A School Favorite That Your Kids May Never Experience

Like many parents, I have my kid's school lunch menu posted on my fridge and take an occasional look at what she's having that day. Overall, her choices seem much healthier than mine were. For instance, the words "whole wheat" never appeared on any public school lunch menu that I ever attended. When we got fruit, it was "fruit cocktail" which, of course, was just bits of various fruit packed together in some sort of simple syurp for so long that a cherry and a peach tasted exactly the same.

There is, however, one delicacy from school that most of my friends agree was the one thing you didn't want to miss: pizza. I know schools still have pizza, but apparently it is no longer the rectangular stuff I remember from my school days.

I went to public school kindergarten through eighth grade in Tennessee and high school in Kentucky and the pizza was always the same. Some rectangular-shaped, flimsy piece of bread, covered with cheese and tiny bits of some sort of meat that resembled sausage. Whatever it was, it was wonderful. I really regret not getting to know at least one of the lunch ladies a little better.

A few years ago, I found what I believed to be the source of school pizza, or at least the closest thing I had ever found, Nardone Brothers in Pennsylvania. I was overjoyed, but the minimum order was too big for my freezer, so I had to pass. Now, it seems that they have adapted their recipes to modern standards as their products now say things like:  whole wheat, turkey sausage, cheese substitute, etc.

It looks like the days of school pizza my generation knew is gone. I'm hoping that someday a lunch lady will read this and email me the secret recipe so I can make this stuff at home.