School canteen classics we’ll never forget

From Sunnyboys to finger buns dripping with butter, the school canteen was the heart of our childhoods. Aussies share their fondest tuckshop memories.

If you want to know what true luxury looked like for Aussie kids, it wasn’t a trip to Europe or even a new bike. It was a brown paper bag with your name scrawled across the front in your mum’s handwriting and a couple of coins sticky with pocket lint tucked inside. That, my friends, was how we dined like kings and queens at the school canteen.

The tuckshop wasn’t just a place to buy lunch. It was the centre of the schoolyard universe. A hall of fame of crumbed, microwaved, butter-drenched treasures that cost mere cents but live forever in our memories.

Kidspot spoke to Aussies about their fondest canteen memories, and the nostalgia came flooding back.

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The thrill of the brown paper bag

For most of us, it started with that brown paper bag ritual. Carly remembers it perfectly: “The sandwiches just tasted better out of a brown paper bag that your mum had written the order on!” 

Victoria agrees: “Ordered in a brown paper bag your mum wrote on the front of and the canteen leader of the week delivered to the canteen in a laundry basket!”

And if you were the kid chosen to do the canteen run? Instant celebrity status. Layla recalls: “How good was it when you were on canteen duty and got to go and collect your class basket full of orders? I have fond memories spinning that basket around and around in the air with the goal of none of the orders falling out. Didn’t always work … delivered a few smashed pies.”

The royalty of canteen mums

The real jackpot came when your mum, or better still, your nan, was rostered on canteen duty. Don puts it simply: “The best day of your life was when your mum or nanna came and volunteered for canteen duty! You were king of the school!” 

The menu of dreams

So what made the menu so unforgettable? Where do we start?

• Sunnyboys, Razz, Zooper Doopers - icy bricks of flavour that cost five cents and could remove the top layer of skin from your lips. Leesa reckons the Razz had the edge: “They had so much more flavour!!”
• Pizza Rounders and Pizza Pockets - molten lava disguised as lunch. Worth every blister.
• Finger buns dripping with butter - Emily remembers paying 80c, while Jaclyn recalls teaming hers with a Sunnyboy for the ultimate combo.
• Chicken and corn rolls - Leah swears they were “the bomb,” and honestly, who’s arguing?
• Hot cheese rolls - Nicole laughs about these microwave masterpieces: a burger bun, a sad slice of cheese, nuked into oblivion. Haute cuisine, canteen-style.
• Yummy Drummys - crumbed chicken pretending to be a drumstick. Still dream-worthy at around 30c.

And let’s not forget the oddities:

• A crumbed sausage (thanks Adelaide, courtesy of Tania).
• Sausage roll in a roll, or even a pie in a roll (Jean-pierre swears by it).
• Frozen oranges, pineapple doughnuts and even a “thik choc” slab of icy milk (Jennifer and Gemma, we salute your schools).
• Chelsea buns – “I was just talking about these with mates the other day, I still dream of them!” says Shane.

Pocket-money maths

Here’s the thing: you didn’t need to be rich to feast. Tania remembers: “I used to get between 50c and 70c a day. That bought me a crumbed sausage, Twisties for 10c, maybe a Razz. Super nutritious!”

Katie scored a 50c bag of licorice that lasted her all day. Rebecca nabbed mint slice biscuits for 20c. Elizabeth got a slice of bread with peanut butter and a glass of cordial for just 20c. And Scott still can’t believe Zooper Doopers were 5c in the 70s.

Compare that with today’s $6 sushi roll and you’ll understand why nostalgia tastes so sweet.

The treats that made us legends

High school brought its own canteen drama. Andrew confesses: “In high school around ’82, I pinched $20 from my dad and got caught because I spent some of it in the school canteen … They thought it was suss that I had a $20 note and reported it.” Rookie error, Andrew. Should’ve broken it into coins.

For others, it was about loyalty pacts sealed over a choc-chip cookie. Janine laughs: “I always remember the old ancient Australian proverb: If you come to the canteen with me, I’ll buy you something!”

A hall of fame

The school canteen of old was never about balanced nutrition. It was about belonging, independence, and having just enough coins to make a choice. It was the first taste of freedom, of handling money, of learning how to stretch 50c into a feast.

So here’s to the canteen classics: the crumbed sausages, the Sunnyboys, the Yummy Drummys, the jam doughnuts, the hot cheese rolls and everything in between. They weren’t fancy. They weren’t healthy. But they were unforgettable.

Originally published as School canteen classics we’ll never forget