Ellio's Pizza
Three thin slabs to a box, each snapping crosswise into three slices: nine in all, and not a curve among them. The freezer-aisle pizza of a Northeast childhood, and the one that went on television in 1989 to call itself square.
#School Lunch
5 items
Handi-Snacks
Kraft's cheese-and-crackers tray: a sealed compartment of processed cheese, a stack of crackers, and one flat red plastic stick for spreading. The stick was not a utensil. It was the entire point.
McCain Smiles
The smiley-face potatoes: crispy mashed-potato discs with two punched eyes and a grin, beaming up from a million cafeteria trays. On Smiles day, the hot-lunch line moved a little faster.
String Cheese
The lunchbox mozzarella log with one sacred rule: you peel it. Strip by satisfying strip, dangled and nibbled until the last stub — and everyone knew that one kid who just bit into it whole like a monster.
Uncrustables
The round, crimped, crustless PB&J that conquered the 2000s lunchbox. Invented by two Minnesota dads in 1995, bought by Smucker's, and defended with an actual patent on the sealed crustless sandwich — still in freezers, bigger than ever.