General Chat

:-D :-D :-D

The others were obviously not as nice or generous as you :-D

:-D :-D :-D

But in some schools, if it wasn't for people like me, you may not have been allowed out to play until 'you' had finished your pudding!

I feel ill!

Nameslessone, I used to get seconds, and even thirds, as I ate everyone elses! :-D

'cos my mum n dad worked shifts 7/7 (police, nhs) it was a rare thing for the family to eat together and I hated the school dinners smelling of boiled cabbage ( but not the recipes ) so I used to eat at a place owned by a rellie in Mare Street. They knew how to make steaknkidney pie, bangers n mash, baked carp spotted dick, jam roly poly so well I put on weight. Central London schools did not have playgrounds, sports fields, flash kitchens etc.

It was perfectly true that in the east end of the 60s and 70s anybody prepared to work hard would have no trouble paying the rent ( very few owned a house or flat ) , paying the coalman, feeding their kids etc. There were large street markets where you could buy just about anything at a low price including fresh food. IMHO people were a lot happier than they are today.

Omg. Frogspawn.
I can still have nightmares over that. I couldn’t even put my spoon into it. I was once made to stay in the whole lunchtime looking at it. Luckily the secondary school didn’t serve it.

I never stayed for school dinners when I was in Infant or Junior (primary) school but when I reached 11, I did so.

Our school had the sort of kitchen that Sylvia described spacious and well-equipped.

The dining hall layout consisted of two rows of long tables with sixth formers at the outer end of each table and first formers at the other end next to the aisle dividing the two columns of tables. Girls and boys were mixed.

Some members of staff sat at one of the long ends of a table placed on a platform, facing down the dividing aisle so they could watch over all of us. The head of the girls (it was a mixed grammar) walked down the aisle between the long tables (where first formers sat) almost every lunchtime and rapped the knuckles of those newbies who did not know how to use knife, fork and spoon correctly. (I was not one of them, thank goodness, but it still surprises me, after all this time, how many people don't or won't use cutlery correctly - not that I'd ever say anything though.)

After a couple of years we got tables for eight boys and girls - we still had to mix.

We never got chips, not even on Fridays when we always had fish (usually baked/steamed). We always had mashed or boiled potatoes and one or two other veg with every main meal. Friday was my favourite day because, apart from my liking of fish, we also had either chocolate or ginger pudding with white sauce.

I also liked shepherds' pie, meat pastry square (no bottom to them which suited me because I was not a pastry fan even though that particular pastry was delicious), sago and semolina.

I was in a small group of girls who went through phases of taking our own lunches to eat too. I recall the 'in vogue' lunchbox being a square Oxo tin (remember them?) at one time. We also had spurts of sandwiches such as Mars bar, Mars bar and banana, beef crisps - all of which I still like to this day.

Happy days.

The set-up was completely different for my children and grandchildren. <3 <3

I was the same at high school ............ school dinner made in the school's own kitchen

It was a brand-new school when I started there at age 11 .......... a replacement for an older school in the centre of town, building started just before WW2 began on a hill top outside town, they stopped work then finished it in 1951.

The new students and their parents were given a tour of the whole building. The kitchen was an absolute marvel, all shiny stainless steel, with some huge cauldrons for making mashed potatoes, stews, minces, etc.

My dad was thrilled to see them .......... he worked for the firm that made that kind of kitchen things!

We had all those good healthy meals, with puddings,frog spawn, etc etc.

I think they lasted into the 60s, or maybe even the 70s.

Oh yes - I remember that well :-D

Oh God, yes. I still make that. I love it, always did.

I am sure you remember how we were educated about sago and how wrong I was about why you can't buy it anymore.

We had puddings like that, too, Sharon - filling stuff!
Don't forget the frogs eggs! :-D

I think that our primary school was a pioneer in school dinners after we had the huge influx from the north-east and Wales with the Land Settlement Association.

I know the headmasters wife made herself school cook in the war with the caretakers wife as her assistant and the assistant was school cook when I was there.It was proper food too, spotted dick, apple crumble and plenty of custard.
That was the same as we had at home.

At some time in the intervening years, that all changed, both at home and at school. Can't remember when because I left school in 1968 and my school was still serving the proper stuff.

School dinners, when my children went to school were foul!
'Pizza' was tomato sauce on o pizza base, with squares of Kraft cheese on top :-S
They had 'nuggets', burgers, and other types of what can only be described as 'instant' unhealthy food, and cookery lessons in Secondary school weren't much better.

When I went to school, dinner was things like shepherds pie, stew, curry (leftover stew), Fridays, it was fish and chips!

Maggie, that reminded me. I can’t quite remember if this was in the same phone call or not.

Son having trouble eating his meal because he is left handed. No he wasn’t, it was just the way the table was laid.
Not enjoying his lunch - pizza, which we didn’t eat at home, which was served with tinned tomatoes——- Why! Seems an odd mix.

Edit: once went to a parent/ school caterers meeting. Apparently they knew our children better than we did, which is probably why they got the pizza /tinned tomato choice. The caterers did not accept that our children liked ‘proper’ food rather they the nugget style food. This was a country village school where most of us had veg plots and cooked from fresh.

I love bread and butter but only realized this when I was a grown-up, for want of a better description, and it stopped being 'eat yer bread and butter'.

I refused it on principal because it was made into a battle of wills and i would have loved it had I been allowed to choose.

We had been to a family house once and the little girl was sitting at the table, eating a piece of cake for her tea.

On the way home, just to illustrate her point, my mother said "Oh yes, you saw Sally having cake but she had had bread and butter first".

Don't know how she knew, she had been there just as long as I had and Sally might have had sweets and chocolate first for all I knew, or cared!

Oh yes - I forgot to mention - I was a single mum, and my children were on free school meals.
Having said that, they didn't like school dinners - eldest, on tasting a non-home-made burger for the first time at school, actually vomited.
So, they took marmite sandwiches for lunch, day in, day out - sometimes with cheese!.
By then, I also didn't grow vegetables, so they had to be bought.

Just to clarify - or dispel - one other presumption - we never went to McDonalds.!
My first ever McDonalds was when I was 40, at Uni, and was on a student trip to Wales.

When my kids were young I was considered very odd as I fed my two potatoes and not pasta. :-S

When my great grandsons are given the task of choosing their own lunch at home they will both arrange on their plates tomatoes, cucumber, cheese, and as much fruit as they are allowed a photo this week showed cherries, apple, melon, strawberries and blueberries. They are aged 7 and 4. They do like pasta though and the four year old eats veg. And loves parsnips. Seven year old has gone off carrots. But they are allowed not to like things as we are. They do eat meat but are not great meat eaters.

You could have prevented that by only feeding them turkey twizzlers and oven chips. Then it would have been the only thing that they would eat!