Pizza Lunchables

Unlike many who went through the public school system, I have fond memories of eating cafeteria pizza. This pizza was served in a rectangular slab with rubbery mozzarella cheese on it, usually at about room temperature. The crust was soft enough to roll up. It was the best pizza in the world.

They sound baffled as to why kids like it.

Pizza was a treat, served either once a week or once every two weeks, I'm not sure which. But the big prize was Mexican pizza. That was my favorite. It had spicy sausage, bright orange cheese of unknown origin, and a spicy pizza sauce. It was shaped like a hexagon, which to my young eyes made it look like there was more of it. My best lunch was a slice of this, a small bag of Doritos or Cheetos, and a cardboard carton of chocolate milk.

A rough estimation of a hexagonal slice of Mexican Pizza

But pizza could not be served every day, and on those days, I didn’t have to risk meat loaf. On those days, there were Pizza Lunchables. Oscar Meyer started the Lunchables brand in the late '80s, but Pizza Lunchables were not released until sometime in the '90s. While these were not as nice as the school pizza, they were still a yummy food item.

The Lunchables meal came in a plastic tub, with a compartment for each part of it. The pizza crusts and sauce were in the main compartment, which also held a candy item and a Capri Sun. Lunchables offers pepperoni pizza and cheese. Pepperoni only came with mozzarella, but cheese pizza comes with mozzarella and American or cheddar (something orange, at least). Since I've been a vegetarian since I was 10 years old, I usually had the cheese pizza Lunchables.

The meal is eaten by hand. You open the packet of paste and spread it on the pizza crust, then put as much or as little cheese on it as you want. Rationing is important; I usually ended up putting most of my paste on the first pizza, and the other two would not be as good.

In order to properly remember Lunchables, I had to experience it again myself, and so I bought an extra cheesy Pizza Lunchable from the store. It was almost as good as I remember it being, but I remember the pizzas being larger and having more sauce. More likely it’s just that I’m bigger.

While eating this pizza, I noticed that there was not enough sauce to go around, and the cheese lasted much longer than the sauce. I had about half a compartment of each left over after all my crusts were gone. The cheese does not taste nearly as good by itself as it does on the pizza.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find an Airhead blue raspberry candy in the bottom of the pizza compartment for dessert, and a Capri Sun under the tub. The Capri Sun was fruit punch, and it was delicious. I also managed to puncture it with no problem and no loss of juice, which was always an accomplishment. Pizza Lunchables are still widely available, and they taste just as good as they were in school.