School Dinners

Terribull our experiences and dislikes were so similar.

I too developed lump phobia. Especially mashed potato, made from powdered potato and fully of tiny lumps - I cannot eat mash potato to this day. There was the same problem with custard and for the same reasons, and the skin on custard and the pink blancmange, which we were made to eat.

As for the free milk. I hated milk from the time I stopped having a bottle and never drank it. I was at boarding school and I would be kept sitting at the tea table for hours because I would not drink the gently heated milk.

And I forgot - the famous spotted dick - a sweet suet pudding.

I really enjoyed my school dinners, apart from any fatty meat and liver, both of which I hate to this day. I was just regaling my little DGS yesterday with my tale of the day I sat in solitary splendour in the school hall till home time, after the cleaning had gone on around me, because the headmistress told me that I’d sit there till I ate that liver...

DGS said I should have chosen the panini option. Oh how times have changed!

I started having school dinners in the 1940s.There were still food shortages and the meals were quite basic.
I remember one - leek pudding. Leeks in suet crust. I think we had some kind of gravy with it.
Lots of mashed potatoes, and beetroot with the juice making the potatoes pink. I can't remember having meat, but must have had fish as that was local.
Puddings were mostly milk -rice, sago, tapioca etc. With rad jam. Maybe an apple.
I've got a photo from the local paper of me as server doling out the food.

I have very bad memories of school dinners, they were compulsory as was the school milk, I could have done with MT, "The Milk Snatcher" when I was at school, I hate neat milk, I always have done.

I wasn't a faddy eater, I never had any problems at home, school gave me a lump phobia, mashed potato, custard and worst of all the rice pudding which seemed to have lumps the size of small planets just reduced lunch times to misery. I can remember being forced to eat unpalatable foods and retching. I vowed then, if I were to have children, I wouldn't want them to undergo what I and others were putting up with. Having to ingest something under duress is an abuse of human rights I know I thought that then, even though I probably couldn't articulate such a concept.

I can still remember the nightmares I used to have after being forced to eat gristly mince at my first school, a small private one. Their food was disgusting!

Grammar school was a different matter, I loved the food. At one time I shared an 8-seater table with the only 4 vegetarians out of 300 pupils (how times have changed!), and 3 non-vegetarians, therefore having a choice from two different 8-serving metal dishes and plenty of second helpings which the other tables didn't have. No self service in those days. I remember we had chips on a Friday, sauteed potatoes on another, and various sponge puddings several times a week. Despite this I was always skinny!

I also loved my 1/3 pint of milk at break time, but not when it had been left to stand in the sun. In winter the foil cap was pushed up by the frozen milk.

I don't remember ever having chips - it was always lumpy mashed potatoes or, when there was a potato shortage one year, we had dry white bread with our dinner.

I remember chocolate shortbread, with green (mint flavoured) custard!

I liked school dinners. We had ours in what looked like a nissen hut in the grounds of our Victorian primary school. It had a huge black metal wood burning fire situated in the centre of it, with railings around it so much of the hut was very draughty. We sat at tables of eight and the dinner ladies plonked tin trays of food at the head of the table for the monitor to dish up. All portion sizes had been marked but I often felt I got the smallest bit of any yummy pudding.

We had Manchester tart and custard with raspberry jam on the bottom and coconut on top. and that was always my favourite. I must buy one or make one soon! I remember the multi coloured metal beakers too and the jugs of water.

At my primary school it was compulsory ( I think) to stay for school dinners and the only people allowed to have a packed lunch, eaten in the hall with everyone else, was a Jewish brother and sister who presumably had kosher food although nobody asked or was bothered. We sat at large tables, and it was a nice communal experience. The food wasnt always great, but it was edible, and the puddings with chocolate or pink custard were fab. Oh, the excitement as the whisper went along the queue that there were chips!

We had chocolate sponge pud with green mint custard yum. Have never been able to discover a recipe for mint custard like that lol.
Very thin slices of orange in the salad - great novelty as we'd never had fruit in a salad!
Cheesy eggs, hard boiled eggs halved and cheese sauce poured over. Grilled to brown the top. Lovely and I still make them to this day.

I loved them and often had seconds. Also had a cooked meal in the evening but remained skinny. I remember the shiny coloured metal jugs of water.

Oh we had chocolate concrete cake too but with pink custard. Yummy scrummy!

School dinners were to be endured not enjoyed!
What is gypsy tart? Am intrigued.

I loved school dinners. My mum was not much of a cook so they were a real treat. All of my children came home for lunch throughout their school life.

Chocolate concrete with pink semolina, cornflake and treacle tart. Yum

Oh absolutely loved it when the girl’s grammar I attended started serving CHIPS in the late 60’s! We were so excited in the dinner queue!

And my favourite pud was always hot chocolate sponge with ‘pink custard’.

I always remember my son, in the late 70's , being very excited as Cowboy Hot Pot was on the school dinner menu. A new dinner. How upset and disappointed he was when it turned out to be liver . !!!!