I agree with Jamie Oliver that school dinners today are mostly junk food.There are no vitamins or minerals in this type of food.Going to school in the 40s & 50s I realise now that we had very good nutritious dinners.I can remember seeing large trays of meat & potato pies,cottage pies,lovely soups & stews,and delicious puddings, like Bakewell tart,apple pie,steamed jam puddings,rice and sago puddings,and also lots of greens.I didnt realise then how good they were in comparison to todays school dinners.What were your school dinners like ?:thumbsup:

very good really. just as i was leaving school they were replacing proper china plates with those naff plastic-sectioned trays... thats where the rot began! but my school was always seving plenty of veg, proper joints of meat, homemade lasagna, treacle sponges, etc. in fact, i can hardly remember any chips at all back then....

still not sure about the semolina tho'

Plus the kids of today don't get the obligatory jug of water with a pea and some mashed spud floating in it.:gag:

But yes, school dinners were better back then.:thumbsup:

Ah, school dinners......
Is that where you learned to love spam, Pattricia? :D

Originally posted by saxon51
Plus the kids of today don't get the obligatory jug of water with a pea and some mashed spud floating in it.:gag:


Made me laugh! I'd forgotten about that. There was always a pea! :confused:

Ah, deep-fried spam fritters followed by bananas in cold custard.

PUTRESCENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The smell of home cooking in the school hall has sadly now been replaced by the smell of chips, pizza and pot noodles!!!

:(

I remember the yummy jam roly poly and 'school' custard.

Remember the white plastic trays the meals were served in....??
I am sure that's why school custard was sooo thick...to prevent it from 'mingling' with your first course if you weren't quite old enough to hold your tray steady!!

I remember the huge 'slop bucket' at the exit to the hall, where you scraped your trays and stacked them to be washed....resembled a huge vat of vomit!! :gag:

Oh'ER, the good old days!! *sighs*

:D

At school in the 50's - gristly meat, watery mashed potatoes, greens that had lost the will to live! It may have been pretty decent stuff to start with, but something often got lost in the cooking. Cheese flan was ok though, even though we had that with mash - never chips.

Some good puds though - chocolate or pink custard, yummy! We also got free school milk - frozen in winter, and warm in summer, yuk!

Yes they were a lot better. I'm back working at school now and i won't use the canteen unless i desperatly need a sandwich (i was late), and that is the only thing i will buy and they are not great.

We use to have luncheon meat fritters, (i still have to have one if i go in a chippy that does them), with chips and baked beans and apple crumble for afters. The other one we got was what we called catfood pasties but they were soya chicken and gorgeous with lumpy mash and veg and loadsa gravy. And you could buy fruit and glasses of milk. If you got free dinners it was enough to get you a main and dessert and fruit and a drink, unlike now.

Our canteen had just changed to a pick and choose place but it wasn't all bad like it is now they still used to have to be able to cook. I think the most processed thing you got was a fish finger and they were only on once a week.

Originally posted by saxon51
Plus the kids of today don't get the obligatory jug of water with a pea and some mashed spud floating in it.

PMSL but sooo true!!

I quite liked school dinners - apart from the lumpy mashed potato and greasy spam fritters - The cheese flan they still do today and I keep sending my daughter off with a doggy bag but she won't bring any home for me. :hihi:

Anyone remember the pink custard? (and this was before the teletubbies.)

I used to love upside down cake with custard......................


hmmmmmmm custard.

I remember spam (do people still eat that?) and home made shepherd's pie which was amazing (however I am now a vegetarian).

downside was that cabbage - where did they get it from?

school cheese pie with the radioactive glowing cheese was the best :)

Originally posted by stephenjones


still not sure about the semolina tho'

Semolina was alright with a dollop of jam. It was the Sago that was yeuk - just like miniature frog spawn :gag:

Pattricia forgot about the steamed apple dumplings with custard - yum ;)

Originally posted by Draggletail
Ah, school dinners......
Is that where you learned to love spam, Pattricia? :D Oh, yes forgot about Spam.I loved it.Im sure they dipped it in batter first,before frying it.

Originally posted by Greybeard
Semolina was alright with a dollop of jam. It was the Sago that was yeuk - just like miniature frog spawn :gag:



Not often I agree with anything you write , but on this you are right - it was disgusting.

Normal service will be resumed shortly

The dinners I had at shiregreen middle were absolutely disgusting, overcooked undercooked you name it. In comp the meals were curious ok sometimes even good and they had apple crumble (yum) every other day. you also had a choice of what you had but no junk food :) :)

We had some swirly chocolate shortcakey type biscuit with chocolate custard. :love:

Most kids in my school hated the meals they served..

I LOVED THEM!!!!!!!!

Heres the meals i loved in the 70s,80s when in school :)

Pizza,Hamburgers (Oh my,the best),Fish Sticks (Dont like too much fish but i liked those)

I always got a salad with my lunch and sometimes some fruit and MAN WAS IT GOOD!!!!!

Im glad im not in school anymore,the way they have changed food so much over the years,EVERYTHING PROBABLY TASTES LIKE CRAP NOW!!!!!!!

(I would do anything to have a hamburger from my school days!!!!)

I couldn't eat the school meals at Lydgate Juniors or King Teds Grammar. They were disgusting. At Lydgate, I'd walk home for lunch and at King Teds, I took sandwiches.

I usually took my lunch to school because the cafeteria food was awful. There was one dish I loved, though: mashed potatoes and bilious yellow gravy. I mean, this gravy was Day-glo.

To this day, I have to add a squirt of yellow food coloring to my gravy at home... just for nostalgia's sake!

More to the point what was I like at school dinner time?

I loved our school dinners - proper dinners with potato and veggies and gravy. I loved the steak pie. The puddings were fantastic . . treacle sponge . . . semolina with rosehip syrup . . pink sponge and chocolate custard . .

Now I'm hungry.

My over-riding memory of primary school dinners was of kids being sick. I remember rank old sausages, metal jugs of lukewarm water, exploding Tom-Toms and semolina.

On to high school and it was just vats of cold chips, gravy and the odd pie. (needless to say it was best to take sandwiches). One year we used to have PE in the hall after dinner and you'd have to avoid the odd squashed chip or pool of vinegar!

And this was only in the 90s!!

[QUOTE=funkymiss;2783538]My over-riding memory of primary school dinners was of kids being sick.QUOTE]


OMG yes, and when one goes - all the rest do too . . . !:hihi:

Am not feeling quite so hungry now . . . .

Did you grow up in Wales too?!
I remember this kid vomming once and the dinner lady came running over shrieking 'he's not allowed to have sausages!!'
It worries me that I remember all this...

I remember having the most disgusting dinner ever once (i cant remember what it was , just that it was foul !) , i said i couldnt eat it but the dinner lady said " eat it all up theres nothing else ", so i did .That day we had an asembley after dinner , think it was an awards do or something . I could feel my self start to feel sick , put my hand up but was told it would have to wait .Anyway it couldnt wait and i threw up all over the girl in front of me , she screamed , i started crying then threw up some more , everybody run out of the hall screaming and the girl in front of me was literaly dripping in sick crying her eyes out , i was taken to the toilets to clean up and all i remember saying was , " i told you i didnt like my dinner " !!!!
I would have only been about 6 and since that day mum always made me take sandwiches !!! :hihi:

delicious....jam roly poly pudding, gypsy tart.....mmm pudding

Thee were alright until that nobead Jamie Oliver got riden chips.