Wednesday, June 6

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?

11 comments:

Run ANC said...

Man, I love date square. Y'all should come over and we'll go to Timothy's - they have really good ones, and it goes nicely with chai tea.

Do you know I've never had poutine? Ever??

Anonymous said...

That is a first for me ever hearing about poutine. Sounds absolutely artery-clogging! :)

Gabriella said...

Oh please send that poutine over to my house NOW. When I was in high school, I had a chocolate peppermint popsicle with a root beer. What can I say I was deprived at home!

Jezer said...

Just when I thought the world was getting smaller, we find a gap that the internet has not yet bridged--regional culinary differences. I have never even heard of poutine and I've never encountered a real fresh cheese curd in my life (Wikipedia says they squeak. They squeak? Oh, and date squares? No, can't say I would know one if it looked me square in the eye, and I'm pretty well-versed in the sweet department around here.

I'm blown away that you ate these things daily in the school cafeteria and I've never even heard of them!

Fun post!

Anonymous said...

Scurvy...lol. I often wonder the same thing. My diet in college was atrocious. Anyone who thinks you can't live on pizza, coke, french fries, cigarettes and alcohol has never met me. Thank God I sort of learned to cook and care about nutrition.

(That poutine stuff sounds sinfully good!)

Anonymous said...

Ahhh...poutine...

brings back memories of late night eating fests after party hopping on campus...

Yummmmmmmm....

Chicky Chicky Baby said...

You had poutine in your cafeteria?? And this is why I should have been born in Canada and not just in a town that modeled itself after the motherland.

Kyla said...

Ahhh, to live in the land of poutine! Mmmmm. It is my dream food, but it does not exist here in the States. Yet another reason to blog through Canada one day.

I lived on a bag of chips, can of soda, and candy bar for dessert in my cafeteria days.

petite gourmand said...

oh good lord that poutine looks good...

I remember those cafeteria fries oh so well.
the more gravy, ketchup & vinegar, the better.
It would usually get to the point where I was probably eating some of the cardboard container that they were floating in, because it all became this big gloppy delicious mess.

Do you think it would be weird if a 36 year old mom pushing a stroller showed up at the highschool cafeteria down the street at lunch time tomorrow???

kittenpie said...

Mmmmm.... date squares....

Major Bedhead said...

Ugh. Poutine looks like dog sick. I tried it once at some pub in Ottawa. Bleurgh. My MIL found my reaction hysterical.