wanna date [square]? mais oui!

Three things pop into mind when someone mentions school cafeterias: poutine, date squares, and chocolate milk.

Poutine was an absolutely forbidden food in my childhood home. One of the only time I got to eat them was in the only place where I picked the food - in the cafeteria.

I still to this day love poutine but it's hard to justify those perfectly golden, deep fried, smoothered in gravy french fries with just the right amount of cheese curd (what can I say, I'm Canadian and I attended French Immersion where poutine is mandatory on the menu ).

My mother would faint if she knew how many times I indulged in the forbidden food. I'm actually drooling thinking about it right now, and I'm risking electrocution via the drool puddle forming on my keyboard.

Because one cannot live on poutine alone (why I'm not sure but I'm sure it has been medically proven) I needed something else to balance my other wise scurvy-inducing diet. The answer came in the form of date squares. Delicious and I do believe nutritious, these kept me from rickets and other evil vitamin-deficient ailments.

Oats, brown sugar, and dates - how can it be bad? My Dad and I share this love and it has been passed on to Bumper. When she was sick back in the Spring, the only thing she ate for a few days was luscious date squares. So they can't be all bad, right?

Both of these tasty treats would be washed down with a huge carton of chocolate milk and that is how I made it through the afternoon classes at immersion school.

In my childhood home french fries came directly from the devil, chocolate milk was ladened with sin (or was that calories?), and date squares were guilty of dessert by association.

But in the school cafeteria, I could eat that combo (and I did) every day. How I never developed scurvy is beyond me.

This Motherbumper childhood memory is part of The Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast "Tales From the School Cafeteria".

Check out School Menu and its parental counterpart Family Everyday, two sites that work together with School Food Services Directors to provide and promote healthy eating and physical fitness for kids and their parents.

Now I must go find some poutine. Don't tell my mom, 'k?