Everyone who came of age in the 80s and 90s remembers rectangle pizza.
If you grew up in the '80s or '90s, I'd like you to close your eyes. In your mind, you are now back in your elementary school cafeteria. You're walking past all the tables full of other kids, trying not to trip or pee your pants or do anything else embarrassing that will submarine your reputation for the next decade. You approach the line and grab a tray, and the kindly lunch lady takes it from you and serves you up a heaping portion of today's main course. What is it?
If you're like most millennials and Gen Xers, you're almost certainly thinking of that very specific rectangular, and more than a bit rubbery, pizza. Doesn't matter if you grew up in Los Angeles, Dallas, Tampa Bay, Boston, or anywhere in between. It doesn't even matter if your parents packed your lunch. You remember eating this pizza almost every single day of your youth. And while the local Papa Johns or boutique Neapolitan pizzeria is fine, deep inside, you yearn for the square. It's the one that taught you how to love pizza. Was it good? It doesn't matter. It made you who you are today.
'80s and '90s kids, you're in luck. Clever Internet sleuths have uncovered the original recipe for the school cafeteria pizza of yesteryear.
The only thing more influential to the public image of pizza than school lunch were the Ninja Turtles.Giphy
The Internet Archive has been quietly collecting documents for years now from a little government agency called the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service division.
They have pretty boring names, like this one from 1988 called "Quantity recipes for school food service." But inside these hand-scanned handbooks is an absolute treasure trove, and that's where some fine citizen initially discovered the Holy Grail: Pizza with Cheese Topping.
Behold. If you've ever wanted to recapture the whimsy and imagination of being a child in the '80s, you can now do it in your very own kitchen. Here's the exact recipe.
I'm convinced it was the marjoram that captured our young hearts all those years ago.U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service
After all these years, we now know that the secret "sauce," figuratively and literally, is: dehydrated onions, garlic powder, black pepper, tomato paste, water, basil, oregano, marjoram, and thyme.
I'm no Gordon Ramsay, but the key ingredient to me seems to be marjoram. That's an herb from the mint family that's not exactly a staple in most people's kitchens at home. It must be what gave school pizza the little extra kick that helped it claw its way deep into our hearts and brains for decades.
Of course, to get the full effect of Pizza With Cheese Topping, you'd have to find a way to source the same ingredients. And obviously, different school districts across the country may have cooked up their own versions of this basic formula.
But this is a pretty spot-on approximation.
There are a lot of memes and jokes about how school lunch in the 90s wasn't very healthy, but these stats aren't too bad.U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service
If you're intrigued but don't actually feel like going through this process yourself, don't worry. Someone on Reddit went through all the steps recently and posted their results. A quick reminder for anyone bold enough to try this at home: The recipe above created five full-size sheet pans of pizza, or 100 slices. It uses three pounds of tomato paste and a whopping 12 pounds of mozzarella cheese.
When properly scaled, the final product looks something like this. Cowabunga, dude!
from TastingHistory
The handbook from 1988 also includes such coveted recipes as Salisbury Steak, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce, Meatloaf, and Mac and Cheese. Put it all together and you've got pretty much the entire school lunch menu of our youth.
Experts say food is one of the most powerful things on the planet when it comes to memory and nostalgia. Why? Bond University writes, "Food.. engages multiple senses: taste, smell, texture, sight and sound."
Smell, in particular, is extremely closely linked to the part of the brain that forms strong, vivid memories. To this day, sometimes I'll smell something that reminds me of middle school, and I don't know why—maybe it was the body spray someone wore or the subtle smell of the school. Food is just like that, but even more potent. It also brings with it other memories of friendship, love, family, or even negative memories of being bullied or feeling left out.
All kidding aside, your memories of school lunch (and rectangular cheese pizza in particular) may not be all sunshine and roses. But I'd be willing to bet they are some of the most vivid and stubborn memories you have. It could be fun to spend an evening recreating the smells, textures, and tastes to see what kind of other memories it stirs up.
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Photo courtesy of Albertsons
Photo courtesy of Albertsons
All photos courtesy of Albertsons
