It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY.
-
Some nutritionists worked very hard to design an inexpensive, easy to make, pizza that could fit into school lunch budgets which are absurdly small in the US. (What is wrong with us? Why do we hate the concept of "feeding hungry children." Anyway.)
Part of the design requirements is that everything is the same. No "corner slices" no nicest bit to squabble over.
So we squabbled over "The Bubble" --which I thought was awful. It was hollow! All the cheese would slide off.
I think, my little ones would kill for getting pizza at school, instead of the "healthy" stuff they're served.
I mean: At home, they also get healthy food, but properly prepared and seasoned.
-
It definitely sounds great!
Who doesn't love pizza?
The bubble thing, I found really funny.
@mina @futurebird me. I didn't enjoy pizza until my 20s. School pizza did a number on me
-
It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY. Yay!
One of the square slices behind the counter has a bubble. The dough has somehow acquired an air pocket. It's huge. The size of a tennis ball.
Everyone is talking about "The Bubble"
How do you feel about the bubble?
@futurebird The bubble means less toppings and cheese. I don't want it (unless there's plenty of pizza, which there never is). Not gross though.
-
Some nutritionists worked very hard to design an inexpensive, easy to make, pizza that could fit into school lunch budgets which are absurdly small in the US. (What is wrong with us? Why do we hate the concept of "feeding hungry children." Anyway.)
Part of the design requirements is that everything is the same. No "corner slices" no nicest bit to squabble over.
So we squabbled over "The Bubble" --which I thought was awful. It was hollow! All the cheese would slide off.
@futurebird @mina We originally got standard sheet-pan pizza (corners and all) and didn't really have much bickering over which bits of it (You could ask for a specific type of piece if you wanted, but most people didn't care that much) but around my junior year they switched to a different supplier that appeared to just be segments of a continuous conveyor-belt pizza with only two "crust edges" (It looked like someone took a rectangular pizza and sliced the crusts off the short ends). Given that the crust on the old stuff were both A: enormous, and B: practically made of granite, the new stuff was objectively an improvement...
-
It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY. Yay!
One of the square slices behind the counter has a bubble. The dough has somehow acquired an air pocket. It's huge. The size of a tennis ball.
Everyone is talking about "The Bubble"
How do you feel about the bubble?
I don't hate the bubble, I kind of like it, but it means less cheese and sauce in my slice, so I don't want it
-
@futurebird @mina We originally got standard sheet-pan pizza (corners and all) and didn't really have much bickering over which bits of it (You could ask for a specific type of piece if you wanted, but most people didn't care that much) but around my junior year they switched to a different supplier that appeared to just be segments of a continuous conveyor-belt pizza with only two "crust edges" (It looked like someone took a rectangular pizza and sliced the crusts off the short ends). Given that the crust on the old stuff were both A: enormous, and B: practically made of granite, the new stuff was objectively an improvement...
@futurebird @mina This insider knowledge came from the chef at a private school, who explicitly rejected that funding when it was bought up as an option, because it practically tied his hands behind his back in meal planning. He's more than able to meet those nutritional targets as a "rolling average" across multiple meals, but that's not what the requirements are.
(And I can say from experience that the food there was better than anything I ever had as school lunch).
-
It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY. Yay!
One of the square slices behind the counter has a bubble. The dough has somehow acquired an air pocket. It's huge. The size of a tennis ball.
Everyone is talking about "The Bubble"
How do you feel about the bubble?
@futurebird pizza day? WWTF?? why did I never get pizza at school in the 1980s or 1990s?
-
It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY. Yay!
One of the square slices behind the counter has a bubble. The dough has somehow acquired an air pocket. It's huge. The size of a tennis ball.
Everyone is talking about "The Bubble"
How do you feel about the bubble?
@futurebird There were plenty of air bubble slices, but I've never heard of one being that big. At that size it basically has taken over the whole slice you would have gotten and you're basically just getting air...
-
It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY. Yay!
One of the square slices behind the counter has a bubble. The dough has somehow acquired an air pocket. It's huge. The size of a tennis ball.
Everyone is talking about "The Bubble"
How do you feel about the bubble?
@futurebird the bubble can hold so much canned corn
-
@futurebird pizza day? WWTF?? why did I never get pizza at school in the 1980s or 1990s?
@llewelly We didn't get it in the 60s or 70s either. @futurebird
-
@futurebird pizza day? WWTF?? why did I never get pizza at school in the 1980s or 1990s?
The grade school I went to had pizza, but it was pretty bad.
There were reasons I brought my lunch from home.
(And, no, I did not have celiac as a kid.)
-
@futurebird pizza day? WWTF?? why did I never get pizza at school in the 1980s or 1990s?
@llewelly @futurebird It was always the highpoint of the school lunch menu and it was also awful pizza.
-
@futurebird @mina We originally got standard sheet-pan pizza (corners and all) and didn't really have much bickering over which bits of it (You could ask for a specific type of piece if you wanted, but most people didn't care that much) but around my junior year they switched to a different supplier that appeared to just be segments of a continuous conveyor-belt pizza with only two "crust edges" (It looked like someone took a rectangular pizza and sliced the crusts off the short ends). Given that the crust on the old stuff were both A: enormous, and B: practically made of granite, the new stuff was objectively an improvement...
@becomethewaifu @futurebird @mina
Minnesota's state school lunch program is now more flexible than that; but it still has strange consequences from overly strict rules.
e.g. my daughter can get a standard school lunch for free, but has to pay for milk if she brings her lunch from home. And at the high school, students don't get extra food for free even if they need the calories.
I would just have all the kids get whatever food they want and save the cafeteria staff the unnecessary work.
-
@jiub @futurebird THE SQUARE PIZZA
-
@futurebird pizza day? WWTF?? why did I never get pizza at school in the 1980s or 1990s?
Ok so picture this, there is pizza day, but your parents only let you bring a sack lunch.
(I actually didn’t like pizza, but it was sad for kids who did like pizza and had to eat a sack lunch…I just realized this is probably why me and my misfit of sack lunch eating friends tended to eat anywhere other than the cafeteria)
-
It's middle school in the 90s or 80s and it's PIZZA DAY. Yay!
One of the square slices behind the counter has a bubble. The dough has somehow acquired an air pocket. It's huge. The size of a tennis ball.
Everyone is talking about "The Bubble"
How do you feel about the bubble?
@futurebird Aren't you from the East Coast? Wasn't your pizza better?
-
Ok so picture this, there is pizza day, but your parents only let you bring a sack lunch.
(I actually didn’t like pizza, but it was sad for kids who did like pizza and had to eat a sack lunch…I just realized this is probably why me and my misfit of sack lunch eating friends tended to eat anywhere other than the cafeteria)
This surfaced forgotten memories. I was fascinated by the concept of "bagged lunch" begged my mom to let me have a bagged lunch. (I thought it was very exotic like in an anime)
My mom was so confused and annoyed to her "bag lunch" was for "poor kids" and she didn't work in the math mines all day to have her daughter eating out of a paper bag.
Also since she was a math prof she had no time to make a lunch ... and tried to get Dad to do it who was baffled.
-
This surfaced forgotten memories. I was fascinated by the concept of "bagged lunch" begged my mom to let me have a bagged lunch. (I thought it was very exotic like in an anime)
My mom was so confused and annoyed to her "bag lunch" was for "poor kids" and she didn't work in the math mines all day to have her daughter eating out of a paper bag.
Also since she was a math prof she had no time to make a lunch ... and tried to get Dad to do it who was baffled.
It quickly came to: "if you really want to have a bagged lunch you need to make it yourself."
I was excited to try!
It was a disaster!I think I gave up after a few months. But the strange little plastic containers and boxes I found hung around in the kitchen for years.
Later I was obsessed with a "factory lunch" and using the old lunch pail that belonged to my grandfather when he worked in the mills.
That went a bit better.
-
@futurebird Aren't you from the East Coast? Wasn't your pizza better?
"school pizza" has nothing at all to do with any other dish that might go by that name.
it's a different food basically.
-
It quickly came to: "if you really want to have a bagged lunch you need to make it yourself."
I was excited to try!
It was a disaster!I think I gave up after a few months. But the strange little plastic containers and boxes I found hung around in the kitchen for years.
Later I was obsessed with a "factory lunch" and using the old lunch pail that belonged to my grandfather when he worked in the mills.
That went a bit better.
Thing thing about only "poor kids" bringing their lunch wasn't really true at our school. Most of the kids who brought a lunch just had very fussy mothers who thought the cafeteria food was terrible.
They were not totally wrong.
But my lunches... they were worse. I have memories of friends taking up a collection to feed me because I'd brought something that made no sense... like two cups of white rice with ketchup and nothing else.
