I was going to say I don't recall anything specific enough about school cafeteria food, but DR Jrand66 reminds me of some. It's amazing how prevalent the fish on Friday thing was. For us in Ohio and Florida it was fish sticks, not sandwiches. Calendars always had a little fish symbol on Fridays to remind us of the needs of those "exotic" Catholics -- Catholics being about as exotic as things got in Columbus, Ohio of the 1950s.
I think I remember the only drink available in elementary school being the little half-pint cartons of milk. Don't recall other dishes, specifically, but I'm sure Sloppy Joes were among them. And there was no particular choice about what to eat -- you either brought your lunch (but still paid your nickel for the damned milk) or you ate whatever was on the plate they handed you.
Remember those flavored milk straws? Strawberry was my favorite. My sister and I (who never much loved the taste of milk) started taking them to school to drink the milk through.
The memory that's always stayed with me was entering high school (tenth grade then) when it seemed a whole new world opened up in the cafeteria, because we were actually offered CHOICES of things to eat, and now you could have a hamburger! Iced tea (already sweetened) was a drink choice, and I bet I had plenty of hamburger and iced tea lunches there. They had those items every day, regardless of whatever else was available. My friends and I went on about wonderful it was that here they finally treated you like adults in giving you those choices. I think the only things available for those burgers were mustard and ketchup, but I can still almost picture them -- and the iced tea -- and remember how good they tasted.
