What was world war 2 school food like compared to now?

Answer 1

There was no Pizza. There were no vending machines or soda machines.

The buns and rolls were made from scratch, with flour to make dough. They did not make Hamburgers. You never got french fries, but you might get tater tots. There was not yet any such thing as a "chicken nugget". You might get soup, which was like old-fashioned homemade vegetable soup, and a grilled cheese sandwich. They made spaghetti, making the sauce from tomato sauce, just like Italian mothers did at home. The cafeteria got a lot of large #10 cans of vegetables from the US Department of Agriculture, which had begun supporting the price for farm products in the 1930s by buying these items and canning them, and making them available to school lunch programs at low cost. There was a lot of applesauce. Beets, which no one ever ate. Greens beans, green peas. Sliced carrots, breaded Okra. If the cafeteria ladies felt like it, au gratin potatoes. Pigs in the blanket (hot dog rolled in a slice of light bread and cooked - the cafeteria did buy loaves of sandwich bread - no whole wheat or any kind of snobby bread, only sliced, white bread). What people called "SOS" beginning with soldiers in WWII - "sh*t on a shingle" - chipped beef in white gravy on toasted white bread cut up into squares, or crumbled ground beef the same way. A good cafeteria crew, who knew how to cook, could make all this taste good. A bad crew would churn out swill. You could always brown bag a sandwich from home. The only beverage available was milk, in half-pint boxes. Whole milk, no jackass had thought of 1% or 2% yet.