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Behold! The authentic recipe for '80s school cafeteria rectangle pizza.

Now you can make the rubbery but nostalgic pizza from the comfort of your own home.

Canva Photos & U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service

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.

pizza, school, school lunch, food, recipes, youth, 80s, 90s, nostalgia, 80s nostalgia, 90s nostalgiaThe 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.

pizza, school, school lunch, food, recipes, youth, '80s, '90s, nostalgia,' 80s nostalgia, '90s nostalgiaI'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.

pizza, school, school lunch, food, recipes, youth, 80s, 90s, nostalgia, 80s nostalgia, 90s nostalgiaThere 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!



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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Education & Information

Gardener tests whether you can regrow scraps from store-bought veggies to make a full garden

He put viral videos to the test in a real garden with some impressive results.

Photo credit: Canva

People try to extend the lives of their veggies by regrowing in the kitchen, but does it work in a garden?

The way plants provide food for humans and animals alike is one of the coolest things about our planet. And the way humans are honing the art of agriculture, learning to farm and garden most effectively (and hopefully sustainably) to feed the masses is one of the coolest things about humans.

Home gardening has long been a supplementary source of food for families around the world, and there's no shortage of books, websites, classes, video tutorials, and more to teach people how to do it. As many beginners find when they get started, gardening is a bit more complicated than simply putting some seeds in the ground and waiting for them to grow. You have soil composition, sunlight exposure, watering schedules, hardiness zones, pests, and other considerations that differ for each plant.

But in some ways, growing food can be less complicated than we might think, as we see demonstrated in viral videos like this one:

@creative_explained

Every day we throw out food scraps, when so much of it can be used in other ways, even regrowing food! 🤩🌱 . #upcycle #savemoney #regrow #kitchenscraps #garden #gardening #plants #plantsofinstagram #gardenlife #lifehack #hacks #diy #recycle #sustainableliving #howto #plantstagram #creativeexplained #magic #organicgardening #instadaily #tiktokstar #plantfood

Regrowing vegetables from portions of store-bought veggies seems like something that might work or might not, or that might only work a little bit for a little while. Even if you can get some romaine lettuce to sprout from a stub in your kitchen, does that mean you could plant it in a garden and have it grow into a full-fledged plant? Is it really that simple?

James Prigioni explored the question, "What happens when you regrow veggies from the store?" on his gardening channel in a video that's been watched nearly 5 million times. For 135 days, Prigioni grew onions, carrots, beets, ginger, tomatoes and more to see how the store-bought stubs would fare in a real garden. Here are the results:

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

He started by soaking the veggie scraps in water in a glass cake pan, then planted them in a raised bed with soil. He covered the bed with a shade cloth for two weeks to avoid them budding plants from getting too much direct sunlight. After just two weeks, there was already new green growth coming from everything he planted except the lettuce and cabbage.

In hindsight, he said, he could have spouted the lettuce and cabbage in water first, but he really wanted to see what would happen if he just planted then as is. The one whole onion he planted turned into five onions. The beet top that survived grew into funky-shaped but much larger beet that tasted god. The carrot tops grew some long, thin carrots expanding out from the center. The potato he dropped in the ground whole turned into a harvest of over a dozen potatoes. The tomato top, which included some seeds, turned into a large tomato plant, and so did the ginger. The garlic grew greens, but because of the season, it didn't grow into bulbs.

Vegetables GIFGiphy

With a couple of exceptions, the experiment was a rousing success. Apparently, you can grow a lot more vegetables from vegetables than people may realize. The one thing he recommends is to buy organic veggies if you're going to try planting scraps, as non-organic produce sometimes has sprout inhibitors on it that might interfere with your experiment.

People in the comments are sharing their own experiences with growing veggies from veggies:

"Last year, I bought a 1.5 lbs bag of purple baby potatoes in my local ShopRite. I couldn’t find purple potato seeds, so I decided to take a chance. There were 22 baby potatoes and all of them had eyes with some growth protruding, so I knew they would take off. Sure enough, I got an excellent crop out of those 22 baby potatoes. We enjoyed them until the end of year and then somehow forgot about them. When in March I realized we had still about ten pounds of potatoes, they had already started to sprout. In April, I planted some and the rest donated to the community garden. Both – us and the community gardeners – enjoyed huge crop of delicious purple potatoes. In the past, I occasionally planted store-bought potatoes when they were sprouting, but this was the first time I deliberately purchased a bag of potatoes just for planting. I am glad I did."

potatoes, growing potatoesIt's surprisingly simple to grow potatoes from potato parts.Photo credit: Canva

"As a child of a potato farmer, if you cut that potato in 3rds so that each had a sprout, you end up with 3 plants."

"My Mom was a farmer's daughter from the Depression Era and taught me to grow potatoes from the eyes or sprouts. You simply cut them, making sure each cut has an eye, and plant them into the soil. I did this and ended up with more than I needed. My mom and I canned potatoes for days. One of my best memories."

"I love how easy tomatoes are to grow. We planted some tomatoes and when they grew our dog started going over, picking one off, walking a few steps and eating it. After she passed, tomato plants started growing all over the yard. It was like a little gift from her."

"I'm 69, when I was a little kid, my elderly neighbors, threw all their scraps, from veggies in a certain spot of the garden, they would get food from there, it amazed me, I thought that was so cool!"

"Have been doing the same kind of replanting...onions, carrots, tomatoes, beets, and now cilantro, pak chop, etc. When I clear out the fridge...anything that looks like it will regrow goes in the raised bed. It is fun."

You can follow The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni on YouTube.

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Love Stories

Wife eats last meal her husband made before his death in emotional video

"I'll forever miss his cooking 😭"

sabfortony/TikTok

Sabrina (@sabfortony) eats the last meal her husband Tony cooked for her before he passed away.

Losing someone you love never gets easier, and the grief process comes in waves. One way TikToker Sabrina (@sabfortony) got to honor her husband Tony's memory was by eating the last meal he cooked for her the day he died.

Sabrina shared the emotional video with her followers on TikTok. "I’ll forever miss Tony’s cooking," she captioned the video, adding, "Let's eat my late husband's last meal together."

@sabfortony

i’ll forever miss tony’s cooking #lastmeal #moving #griefjourney #healingjourney #lifeafterloss #partnerloss

It begins with Sabrina holding a small quart-sized plastic container up to the camera, and she begins to describe its significance. "I have something very special here. The day that Tony passed away, I really wanted curry–and I wanted Japanese curry, so I asked Tony to make me some and he did," she says. "I ended up freezing it because I wanted to preserve it forever. But because I'm moving out of state, I need to eat this. I know some of you might think that is crazy cuz it's been over two years. Tony was the primary cook of our family, and so anytime I was craving something he would make it for me. That was one of the many ways that he showed love for me."

She then heats up the bowl of curry so that it is "scalding hot," noting that it has "turned to mush" before she tastes it. "Thank you Tony for my last meal in this home," she says. "And my apologies that I am raw-dogging this–I don't have any rice."

TikTok · Sabrina 🫶🏼

tiktok couple, love story, widow, last meal, emotional TikTok · Sabrina 🫶🏼www.tiktok.com

160.8K likes, 1635 comments. “I never want to forget what we had, ❤️ so I choose to tell our story. My heart breaks for the ones who’ve faced a similar tragedy.”

As she tastes it, she is delighted. "Mmm! Still good," she says. "This has carrots, onions, potatoes, beef, and he put mushrooms in it. Beef is still very tender!" As she gets to the last bite, she says, "Thank you, Tony!"

Sabrina's emotional video got an overwhelming response in the comments.

"🥺🥺🥺 last meal in the home you shared together 🥺," one wrote, and Sabrina replied, "😭 he knew i needed it 💗."

Another wrote, "Just thinking how his hands cut the ingredients and his heart cooked it with love made me sob. What a beautiful moment." Sabrina responded, "so much love 😭😭 it’s so special."

Another viewer commented, "He’s sending you off to the next chapter with love 🥹❤️," and Sabrina replied, "so true 😭 i’m so thankful for that."

Other viewers shared their personal stories of how food connected them with lost loved ones. "I kept my mom’s kimchi for as long as I could. I ate it the night I got my heartbroken and felt so comforted. Food is such a strong connection to those we know we can’t hold anymore," one shared. Sabrina replied, "food really is such a beautiful way to connect with people 😭 i’m glad your moms kimchi was a source of comfort 💗 she is with you always."

Another viewer shared, "When my grandmother knew she was sick, before she told anybody, she baked, cooked, froze, and canned until the pantry and freezer were full. After she died my grandfather ate her meals for a year." Sabrina responded, "what a beautiful soul 💗 caring for the people she loves."

grief
Joy

Woman with unfortunate initials upset she can never wear monogrammed clothing

Some other folks responded that they have it worse.

via Canva/Photos

A woman who is frustrated with her name.

It’s fair to blame parents if they give their child a name and the initials spell out something unseemly or embarrassing. They should have considered this before giving the child the name. However, you can’t blame someone with funny initials after getting married because no one will reject the love of their life for having a last name that starts with the wrong letter.

A woman shared that she can’t stand her initials because she can’t wear monogrammed clothing. "[My initials] are the bane of my existence, and I can never have traditional monogramming (first, last, middle) without it being a sandwich." Yes, her initials, in the traditional monogram form, are BLT. They are a tasty option for lunch but probably not something you’d want on a fancy necklace or bathrobe. She also refuses to eat the sandwich. "Raw tomatoes are disgusting to me personally,” she adds.

Why is it that in traditional monogram form, a married woman’s initials are different than if she was writing them first, middle, and last? “A monogrammed gift for a woman should include her first, middle, and last initial or, if she is married, her first, maiden name, and married name initials. Traditionally, a woman's monogram is presented in first, last, and middle initial order,” The Monogram merchant writes.

For example, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy would have a traditional monogram of JKB.



Some commenters shared their initials, and many were worse than BLT.

"My friend's is AIDS, so dont worry, i remember in secondary school having to sew our initials on pillows for home economics. I felt bad for her."

"I’m D.M.B. - all I’m missing is the U."

"Mine are TB.... just as unappealing haha."

"My initials are BS, so don't feel bad. I get cracked on all the time."

"Hubs initials are ET. Cue 'ET phone home,' circa the '80s from all his so called friends at work."



"My initials are RAD, lol."

"I knew a girl with the initials PMS, I think food is better than that."

"Mine happen to spell 'ELF', and I hated it as a kid. Now I embrace it, lol."

"My brother’s are R.A.T. He kinda embraced it, an animal lover and all."

"I'm APE lol."



It was once believed that having unfortunate initials meant more than suffering the occasional embarrassment—they could take years off your life. In 1999, a study found that men with positive initials, such as WOW or JOY, lived 4.5 years longer than those with neutral initials, while those with negative initials, such as DIE or ROT, died 2.8 years later.

The idea was that people with negative initials subconsciously think less of themselves, which could lead to an unhealthy lifestyle compared to someone with positive initials. However, six years later, that study was debunked by a subsequent study that found there is “no persuasive biological theory of how longevity should be significantly affected by initials."

Pamela Redmond Satran, author of "Baby Names Now," says we should still consider initials when naming children.

"Every conventional naming book gives the guideline, 'Don't forget to look at the initials,'" Satran said, according to CBS News. "Even if the second study contradicts the first, and having bad initials is not going to shorten your life span, it could make what there is of your life less pleasant. And who wants to foist that on innocent children?"

This article originally appeared in January.

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