When I went to school, everybody brought their own lunches packed at home in either a brown paper bag or a shiny metal lunchbox with your favorite TV show on it (okay, let's get this one out of the way, I had a Partridge Family lunchbox).
I don't think I had a hot lunch option in my school until 9th grade and even then, most people would bring their own because it was cheaper.
Typically we'd bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Or peanut butter and "fluff". This was before some kid got allergic to peanut butter and peanut butter was banned for everybody everywhere.
Why couldn't that kid be allergic to carrots or celery so those items could be banned instead? I hated it when my mother put those in my lunchbox, usually wrapped in Saran Wrap.
We'd also find a banana or an apple in our lunchbox. Maybe a twinkie, which I would immediately trade for somebody's homemade brownie or chocolate chip cookies.
For those who were fortunate enough to have candy bars in their lunchboxes, that was like hard currency! Like cigarettes in prison, those with candy bars to trade could practically name their own price.
My thermos was always full of milk which would be mostly warm by lunchtime. But sometimes somebody would have some packets of chocolate powder I could trade for, so I could at least make chocolate milk out of it.
