How many of these school dinners do you remember? What was Yr fav ?

[The Cobra]

Aimed at guys from the UK.

 

 

 

[KhunLA]

Only time I ate in school cafe, was Wednesday, Hoagie Day.   Usually got 2 or 3, go to the park adjacent to the Convent behind our school.  Wash down with wine, and a few doobies.

 

Needless to say, we missed a lot of Wednesday afternoon classes.   Which was the norm, as the movie theater's matinee (cheap price/50 cents) changed on Wednesdays also.  

 

So if not at the park stoned, then at the movies ever couple weeks when  new flicks came in.

Edited August 18 by KhunLA

[simon43]

One of my earliest memories (nightmares), is being forced to eat swede at kindergarten.....  I still can't look at a swede without getting the shudders, (but Frankfurters and other Germans don't have the same effect!).

[Will B Good]

We had cows liver, mash and swede.....from memory ...every single day.

[Regyai]

Manchester Tart was always popular

 

(& a welcome lead line for unwelcome comments to the dinner ladies)

[scubascuba3]

There's a good facebook group "council cuisines" which is good, they post photos of popular food from the past

[The Old Bull]

School dinners were all horrible. The only time they put salt and pepper on the table was when the school inspectors came around. It's difficult to make boiled spuds taste bad but they could .There was some kind of shepherds pie made with canned corned beef , that was the only thing I could choke down.

[Gsxrnz]

To this day, the institutional smell of boiled cabbage initiates a gagging reflex.

[Andyfez]

Butterscotch slice.......

 

I never had a problem with swede, and although I don't choose to eat liver, the liver served in rich gravy at school was always good.

 

 

[Dionigi]

never had a school dinner

[Burma Bill]

 I still have memories of school dinners from when I was 11 to 18 (1955 to 1962) at UK Grammar School.

 

Loved - treacle tart with custard, corned beef hash, sausages with mash (occasionally chips), grated cheese salad, "spag bol", tapioca pudding with jam, mutton stew and carrots and on special occasions "toad in the hole".

 

Hated -  steamed cod on Fridays (bland - no sauce and lots of bones), mashed swede (like others here on AN), wishy washy semolina and rice puddings with a spot of jam,  boiled cabbage and boiled onions, squashed tin tomatoes.

 

Whatever, I always had my own bottle of HP Sauce which I kept in my school desk. Not officially allowed but one could always smuggle it into the canteen inside my school blazer pocket.

[newbee2022]

🥱🥱🥱🥱🥱

[Dexxter]

When I was 6 years old and lived in a boarding school for a year, the nuns would feed us mashed potatoes and mashed pumpkin. I hated the pumpkin but was not allowed to leave the table until my plate was cleared. I tried mixing the pumpkin and potato together to dilute the taste but then I couldn't eat the potato either.

It took me more than 50 years before I tried to eat pumpkin again in the form of pumpkin soup and pumpkin cake and discovered it was actually delicious. I still refuse to eat mashed pumpkin.

Those nuns have a lot to answer for considering the damage they caused to my sanity. Christian Brothers later in my childhood did not help.

[Purdey]

Rhubarb and lumpy custard. 

 

I still remember the look of horror from the French school cook upon seeing what American kids get for lunch in Where to Invade Next? by Michael Moore: 

"But... zat is not food!" 

🤫

Edited August 19 by Purdey

[Ralf001]

Meat pie in a bap with lays salt and vinegar chips and a splash of brown sauce.

[Joedoebarinio]

Chocolate sponge and custard. 

[siftasam]

Oh, yes! The 'main course' (!) was usually mediocre - apart from bangers and mash (snorkers if you're a naval type). 'Zeppelins in the clouds'!

 

Desserts (I mean 'afters') were great. When times were bad and money short, we had rice pud one day, tapioca the next and SEMOLINA the next (all with strawberry jam).

 

Custard was superb - pink, green, chocolate and yellow (of course). At the end of dinners, there was always lots of custard left (some kids have no gastronomic sense at all) and I always went to the ladies for an extra big jug. Heaven! (BUT I could never eat the 'blanket' - ugh!)

 

The colours of the custard rotated according to the colour of the sponge pudding. 

 

Jam roly-poly - bliss! Cornflake tart, pineapple upside down, treacle sponge and tart, apple crumble (on very special days!)

 

And wonderful bread and butter pudding. Look, friends, I swear that I am not a pervert but I do sometimes add some jam to my B ad B (usually APRICOT). Will I be damned for this on Judgment Day and sent to rot in Hell where the only custard is a weak as ditchwater Gallic 'sauce anglais'? Perish the thought!

[siftasam]

I meant the sponge and the custard were ALWAYS of DIFFERENT colours. Dinner ladies do have some imagination!

 

(shades of that glorious duo Victoria Wood and Julie Walters!)

[Jerzy Swirski]

The thing I remember most about school dinners was the tradition of bragging the 1st year students.   We would not eat our custard and then whilst queuing to return our bowls would covertly tip the custard into a 1st years blazer pocket.     Must have been great to put your hand into your pocket two hours later and find it full of cold custard.

 

Amazingly no-one ever got caught.

Oh the wonderful memories of a public school education.

[Lokie]

In Manchester, late 70s - early 80s both in Primary & Secondary School - Loved School dinners, only things crap was Tapioca & Semolina, oh & Blancmange Yuk!!

 

Even better when they brought the Cafeteria style set up in, could cover your pizza with chips & hide other things, then you only paid for chips, they must av lost money on that.

 

Free dinners - issued dinner tckts Mon morning an hour later around Smokers corner used to sell em for about £1.50 then buy my Fags for the week, No6 Tipped, best part about School was the dinners, eating ir making money & Miss Burke in Art class always showing her pert Baps to a load if Horny 15 yr old boys... Im sure she improved their right arm Techniques lol

 

She gave me a C in Art, lack of concentration...? Err Id dispute that, I was fully concentrated on her Knockers should av git an A+

Edited August 20 by Lokie

[Will B Good]

About once a term, at primary, we had chocolate cake with chocolate custard........OMG I can still smell and taste it....555

[GammaGlobulin]

On 8/18/2024 at 4:35 PM, KhunLA said:

Only time I ate in school cafe, was Wednesday, Hoagie Day.   Usually got 2 or 3, go to the park adjacent to the Convent behind our school.  Wash down with wine, and a few doobies.

 

Needless to say, we missed a lot of Wednesday afternoon classes.   Which was the norm, as the movie theater's matinee (cheap price/50 cents) changed on Wednesdays also.  

 

So if not at the park stoned, then at the movies ever couple weeks when  new flicks came in.

 

Needless to say, you never graduated.

Or, have not yet graduated, so far.

 

[GammaGlobulin]

These days, at most schools, food is ultra-processed, or full of oil, sugar and salt.

 

Then, schools pretend to be surprised when their students begin to bulge.

 

I refused to eat in the school cafeteria, preferring to bring my own, when a day student.

At boarding school, the only good meal was fried chicken thighs and legs.

The food was nutritious and healthy, way back then, but it was not gourmet, especially.

 

The food was not that bad, in fact, just a bit boring, after a while.

 

Still, that school food was far less boring than my present diet.

Therefore, I can be thankful for having been taught to prefer a boring diet.

 

 

Edited August 21 by GammaGlobulin

[KhunLA]

12 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

Needless to say, you never graduated.

Or, have not yet graduated, so far.

 

Actually I did, with quite decent grades, even though I missed 25% of the last school year, with 40 days absent ...     

 

Equates to a 3 day weekend every week 

Didn't attend the graduation ceremony & not photo of me in the year book.  Had better things to do.

 

I used to give my subjects books back at the final exams.   Teachers were like, "hold on, we have a few more days of school" ... "yea, you do, I don't, I'm done".   

[GammaGlobulin]

23 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

Actually I did, with quite decent grades, even though I missed 25% of the last school year, with 40 days absent ...     

 

Equates to a 3 day weekend every week 

Didn't attend the graduation ceremony & not photo of me in the year book.  Had better things to do.

 

I used to give my subjects books back at the final exams.   Teachers were like, "hold on, we have a few more days of school" ... "yea, you do, I don't, I'm done".   

 

So then, you attended the same school as Steve Jobs?

Attendance not required nor encouraged.

 

[KhunLA]

47 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

So then, you attended the same school as Steve Jobs?

Attendance not required nor encouraged.

It was encouraged, I just didn't care.  Principle called me in one day and pointed out he didn't need to graduate me, as I didn't meet the required time of attendance already, and was only at mid terms of the year, and not even close to the minimum.  

 

Told him I didn't care, and let me know now, so I don't waste any more time coming to class.   Grades are way better than average, teachers like me, so let me know if I should quit now, and I'd simply get a GED.   

 

It was a short meeting.   Except for Chemistry, I'd say the last 2 years of high school were a total waste of time.

 

Hindsight, had I known, I would have quit and simply got the GED a few years earlier.

Edited August 21 by KhunLA

[GammaGlobulin]

32 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

It was encouraged, I just didn't care.  Principle called me in one day and pointed out he didn't need to graduate me, as I didn't meet the required time of attendance already, and was only at mid terms of the year, and not even close to the minimum.  

 

Told him I didn't care, and let me know now, so I don't waste any more time coming to class.   Grades are way better than average, teachers like me, so let me know if I should quit now, and I'd simply get a GED.   

 

It was a short meeting.   Except for Chemistry, I'd say the last 2 years of high school were a total waste of time.

 

Hindsight, had I known, I would have quit and simply got the GED a few years earlier.

 

So then, you had little interest in scholarly pursuits, other than Organic Chemistry?

To what do you attribute that lack of interest?

 

 

[KhunLA]

17 minutes ago, GammaGlobulin said:

 

So then, you had little interest in scholarly pursuits, other than Organic Chemistry?

To what do you attribute that lack of interest?

Boredom ... how many times do you need to repeat the same history, English, math, physics, geography.   

 

How often am I going to use Latin or Spanish.

 

Never considered myself more intelligent than anyone, but other students would take note, study at home, and do no better on tests than I did, by simply sitting there and paying attention when they covered something new.

 

Most teachers go over what's going to be on a major test, the day before.  Pay attention, and they basically gave you all the answers to the test.

 

One teacher would tell me, you need to be here, this day, as test the next day   That was Spanish, which I didn't even need to be there before the test, as already had 2 yrs of Latin.   More about conjugation of verbs (had in Latin) & such, and obviously less about vocabulary memory.  

 

I was actually surprised the lack of memory most student exhibited.   Really ... 1776, 1787/88/89, how do you forget that.  We live in Philly FFS.  Can't remember a simple Algebra formula.   Refresher after refresher after refresher ...

 

Edited August 21 by KhunLA

[brianthainess]

Semolina with a blob of jam, and stirred it round 'til it was all pink. late 50s. 

Edited August 21 by brianthainess

[brianthainess]

Rhubarb and custard, all these things were a treat for us growing up in the late 50s, anything sweet was welcome, some war time rationing was still in force. 

Worse meal was sloppy boiled fish, watery mash and tinned tomatoes. Yuk, but we still ate it, in those days we ate anything that was put in front of us.

None of this food like now chips, Pizza and Burgers.