Some time ago, Chloris Yanagida wrote in to ask for a recipe that would replicate one she recalls from Lili'uokalani School in Kaimuki in the 1950s. It was delicious, she said, and didn't even have meat in it. Most of those old school recipes have disappeared, of course, and many got their special quality from ingredients not available to us, such as the particular kind of surplus cheese the schools might have received from the federal government.

So I'm not guaranteeing this will be the exact thing that Yanagida asked for, but perhaps it'll get close. I found it scribbled in the back of in an old community cookbook that I bought at the Friends of the Library of Hawaii Book Sale. Don't know where it came from. It makes a ton, but you can cut the recipe in half if you don't need to feed a big family.

In cafeteria times, the cheeses would have been of the processed kind and mild-flavored, and I don't think they'd have used olives — expensive and too many kids don't like 'em. The spaghetti sauce would have been simple: canned tomatoes and tomato sauce sauteed in oil with only the mildest touch of "Italian seasoning" and maybe a little garlic salt. It's also possible that the secret ingredient Yanagida is missing was cottage cheese or ricotta cheese, which was often used to stretch the sauce and give baked pasta dishes a creamier texture.

MEATLESS BAKED SPAGHETTI