School Cafeteria Memories

[Pomai]

The school cafeteria (or hall or whatever you called it) is an all-important part of the educational experience. Full of great and horrible food, good times and mishaps beyond embarrassment.

Preschool thru college - breakfast thru dinner - here's the thread to share your school cafeteria memories!

[Pomai]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

I'll start with preschool, which is pretty damned hard to remember. I went to Beerman's (spelling?), which used to be located in an apartment complex behind St. Mark's Lutheran school in Kaneohe.

One the best memories I have of that place (besides hating to go) was the daily snack of Diamond brand Saltine Soda Crackers with a cup of Fruit Punch (the perfect chaser to those salty crackers). The only other option I remember them giving us was half a PBJ. It actually was served to us right in the classroom, but that was my first experience of eating in school.. and from then on, it was my favorite part of going there to begin with.

[SusieMisajon]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

I used to save the milk, to drink last...it was best, when we had the peanut butter cake, the one with the peanut butter and sugar frosting, to go with it.

[AbsolutChaos]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

I was a picky eater (and unfortunately still am), so I absolutely hated school lunch. I was raised on spicy Indian food, so you can imagine how bland the school food was to me. I used to give away alot of my food to other kids who wanted it. I didn't like milk either, so I really had to force myself to drink it. I didn't like the thick texture, and I didn't like the mucus it produced (think I have some lactose intolerance).

Later on I started bringing my own lunch--and like most middle school kids who made their own lunch, there really wasn't anything healthy in it. Usually I brought some kind of cheese crackers, chips, Mountain Dew, and maybe a a Little Debbie/Hostess snack. Those bad eating habits, unfortunately, stay with me to this day.

I still look back on middle school with a great deal of distaste. The building had no air conditioning, and after lunch, they'd stick us outside in this large yard with only one shade tree. It was near the Purina dog food factory, so the air reeked. If it was raining or too cold, we'd have to sit in the gym, another place I absolutely hated, because I was horrible at sports.

I do remember one kinda funny story though--I was opening a fudge round package, and I opened it in such a way that it went flying through the air, half-way across the cafeteria. Luckly it didn't hit anybody.

I have no urge to ever re-visit my middle school or high school days, uck. I was glad to leave them behind, and that includes memories of the school cafeteria.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

Growing up as a teenager in the 70's, there was a meatball that ended up sitting on a steel beam that made the roof for Kaimuki Middle School's cafeteria. My older sister told me when I went to Kaimuki Intermediate (at that time) to look for that petrified meatball as it happened when she was going there during a foodfight back in the late 60's.

When I got there in 1972 the first thing I looked for was that meatball. It was there and it stayed there for many years to follow.

[Pomai]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

Craig, that meatball factoid is HILARIOUS! You mean it's not there anymore? That should've been established as an official landmark!

**Tour trolley drives by Kaimuki Intermediate as conductor points and explains to tourists, "Here we have the only structure in Hawaii - or perhaps the world - held up by a petrified meatball".**

[Adri]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

My father is sometimes a picky eater. So he mentioned once that he really liked baked macaroni. I don't recall us ever eating baked macaroni at home. I like cooking and in my recollection I've never heard my father say his favorite food was something, so I searched and searched for a good recipe for that. The one I got used most of the pots I own and called for making a bechamel sauce, red wine for the meat part of it, 4 different kinds of gourmet cheeses. It took about 3 hours to make from beginning to end. I've cooked some fairly complicated dishes before but this one had me a little stressed. But I finished and proudly presented the baked macaroni to my father for dinner. He said it was "good" but he didn't look thrilled with it. So I asked him if it was what he was thinking of when he said "baked macaroni". He grudgingly admitted it wasn't. What was he thinking of? The kind that they serve at school for lunch.

[kaneohegirl]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

working in da cafeteria.... das da best memories for me starting in 4th grade at Puuhale elem in Kalihi anden in 6th at Puahala in Kaneohe those were the best. the food sucked but you got outta class for go to work in the cafeteria an aftah pau clean up you got to have special treat like Ice cake or extra dessert...

[adrian]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

Ah, school cafeterias. In HS, we had a schoolwide lockdown, and everyone got angry because they had to leave their food to take cover in the surrounding buildings. Oh, and there's the times when we had to work in the cafeteria. I bet every public school kid was guilty of giving their friend(s) an extra serving of the main course, and/or giving too little to your enemy .

I didn't complain about the food, but it wasn't the best tasting also. I still miss the lasanga, turkey, and roasted chicken (and if you were lucky, then you'd get all three at one time! [probably because its their way of getting rid of extra food]).

Oh, and I remembered when a fight was started in Intermediate school by some bullies who grabbed one of the trash cans full of food and milk and just dumped it on the floor, and some landed on some unlucky kids. Man, that brought back some memories.

[D'Alani]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

working in da cafeteria.... das da best memories for me starting in 4th grade at Puuhale elem in Kalihi anden in 6th at Puahala in Kaneohe those were the best. the food sucked but you got outta class for go to work in the cafeteria an aftah pau clean up you got to have special treat like Ice cake or extra dessert...

Gotta agree with this...worked in the cafeteria all thru high school, Lanakila Elementary, Kalakaua Intermediate, and Farrington high School. I especially liked the baked spaghetti they used to make, with the cheese on top, ans FHS had one of the best French Apple pies.

[Da Rolling Eye]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

My father is sometimes a picky eater. So he mentioned once that he really liked baked macaroni. I don't recall us ever eating baked macaroni at home. I like cooking and in my recollection I've never heard my father say his favorite food was something, so I searched and searched for a good recipe for that. The one I got used most of the pots I own and called for making a bechamel sauce, red wine for the meat part of it, 4 different kinds of gourmet cheeses. It took about 3 hours to make from beginning to end. I've cooked some fairly complicated dishes before but this one had me a little stressed. But I finished and proudly presented the baked macaroni to my father for dinner. He said it was "good" but he didn't look thrilled with it. So I asked him if it was what he was thinking of when he said "baked macaroni". He grudgingly admitted it wasn't. What was he thinking of? The kind that they serve at school for lunch.

Ah, you went too fancy. My Dad's the same.
Brown up some plain'ol hamburger, 1 lb.
Boil up a bag of elbow macaroni.
Add a can of tomato sauce to the meat, along with some diced
onion (1/2 onion), celery (1 stalk) and some carrots (one small carrot) and garlic (maybe 1 tsp.) If mixture is too dry, add a bit of beef broth or water. Add a bay leaf or two
and some paprika and a touch of sugar (1 to 2 tsp., use raw sugar if can) to cut the acidity. You don't want to make it sweet. Just to cut the "bite".
Mix it all together with the macaroni and put into a baking
dish. Top with plain'ol grated cheddar cheese and bake till the
crust is golden brown. All pau.
If it's fancy you want, dice up some green peppers (1/2 pepper). I remember green peppers in baked beef macaroni.

Our school made the headlines for this one.
Bunch of us nerdy types used to hang out on the far end of the caf, away from the stage. About 2 rows of benches below the stage was usually occupied by lots of the military kids, which it was as usual. What was unusual was the amount of local kids hanging out on the stage, but we didn't give it much thought.

On this particular day, the caf filled up with purple smoke. Seems one of the military kids brought a mil ord smoke bomb to school and chucked it at one of the school mokes. It landed on and broke his big toe. Broken big toe and all, he chased down the kid and beat the heck out of him, which was what prompted the poor kid to bring the smoke bomb to school in the first place.

The smoke bomb incident was just coincidence, but it signalled the local kids on the stage to mob the military kids sitting in those first couple of rows of benches and an all out race riot ensued. Yeah, it was "kill haole day" at Leilehua HS. Garbage cans, plates and food flew every which way. Garbage in some cans were set afire and fists were flying. Our nerdy group, haoles, Japanese, Filipinos and whatevahs got the heck outta there. Some of our haole buddies took a few punches, but we all made it out in good shape and hid out at the far end of campus.

We'd seen this happen the past couple of years, but it was never this violent. One week before the last day of school there were maybe a dozen or so brave haole kids in school. Funny thing is they were never bothered after that day, even by the perpetrators. It all seems to come out only on that one day and forgotten the next. The other funny thing is that a lot of the mokes that participated in that riot had haole military kids as friends. Something I'll never forget.

On a bright note, a girl who had a crush on me tried to kiss me when I was lying down on a caf bench after school. I ran and hid out at the far end of campus.

[Adri]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

Da Rolling Eye thanks for the recipe! I'll give that a try

You ran away from that poor girl who tried to kiss you and bruised her heart?

Kill Haole Day became less visible by the time I was in high school. I wonder if it still goes on?

[Erika Engle]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

Pahoa High School caf ... I wouldn't call it awesome, but there were definitely memorable dishes (in a good way AND a bad way).

The ground beef pizza was good -- not by my standards today, but compared to other school lunches it served. I always ate double-lunch that day, something I only did on pizza days.

Junior and senior years, I was one of the rotating cashiers, so my lunches those days were free.

I also remember the cheese-topped baked spaghetti (or beef-macaroni with tomato sauce), in a positive way.

I love spinach, but I could never bring myself to eat it at school. It just looked nasty. Overcooked, and, ugh. Just couldn't do it.

With our health consciousness the way it is now, you probably don't find fried rice and bologna as the main course anymore (and it's just as well). The fried rice was always greasy and there were, invariably, really hard bits of rice in it.

The BEST thing at the Pahoa High School caf, though was da COOKIE! (The shortbread kind - some ono). Mrs. Hokoana (Florence?), the cafeteria manager, actually gave me the recipe when I asked for it, and helped me reduce it from the multiple-bun-pan recipe the school used. I had some good success at home (after some less than perfect experimental results). Now though, I don't know where that index card, with all my scratches and corrections, is.

[Pomai]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

I used to LOVE St. Louis High School cafeteria's cheeseburger with that AWESOME Teriyaki-Brown Gravy. It tasted like they added shoyu, ginger and sugar into the brown gravy mix. I used to tell the lady to drizzle extra gravy on the fries and mac salad... ooooh the flavor of da' gravy mixed with the mayonaise on the mac... broke da' mout'!

Because the cafeteria food at St. Louis Caf' cost just as much as a typical plate lunch, many times I would pocket most of my weekly lunch allowance and spend it on buying new rock albums at Tower Records. Eating a light lunch was worth it!

Oh, and this HOT Chaminade student named Carla. What an exotic beauty. She used to come in wearing those super high Dove shorts (remember those?) that made all us high school guys drool.

[helen]

Re: School Cafeteria Memories

I too was a picky eater (in my early years), elementary school, always brought lunch from home. High school the first year I was there I ate lunch, the other years for the most part I didn't lunch, not because the food was terrible but I go hang out at one of the science teacher's classroom and deal with the model rockets there.

College was okay. First semester I was there at UH Hilo the cafeteria used to be in College Hall and was a cash only place on Monday thru Friday. The students living in the dorm had to fend for themselves during the weekend and we couldn't cook things in our room due to electrical issues (too many hot plates tripping the circuit breakers was the reason).

Second semester the cafeteria moved over to the Campus Center, run by SAGA, cash only for lunch, meal plan for breakfast and dinner but only for Monday to Friday, weekends we had to fend for ourselves (burgers at Cafe 100 mostly but one did go to other places).

The second year there they offered more meal plans and did open during the weekends.

During my time as a student at UH Manoa SAGA also ran the cafeterias there.