These days, thankfully, school canteens have a much stronger focus on health and balance than they did back in the ’90s. Where today you’ll find sushi rolls and falafel wraps, the canteens of yesteryear took a real ‘anything goes’ approach. The delicious. team put our heads together to recall canteen lunches from our childhoods that absolutely would not pass muster today.
Most schools either had microwaved McCain pizza singles or the Pizza Roundas. There’s something humbling about a lunch snack mocking your Australian accent, and that’s precisely what’s up with Pizza Roundas. Essentially our answer to the Pizza Pocket, Roundas could either be served partially frozen in the centre, or hotter than the surface of the sun. Suffer the little children.
We’re lumping all processed and crumbed chicken sticks, chippies and tenders into this category, but there’s something particularly nostalgic about the cartoon drumstick-shaped Yummy Drummy. Eating one feels like featuring on an episode of The Flintstones.
Surely these tinned individual lasagnas were an OHS hazard. The contents were basically just lava, and the thin sheet of tin between your lunch and your hand wasn’t nearly enough to protect you form second-degree burns. Still totally worth it.
Utterly delicious in a packing peanuts sort of way, JJ’s chicken snacks were top-tier lunch order fare.
Some schools managed to hold onto their classics like Coke vending machines, etc, but then some do-gooder in the mid ’90s decided that if the soft drink tasted bad, it was a ‘healthy’ alternative. Introducing: Deep Spring mineral waters. In hindsight, these are just non-alcoholic White Claws.
Always with the soft burger bun, Praise tangy mayonnaise and a sprinkle of shredded iceberg. Bonus points for a sweaty square of sliced cheese.
Most canteens had a flavoured milk on the menu, but consensus reveals the big three. Whether you were part of the Moove movement, pledged allegiance to Oak, or were part of a small pocket that repped Trev the Dynomite Triceratops, cartons of milk (frozen in summer) were a constant.
If you lived in Sydney, it’s likely that you had the bulk-bought, frozen-solid spring rolls from the Manly Freezer company in your lunch order. The strong hold these puppies had on our childhoods.
Primary schools were either in the eucalyptus drops or the Butter Menthol drops camp. Always addressed by their formal title, Butter Menthol Drops were a weird medicinal addition to the canteen menu. They were little packets of orange balls that chronically got stuck together, and despite searching high and low, don’t appear anywhere on the internet. Were they good for us? Doubtful. Were they utterly delicious? You betcha.
The pyramid that dreams were made of! Lost in the annals of time, the Sunnyboy was brilliant icy fuel to keep you going through recess and lunch, considering just how long these slabs took to melt. If your school didn’t have Sunnyboys, you probably had frozen juice cups with a paddle pop stick.
The level of enthusiasm surrounding these would make you think we were talking about an exclusive tasting menu at The French Laundry, rather than a bit of deep-fried crumbed mystery meat with some corn thrown in. But show this to anyone who happened to have these at their school canteen and watch the astonishing transformation as their eyes light up with unparalleled joy and delight, before misting over in wistful nostalgia. They’re still available through food distributors and the like, but unless you can buy one piping hot for $2 at recess, why would you bother?
