What was in your childhood lunchbox?

Patsy167

I thought this might be a fun discussion for the time of year that's in it with the kid's heading back to school.

My usual was 4 sandwiches with either crumbed ham or billy roll. Always white stapletons bread with real butter. One or two days a week I would have two slices of my mother mcCambridge style whole-wheat bread with butter and marmite.

The chap next to me in school would always have jam sandwiches.

Wanderer78

plum jam sandwich's, all the way, cant remember anything else in it, even though im sure other things were there

igCorcaigh

White bread sandwiches with either blackberry jam or ham. I didn't like cheese. I have no memories of canned tuna or fresh chicken.

Purple Cadbury snacks. Apples and small oranges.

School milk in a little glass bottle.

Before the school milk came in, some kids brought milk from home in an old ketchup bottle.

We used to cover our copybooks with wallpaper for some reason.

Late 1970s, early 1980s.

Jim_Hodge

Various flavours of jam, usually on homemade soda or brown bread. An apple maybe once a week.

tscul32

2 slices of white sliced pan with either an easi single or a thin slice of plastic ham in it, a small apple or mandarin and a penguin/United type bar. And school milk carton, regular or strawberry. No lunchbox either, smushed sambo in a plastic sandwich bag that was reused until it was dead. 1980s.

My kids would die if i gave them one of my lunches for school.

Cluedo Monopoly

Jam sandwich in primary school. An apple in autumn.

When I got all fancy in secondary, I liked sandwiches with Easi-singles with peanut butter. 1980s.

The free school milk cartons were such a treat, except when they were sour.

Gloomtastic!

I can’t remember mine but my son had hummous sandwiches every day for the 8 years of primary school so I’m definitely going to remember that.

The Mighty Quinn

White bread, often illuminous luncheon meat that would stain the white bread pink, or billy roll or questionable meat with an easi-single.

Usually a mandarin or a granny smith apple.

Something like a penguin, taxi, gold, club milk.

Ryath

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119537100#Comment_119537100

My daughter has been the same all the way through primary. Offered her loads of other options but rarely wanted anything else. At least there was bit of variety with bread types, wraps, pitta and breadsticks. She'd have the odd chicken or cheese sandwich and did like to bring in chicken soup. Peanut butter would have been her first choice but thankfully that was banned in the school! My other daughter pretty much just ate ham sandwiches all the way through and wanted very little else. At least they both used to mostly eat the fruit they got for small break.

Remember having by mums brown scones a lot usually with cheese in the early years and used to bring milk in a flask. They were nice the first day when fresh but were pretty hard after that! We pretty much used to just get lunchon roll or corned beef sambo's in later years. Always on brown bread. Sliced white was pretty much banned in our house growing up. Plenty in my primary school only ever had jam sandwiches.

cj maxx

Sandwiches ( ham) an apple or other fruit.

Strumms

Sandwiches… Turkey, roast beef, ham, salami, all with varying cheeses and liberally drizzled with varying condiments..some fruit and or bar / crisps.

4Ad

Tomato sauce sandwiches( for 5 years), penguin bar once a week...

I went to a school where there some boarders who were always asking for food or sandwiches, never asked me again !

The Continental Op

Never had any, went to school in the UK where they have school dinners.

Sardonicat

Holly Hobbit flask (my pride and joy) of cocoa and tinned salmon sandwiches. Every day.

Darwin

I had to be careful and bring something plain everyday, as our primary school teacher would line up random students at breaktime and take what he wanted out of their lunch boxes. This was a long long time ago now....I can only imagine him pulling a stunt like that today 😅

ednwireland

We still had school dinners Thatcher hadn't quite wiped them all out

Sardonicat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119539300#Comment_119539300

There was a nun at mu school who'd confiscate "nice" snacks from someone she had it in for on that particular day and raffle them off! Usually accompanied with calling the victim a spoiled brat who needed to learn to share just cos they had been given a treat for sos time.

Doc07

1980’s primary school. Usually Dunnes stores white bread with tuna or plastic ham, Apple or orange and then school milk. A few lads in my class would sometimes have no lunch and the nuns would discretely visit the classroom and slip them a sandwich before lunchtime

thefa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119539216#Comment_119539216

Yes, I remember salami becoming very in vogue one year when the local centra got it. Corned beef slices too which I wouldn’t touch today.

Cheesestrings came out at some stage too. Babybel cheese with the red wax. Frubes and other youghurts every now and again.

chewed

Sliced Corned beef!

Spanish Eyes

Golden Oldie who had the school sandwiches and a teeny bottle of milk every day in the National School. They came in a big cardboard box and were different depending on the day. Friday was currant bun day and was the biggest treat ever. The rest of the week it was bread and cheese, corned beef, something else, and jam. A great thing for some of the kids who were very hungry.

Secondary school was DIY, usually bread and cheese or bread and jam. A trip to the little shop on a Friday was the treat then for a macaroon bar or Perri crisps with the triangle of salt. The innocence of it all. Five a day was unheard of.

castor 1

For September and October it was soggy tomato sandwiches.

We had a glasshouse so there were plenty of tomatoes. Problem was that by lunchtime the tomato juice would have saturated the bread. No money for fancy ham slices.

Rest of year was mostly corned beef sandwiches with brown YR sauce.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119539400#Comment_119539400

I forgot about corned beef slices…. They were nice with a mild cheese.

proper corned beef off the bone is sexy…mmm

Sardonicat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119539413#Comment_119539413

A yeah, jam sandwiches. An acceptable and frequent meal back in the day. I remember my Aunt making a giant Mrs. Doyle-esque pyramid of white sliced pan and jam sandwiches, plonking it in the centre of the kitchen table and calling my cousins and myself in for our dinner!

standardg60

Banana sandwiches, jam sandwiches and even sugar sandwiches in the early days, moved onto corned beef, Dunne's pork, onion and tomato (none of which were discernible) and hazlett when we got a bit of money.

berocca2016

White Bread, spreadable butter, cheddar cheese, sandwich was never cut! Served with an apple and a penguin. Drink was Robinsons in a plastic reusable bottle which managed to seep the taste of plastic into the cordial.

Occasionally a bingo bar instead of the penguin?

brick tamland

Jam sanswiches mostly and a little bar of some sort. But not nice jam like we'd use now, it was overly suggery jam that came in huge blue pots.

Sometimes if i was lucky id get sliced corned beef, ive great memories of the corned beef and every couple of years i buy a pack and Im alwyas bitterly disappointed.

Always hated the free milk as it’d be warm by the time it was handed out so never drank it.

Occasionally when I got a bit older id get a flask of soup and bread to dip in, not fancy soup, powdered soup mix from a packet. Loved it though

the beer revolu

someone earlier mentioned United Bars. They were a staple for me in primary school - I even won a branded leather football signed by Steve Heighway (or was it Kenny Daglish?). Other things: Rancheros, Wagon Wheels, plain butter sandwiches, cream crackers and butter, hot chocolate, milky coffee, tetra pack cartons of school milk (don't ever remember bottles), occasional roast beef sandwiches on a monday, apples.

Seconday school, I think it was exclusively ham and butter in a roll - made in bulk and frozen.

The Continental Op

I always thought that UK school dinners had a lot to be desired (not great) but after reading what some of you had in your lunchbox all I can say is long live school dinners they weren't that bad after all.

Poyndexter

Usually a white bread sandwich with butter and a few slices of easi singles cheese, a piece of fruit, a club milk and popcorn. Terrible when I think about it now.

mojesius

sandwich with either ham or corned beef.

Penguin bar or club milk, Capri sun, popcorn the odd time or a mandarin orange.

mojesius

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119542524#Comment_119542524

Yes I forgot about the powdered soup :)

YellowLead

Somebody else mentioned banana sandwiches, I hadn’t thought of them since my school days. Lovely if you ate them fresh, but usually the banana was gone all brown by the time it came to eat it.

I also had jam or ham sandwiches (cut into 4 small squares even in secondary school) Always with a green apple and either a penguin, club or taxi.

secondary also heralded cheese strings which I actually loved - could never stomach the easy singles and thankfully wasn’t forced to.

Was glad there was no school milk in secondary, the ones in primary always seemed to be gone off and we’d all pour it down the sink, leaving the room stinking.

Secondary school also had a school shop where many bags of meanies and packets of Frosties were purchased.

phormium

Pink meat, chicken and ham roll with brown sauce, yum! But Bovril to drink, hated it with a passion.

Tork

My favourite primary school sandwiches were the ones after my mum made brown soda bread. I loved having slices of that with some smoked Easi-singles on top. If not, it was white sliced pan and whatever was around at home on that day. Cheese, ham, luncheon meat, corned beef. Sometimes I'd get soup in the flask and then bread to dip into it. I'm not sure now if I made up the soup myself (cup-a-soup) or if was already mixed in the flask. I think I also used to get Bovril sometimes. I can't remember if my mum made sandwiches if it was a soup day. Other times, it'd be drinking chocolate in the flash, or milky coffee. A modern day parent would be horrified! there'd also be an apple or two and yogurt. Then there'd be something Penguin bar sized. There was still milk in my primary school but as the years went on, fewer and fewer kids had any. The birds used to pierce the caps of the little bottles in the milk crates before they were taken into the school. There'd be a scramble to get hold of one of the non-damaged bottles.

maude6868

Stew, cabbage and bacon, pork chops etc, full dinners. I lived in town so went home for lunch. Had to eat a full dinner in 15 minutes. Back in the day dinner was at 1pm for the family. Can't imagine doing that now.

The Mighty Quinn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119545309#Comment_119545309

There was no such thing as lunch in my house. It was breakfast-dinner-tea. Dinner was between 12-2 time. Tea was 5-6 kinda time.

YellowLead

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119546694#Comment_119546694

We had breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea. Except on weekends when dinner was moved to lunchtime and lunch didn’t happen.

Dave_The_Sheep

Piece of fruit, small bar - something funsize, water/dilute bottle and a sandwich/roll. Started out as peanut butter back in early primary school, religiously. Then I fell out with that, moved onto ham and mayo or whatever. Graduated later on in later secondary school to (and i'm not joking here, weird looking back) prawn cocktail mix that you'd get out of superquinn with some lettuce in whatever bread delivery method was around that week.

I was everything Roy Keane hates.

tscul32

Anyone remember haslet? Kind of herby.

sporina

what a wonderful thread OP..

PS 1980s...

I recall sambo's on white bread with either ham or corned beef (they went in the bin)..

Mum had a v sweet tooth so we always had a french fancy and or a 5,4,3,2,1.. cheese and onion tayto..

There probably was fruit as the fruit man called to the house once a week; we always had a large stock of mandarines, apples, plums, bananas, kiwi's in the house..

A plastic bottle with diluted mi wadi..

There was a milk run at school so a carton of that too..

Flask of tea in winter - you know - the flask with the tartan design lol..

yep - tis no wonder I have to go to the dentist tomorrow... but my gosh.. my lunch was the envy of a lot of kids..

Oh I just remembered.. we did have fruit - I rem a kid asking me for "a bite of my apple?".. yuk.. I thought - no.. thats gross

Grandeeod

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119539413#Comment_119539413

This! I remember all of it.

Free Speech

Every day in primary school it was the same, cheese singles on white bread.

Own brand cheese singles where the cheese tasted as plasticky as the wrapper.

This was all washed down with a flask of orange cordial.

To this day if I even look at cheese singles in the shop, I get the taste of cheap orange cordial in the back of my throat.

newmember2

Sandwich of two slices of white bread cut in half with butter and sandwich spread with sometimes a club milk besides. I don't remember eating the sandwich very often and would nearly always throw it behind a wall as the first thing I did as I ran out into the yard at lunchtime, or else drop it off one of the fold-down bench seats onto the ground in the corner. Had a plastic bottle with quash orange that I liked or mi-wadi that I didn't really like, and at certain times had a flask of tea.

Pissy Missy

Butter sandwiches as I was a picky eater, then I'd toss them over the wall and buy sweets in the shop

bassy

Never had a lunchbox my sambos were wrapped in the bread paper that the sliced pan came in,them were the days........................

Goldengirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119537135#Comment_119537135

This is exactly me ! All the way through secondary school . Sometimes packet oxtail soup in a flask in winter or an oxo cube in boiling water . Club milks, blue snack bars , penguins, an apple . A small yogurt that was gone watery at the top by lunchtime.

Think I went home mostly in primary for dinner ..no lunch in our house until latter years only breakfast , dinner and tea . Then our mam went back to work so it was breakfast , lunch and dinner.

My poor mam tried to get me to eat proper meat or cheese but I loved that luncheon roll . Still eat it now occasionally when I need something comforting 😯

My school friends and family still laugh when they remember my school lunches . 1970s .

In primary school, as if being a blow-in didn't make me foreign enough, I was a very picky eater as a child and generally only ate two things for lunch in Primary school. Toasted sardine sandwiches or sausage rolls. Both/either with a flask of tea.

Some of my school mates honestly thought I was an alien.

sporina

In secondary school (90's) - there was a fad where it was cool to eat those rehydrated lunch things.. can't rem the name of em but Knorr made them.. and Pot Noodles.. wow - thinking of it now, the total lack of nutrition - yuk

Kintarō Hattori

My mother used to give me egg salad sandwiches very frequently, which I detested. I used to leave the wrapped sandwiches in the bag and not eat them. I have no idea why I didn't think to throw them out. Eventually over time the rotten sandwiches started giving off a really bad smell which you could smell in the hallway (bag was under the stairs). It was tracked down to my bag. I was asked why. Told her I didn't like them. I still got egg sandwiches. This was the 80s.

the beer revolu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119620189#Comment_119620189

To my shame, I remember squishing up butter sandwiches and throwing them in the bin. I guess I just ate whatever snacks I had with them as there was no shop in school. I don't ever recall being hungry.