely had some kids questioning this somewhat elusive food come lunchtime. Not only were chicken rings heavily processed, but students and teachers regularly speculated whether or not they were actually made of real chicken.

Don’t be fooled by the title of this one. While in some instances Italian dunkers were prepackaged, frozen, cheese-stuffed bread sticks served with a side of pizza sauce, hot dog buns were also used to make this meal cheaper and more convenient. Even though leftover hot dog buns may be the perfect vessel for easy pizzas, the range of toppings used on standard hot dog buns to transform them into fully fledged meals varied greatly. In some schools, pizza sauce wasn’t even included and kids simply received a toasted bun with melted cheese along with a few packaged sides.

While ground beef mixed with gravy and served atop noodles or mashed potatoes isn’t necessarily a strange meal, this dish was given all sorts of interesting names by school children, including gravy train and barf on a cloud. Even the military often referred to this slop-like dish as s*** on a shingle. Though the type of meat used wasn’t always clear, many have fond memories of eating meat gravy at school — so much so that many people now prepare this dish for their families at home. Some even boost classic hamburger gravy to gourmet status with one show-stopping ingredient, such as mushrooms.