Author Round-Up: What’s Cooking in the High School Caf?

I came upon a recipe recently that sounded suspiciously like the fantastic peanut butter cookie bars I used to buy in my high school cafeteria.  I ran out and bought all the ingredients and baked it up.  While the bars came out pretty tasty, they still weren’t “it.” Back to the lifelong drawing board...

But it got me to thinking about high school cafeterias...how some, like my husband’s, were manned by local moms and provided memorable culinary experiences, or mine, your basic pre-fab offerings, with some gems still shining through all these years later.

I thought it would be fun to ask some of our YA Fresh author friends to share the memories of their high school cafeteria fare.  What say you, authors? 

Kelly Parra, author of Graffiti Girl and Invisible Touch:

High school food...I remember Domino's Pizza and Subway carts. Haha! My fave at school was the Subway cart for a turkey sub with chips. And of course, there were bagels and frozen burritos.

Josh  Berk, author of Guy Langman, Crime Scene Procrastinator:

I had “first lunch” which began at 10:43. Hmm, do I remember the precise time all these years later because it was wonderful or traumatic? Mostly traumatic. Typically gross mystery-meat school lunch type stuff. But I did sure love the taco salad. Nothing nice a like taco salad at 10:43am. Mmmmm.

Stephanie Hale, author of The Alpha Bet and the Aspen Brooks series:

In high school I somehow survived on a little bag of BBQ chips and a carton of chocolate milk every SINGLE day. I'm not even kidding.

Trinity Faegan, author of The Manifesto Covenant:

It's been, uh, a few years since high school, but I remember...wait for it...corn dogs! They were sublime. I honestly think they made them from scratch - crispy and delicious. The number one very best thing they made, however, were rolls. I still remember sitting through morning classes with the scent of yeasty bread baking. They sold those fluffy, warm, amazing rolls for 5 cents each and a lot of us would buy 3-4 rolls and that's what we had for lunch. So healthy! Ha! The worst thing they made was chicken pot pie. That was some scary stuff on a crust.

Janie Emaus, author of Mercury in Retro Love:

I honestly can't remember ever eating in the cafeteria. I always brought my food.  Usually the same thing every day.  Salami on rye with mustard.   And would actually get jealous of those who did get to eat there.  I associated eating in the cafeteria with the  "popular girls."  I guess that's why I like to go out to eat these days! 

Amanda Ashby, author of the Sophie's Mixed Up Magic series:

I grew up in Australia and always got so jealous watching American movies and their cafeterias because at my school all we had was a tuck shop, which was a hole in the wall and it was run the PTA. It mainly sold sandwiches, rolls, meat pies and sausage rolls as well as things like chips, ice-blocks, cookies, cream buns and fruit. There were no vending machines and definitely nothing like chocolate or candy or sodas available.  One item that I really liked were the buttered pikelets (do you get pikelets in the US? If not, they are like a smaller version of a pancake). Though now I think about it, they always gave me indigestion but that didn't seem to stop me from buying them!

Thanks, authors, for your recollections!  And if any of our readers would like to jump in with memories of their high school caf experiences--or the ones they are still having today--we’d love to hear from you!