I used to study at several Soviet schools - most had hot lunches, but one only had a stall where students could buy snacks and hot drinks. But normally, even though food was of, well, institutional standard, it adhered to strict health and nutrition standards regarding the meals' caloric and nutritional content (% of carbs, fat, protein, etc.) It was boring but hey, don't get me even started on French hospital food (I had a few quality stays in French hospitals) - it's absolutely _abysmal_ .

Normally, Soviet-time school meals consisted of a soup (cabbage soup, borsch, chicken noodle, whatever), a second course (usually meat patties, gulash, stroganoff with buckwheat, potatoes, pasta, etc, on the side); sometimes it was - oh horror - fish, always fresh-water with lots of bones in it; I still can't stand fish and it takes all my willpower to eat it when I absolutely have to. It was followed by a very primitive "dessert" - normally a sweet drink like "compote" (a drink of stewed dried fruit) ot "kissel" (runny fruit jelly). No fresh vegetables, but then again, not many Soviet Russians had them out of season, anyway: they simply weren't available. Lots of black and white bread for students to help themselves. The food was extremely basic and tasted bland and institutional but it was sufficient and definitely not as junky as all those horrible deep fried school meals I saw in Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. The meal on your photo actually looks very healthy. Which is a very good thing, considering the obesity epidemic among Native Americans.