Don't know if this goes here, but....

[Eisa]

Wow. I'm glad they got royally chewed out. WTF. I know there are a lot of schools that won't even SERVE peanut butter anything because of peanut allergies...so what the fuck is up with ONLY giving out pb sandwiches?

[Pagan]

I wish someone would do that here. I've seen building materials more edible than some things I was served for school lunch.

And here I'm thinking what was supposedly Salisbury Steak.

When I grew up and found out that it's actually good if it's made properly....with actual meat....

The enchiladas though, those were good.

[LadyAndreca]

In high school my parents were threatening to send me to a shrink because I wasn't eating. I was pretty much living off of toast and peanut butter because the food at my boarding school was THAT inedible. I couldn't eat anything with the word 'steak' in the title, like 'country-fried steak' or 'salisbury steak' because I'd want to throw up. The most edible thing my sophomore year (aside from the weekly glue-covered cardboard that was 'mexican pizza') was the irridescent green pork chops. And because I was still playing soccer, it was very noticeable I was getting very sick very fast.

The chef was fired the following year because the monks couldn't take the food anymore. :P

[dalesys]

Or the Mil-Spec "Chipped Beef on Toast" aka SOS: Sh** Ona Shingle.


I remember at Scout Camp one year, dehydrated everything was the fad and they tried to feed us some kind of de-constipated salad!

Now Scouts are always hungry and damn close to garbage disposals, but the most ravenous of us only managed two swallows before

[Geek King]

I remember at Scout Camp one year, dehydrated everything was the fad and they tried to feed us some kind of de-constipated salad!

Now Scouts are always hungry and damn close to garbage disposals, but the most ravenous of us only managed two swallows before

Heh, scout camp food. I remember one disaster of a head cook we had one year. One of his planned meals was literally biscuits and gravy with a side of biscuit. Worse, the biscuits were so hard we took the (many) leftover biscuits out to the rifle range for practice. They actually shattered like clay targets instead of just leaving a little bullet hole.

Karma kind of repaid me when I worked there, though. That year they had a chef in training who needed large service practice (cooking for lots of people at once). Once he got his ordering and portions down, the food was incredibly awesome every meal. He even had good connections in the area to get his food cheap, so the end of camp councellor dinner ended being able to afford prime rib, seafood, and real chocolate mousse. The food alone was worth getting piddly pay.

[fireheart]

de-constipated....does that mean that there were no prunes in it?

[dalesys]

de-constipated....does that mean that there were no prunes in it?

Didn't need prunes, as it had no opportunity to cork any bungholes.

[EricKei]

Oh gawd, I remember high school food x.x I had some stuff on occasion that would have compared favorably to dog food >_>

Oddly enough, the one place I had comparatively "really good" food (meaning, state-fair level of quality) was a public school (these have well-earned bad reps here) that, of course, I ended up attending for only a few months due to the family moving around x.x

[Dragon_Dreamer]

I got REALLY lucky with my school. The food there was GOOD, fresh made daily balanced meals with a wide range of items. Sack lunches ALWAYS included a choice of turkey, ham, or vegetarian options, and everything was always delicious, though they did encourage parents to send sack lunches on field trips.

There was fresh made pizza, every Friday, perfectly cooked, fresh mozzarella, spicy pepperoni and sausage, and crust just chewy enough to be utterly filling. The lines tended to go from the kitchen to the other side of the gym/cafeteria, out the door, and doubled all the way back to outside the kitchen again. It was that wonderful. I haven't had such good pizza since graduating.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

And here I'm thinking what was supposedly Salisbury Steak.

.

Oh, no. Oh, God, please. No.

I'm having a flashback.

I think I need to be held.

[Kristev]

Now I'm more grateful than ever that, until High school, when there were several options to choose from (California is wonderful in many ways), Mother would send us with a sack lunch most of the time.

[teh_blumchenkinder]

huh. My experiences in varied school systems: (rough approximations for school year-zones)
primary and intermidiate were on a military base in the states: edible, didn't have thoughts one way or the other. Fresh fruits were often available, even though we were in a Rocky Mountain state.
Middle school: Plains state, still not horrible or excellent, would prefer to bring my own on occasions, but usually wanted hot food. Loved the corn, must be bulk canned sweet corn or something, 'cuz I've never been able to find it since... I'd go back for more!
Current/Same state as Primary/Intermediate school, not same town
High School part 1: meh, heavy on the greasy stuff, needed more veg and fruit that wasn't gloopy, preferred sack lunches.
High School part 2: tiny cafeteria in a private school, but was a 'cheap' private school, meaning they still needed to save money, etc.: occasionally got specials like pizza or Mexican when they served it, brought sack lunches, about half and half.
College: O_O so many veggies and fruits, all fresh... and grilled stuff, and other ethnic foods, way a lot of variety, but still had that 'cafeteria' taste, somehow... except for all the breakfast stuff but the pre-scrambled eggs and sausages.
Now: make my own damn food.
Frequently, there'd be two or three choices in school for what you wanted, even milk.

[Der Cute]

I agree with a PP that your child should have a backup lunch. Does your son have a locker? Send one of those microwaveable small cup soups or lunches. Or a cup o noodles, something shelf -stable. That way if something happens, he'll be able to fall on backup.
Something like : Food served is Thai Noodles fried in Peanut Oil with celery and PB for snack.
"Excuse me, Mrs. Smith, can I get my lunch from my locker? Today's lunch is too peanutty for me. I'd like to eat in the classroom too, having so much peanut stuff around me hurts."

and yes get the 504.

[Kara]

Somehow missed this thread til now, so I'll offer my two cents.

A couple of years ago, my oldest son was going to preschool. The preschool was part of the grade school itself. Near the end of his first year of preschool, they would call us almost every day and tell us he got sick. It was always just after lunch and every time he'd been fine before then. So after a week in the hospital, they had him seen by a pediatric gastrointerologist. Though everything LOOKED fine, they thought he might be developing Celiac, or at the very least, a sensitivity to gluten. So he was put on a gluten free diet for six months. So not only did we have to tell a 4 years old boy that he could never have Chicken McNuggets again, we found out how enormously expensive it is to have to live without gluten. It is in EVERYTHING, things you wouldn't even have considered. We found rice and bean flours, but you need different flours for different recipes and I swear to god half our cabinet was this or that flour.

Then he got to school in the fall and they basically told us that gluten free is not a "recognized" diet within the school system and that if we wanted him to have anything different that what was on the menu, we'd have to send lunches with him. They flat out told us that if they had to make an exception for him, they'd have to make exception for every random kid who has this or that allergy, and that costs too much money for them. I'm not a fan of our school system, by the way.

So we got to send all kinds of interesting things to school for his lunches. Lots of Thai and Asian ready-meals (rice noodles), homemade spaghetti (corn noodles), chicken nuggets battered with rice flour, or when we had to, a PBJ on rice bread (if you've never had it, rice bread is very hard).

The thing that pissed us off was that they knew he had special meals and it would take him a bit longer to get set up and eat with a few of the things we sent him, but nearly every day he brought half his lunch back home. We'd ask him why he didn't eat, and he said he ran out of time and they told him he could eat the rest when he got home.

We had so many fights with the principal of this school, in case you were wondering.

Luckily for my son, they checked him after 6 months and found no sign of celiac and said to go ahead and let him have regular food again. We told him he could eat gluten and the very first thing he said was, "I can have Arby's... ON A BUN? YAY!!!!!" We would get him a roast beef at Arby's, sans bun, and put it on rice bread or a gluten-free flat bread for him. He didn't like it as much as he let on.

[HappyFun Ball]

I lack a sophisticated palate, so I enjoyed the nasty food my school offered.. We have a kind of bulk store that sells pizza like what was offered in my school, I get them even now, I like them.

I would have raised 9 kinds of Hell on not having a suitable alternative offering.