SCHOOL LUNCH POLL

The thing I remember most clearly about school lunches is the "Clean Plate Award" that my Elementary School gave each day to the student who finished every crumb and speck of their meal. Kids who brought lunch from home were ineligible. Those who bought the school lunch typically found some inedible object on their tray that they attempted to hide by cramming it into an empty milk carton.

But it really didn't matter because Dominick C. always won. Dominick's family owned a local bakery and Dominick was, well, a hefty sort of child. I never did find out if he genuinely enjoyed the food served at school or if he'd just been trained at home to eat whatever was put in front of him.

Every day at the end of lunch period Dominick and his spotless plate were paraded around the cafeteria by a teacher who exhorted the rest of us miscreants to eat the lunches so lovingly prepared by the lunch ladies, all of whom were terrifyingly ugly and stern. The consensus among us kids was that they were trying to slowly poison us.

Somehow I think if I'd been a French child, eating French school lunches, I might have had a chance to win the "Clean Plate Award." Your preferences in school lunch fare may differ, so take the poll and let us know which meal would make you a winner in the cafeteria olympics!