What Every Iowa School Lunch Tasted Like

 

The lunch ladies always knew your name.

The trays were beige.

The milk was ice cold.

Everything smelled faintly like bleach, mashed potatoes, and cafeteria pizza.

If you grew up in Iowa anytime from the 1960s through the 1990s, school lunch wasn’t just food. It was part of childhood. Some meals were incredible. Some were borderline punishments. Most of them tasted exactly the same no matter what town you lived in.

The weird part?

Almost all of us miss it now.

The Rectangle Pizza Nobody Has Ever Forgotten

Not round pizza.

Rectangle pizza.

The crust was soft in the middle and crunchy on the edges. The cheese slid off in one giant sheet if you bit it wrong. The sauce tasted sweet and salty at the same time.

Somehow it was always:

·                     slightly overcooked

·                     slightly undercooked

·                     molten lava hot

Kids burned the roofs of their mouths for 30 straight years.

Nobody learned.

Mashed Potatoes With the Ice Cream Scoop Marks

The lunch ladies could serve mashed potatoes faster than NASCAR pit crews.

One scoop.

THUNK.

Next tray.

The potatoes weren’t fancy. They probably came from a box the size of a washing machine. They still tasted incredible next to the turkey gravy.

Especially in winter.

Especially after recess.

The Tiny Cartons of Chocolate Milk

Nothing in human history has ever been colder than Iowa school chocolate milk.

You stabbed the carton with a straw and prayed you didn’t miss.

Miss the hole? Chocolate milk exploded across the table.

The cartons always ended up:

·                     puffed up

·                     leaking

·                     frozen in one corner

Still perfect.

Breaded Pork Tenderloin Day Was Basically a State Holiday

Iowa schools knew what mattered.

The pork tenderloin patties were bigger than the bun. The breading shattered across the tray like broken glass when you bit into it.

Kids who normally hated school lunch suddenly became very interested in cafeteria food.

Especially if there was:

·                     mashed potatoes

·                     buttered corn

·                     cinnamon applesauce

Elite lunch combination.

The Cinnamon Rolls Bigger Than Your Head

Some Iowa schools served cinnamon rolls with chili.

Nobody outside the Midwest understands this.

Nobody outside the Midwest deserves to.

The rolls were warm, sticky, and dripping icing across the tray while the chili steamed nearby in those brown bowls that could survive nuclear war.

It shouldn’t have worked.

It absolutely worked.

Taco Day Was Controlled Chaos

The taco meat tasted identical in every Iowa school district.

Nobody knows why.

The shredded lettuce was always watery.

The cheese came in pale yellow strips.

The taco shells shattered instantly.

Still amazing.

Especially when someone dumped half a bottle of mild sauce on top and regretted it ten minutes later in math class.

The Peanut Butter Bars That Could Start Fights

Every school had legendary dessert bars.

Peanut butter bars.

Scotcheroos.

Chocolate sheet cake.

Rice Krispies Treats the size of bricks.

Kids would trade entire lunches for good dessert items.

You learned economics in the cafeteria before you learned it in class.

Brown Gravy Covered Absolutely Everything

Turkey gravy was Iowa cafeteria duct tape.

Too dry?

Add gravy.

Mystery meat?

Add gravy.

Mashed potatoes?

Obviously gravy.

By February, half the cafeteria menu was basically different ways to transport gravy into your body.

Nobody complained.

It was Iowa.

Winter lasted eleven months.

The Corn Was Mandatory

Every tray had corn.

Didn’t matter what the main meal was.

Pizza?

Corn.

Chicken patty?

Corn.

Tacos?

Still corn somehow.

This was Iowa. Corn wasn’t a side dish. It was a lifestyle.

The Smell of School Lunch at 10:30 in the Morning

The smell hit the hallways before lunch started.

You’d be sitting in math class trying to focus on fractions while the smell of baking rolls drifted through the vents.

That smell meant:

·                     lunchtime

·                     noise

·                     friends

·                     trading desserts

·                     escaping class for 30 minutes

For a lot of Iowa kids, that smell still feels like childhood.

The Lunch Ladies Ran the Entire Building

Principals had authority.

Teachers had rules.

Lunch ladies had power.

They knew:

·                     Who forgot lunch money

·                     Who was having a bad day

·                     Who needed an extra roll

·                     Who always asked for seconds

Most of them moved at superhuman speed.

You could put 400 hungry Iowa kids in line and those women still got everybody fed in twenty minutes.

Absolute legends.

We Complained About It Constantly

Then grew up and missed every second of it.

Funny how that works.

Nobody knew those cafeteria lunches would become memories people talked about forty years later.

But here we are.

Still thinking about rectangle pizza.

Still remembering chocolate milk cartons.

Still craving cinnamon rolls and chili on snowy Iowa afternoons.

Still complaining about the Spanish rice, and the race to the bathroom after eating a couple spoonfuls.

What Do You Remember?

Did your Iowa school serve:

·                     chili and cinnamon rolls?

·                     loose meat sandwiches?

·                     peanut butter bars?

·                     incredible tacos?

·                     terrible fish sticks?

·                     those little cups of mixed fruit?

Tell me what I missed.

Before you go

 If you’ve ever said, “I remember that place”… this blog is for you.

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