What's in your lunch box? An extended answer.

Elaine writes about lunches at home and at school:

I just wish someone would make me the Bon Appetit lunches--an awful lot of work even for a retired person. I usually eat at home, often one of the Yoplait yogurts that you decry for their lack of good nutrition, a piece of fruit and some bread and butter and jelly. (Or cookies or pie or cake if we have some). I think eating the yogurt in addition to a sandwich would be excessive, but instead of it's not so bad. I used to often pack the same lunch when I was working. 

Delmar-Harvard Elementary School where we ate those lunches
(though the cafeteria was in another building)

I mentioned earlier this year that I've gone back to peanut butter after many years hiatus, but now I sometimes use creamy style horseradish instead of jelly. I remember once as a kid that Mom put butter on my peanut butter sandwich instead of jelly. It was probably worse for me and tasted weird. I also remember the Halloween peanut butter open face sandwiches, cut round with jack-o-lantern faces. Those were served at home on Halloween, before we went back to the school parade. (Butterscotch pudding with jack-o-lantern face was I think for dinner dessert). I loved those! 

As a member of the local school parent council when the kids were small, I designed and administered a survey at the elementary school to see what the kids liked and didn't--most of the disliked stuff went into the trash, since there were no eating enforcers. The items they hated the most were green and gold salad (cheese and peas) and Reuben sandwiches. We shared our results with the cafeteria directors but am not sure we got much attention. The staff wanted to open the minds (palates) of the children, but the kids were pretty much completely closed to some of the ideas, and I doubt they actually tried some of the food.