Following on from all the nostalgic threads.....do you have a favourite school dinner? or school dinner story? Did your taste change throughout your school years?

My faves were the puds....the really sticky jam tart that stuck to the roof of your mouth. the chocolate tart with a dob of cream....oooh, and plum crumble mmmmm

What did you think of cheese pie :-D

I was only just talking to my children yesterday at dinner about school dinners!
Now I am only (ONLY) 32 years of age but my boys (5years & 8years) could not believe my stories about school dinners when I was at school!

At First school (infant) we all used to sit in the dinner hall in silence with the headteacher sitting on the stage eating her dinner, watching over all of us, now if we did not finish what was on our plates we had to take the plate up onto the stage and explain to the headteacher why we did not finish, and also if we talked or messed around while eating we was ordered to eat our dinner at the headteachers table on the stage! This was a Church of England school bog standard mainstream school!

Then in Secondary school, we again had to sit in silence while eating and also had to stand everytime a teacher or headmaster entered or left the room!!
When my parents moved down to Hampshire from Surrey, I had to change schools, and was so surprised at the how can I put it,,,, casual way the hampshire school was run!!! Never had to stand everytime a teacher entered/left the room and the noise in the dinner hall was LOUD!!

I would love to know whether my old Surrey schools are still run they was when I was there, although it seems since my children have been at school, things have really changed and seem much more, casual with regards of respecting teacher and headteachers.

Can't remember the food much at school, apart from tabby oka!!

In my schools dinner was a much more formal affair than it seems to be now. There was a teacher or a prefect at the head of each table, and (after Grace was said, of course) she dished out the food which the two girls at the end used to fetch from the serving hatch. There were jugs of water only to drink. When the main course was finished, pudding was brought out. The teachers ate the same meal as the children, and there was no choice of food - one main course and one pudding. The only option was whether you wanted a normal portion or a small portion (if it was something you didn't like). No abstention allowed - though if you had a friend who liked something you didn't like, discreet swapping was ignored! Then Grace was said again at the end of the meal and everybody filed out.

Oh, and standing when an adult came into the classroom was automatic!

>Can't remember the food much at school, apart from tabby oka!!

LOL! It took me a while to work out what you meant! Was that a school nickname for it? (I love tapioca, by the way - the really big frogspawn stuff. Yummy!)

My village primary school, being very small, did home cooked meals, in their own kitchens. The cook was wonderful, and you got really hungry smelling the food cooking! i can't say I had a fav, all the food was basic like meat pies, shepards pie, chops, braised steak, chicken, all served with lovely veg and potatoes mashed, boiled and on very rare occasions fish and chips. No precooked/ready type meals, or loads of chips or fried stuff. It was heavenly, and plates were always cleared. The puds were lovely too, sponges, apple pie or crumble, baked apple, rhubarb pie or crumble, served with creamy custard or ice cream. Loved the sticky jam tart, and the butterscotch tart mmmmm.

Secondary school was not so good, but there were far more to cater for, lunch was in two or maybe three sittings, can't quite remember now. Hungarian Goulash and beef Strogonof were two meals I liked, but they either served mash with hard black bits in, or some odd type of veg that tasted strange (and as someone who was raised on home grown veg not being able to recognise something was strange) Very often the food was cold, or not cooked very well, or left to stand so long it was uck! The dinner ladies would come round and insist you ate what was on your plate....one day a lad who wasn't feeling very well was made to eat and he threw up all over the table! I very quickly changed from school meals (as did my friends) to taking a packed lunch. I do remember there was only one choice of meal.

As to funny stories, well the one real thing that stands out in my mind is when the kitchen at the primary school caught fire! Not a huge one, but enough for the fire engine and us to be evacuated to the school field! Not funny, but something to remember :) have no idea what happened after that though....bit too long ago :)

I took pack lunch most of the time when i was younger except if it was a roast or something i liked thn i would stay. I remember that the meat tasted and felt very prcessed and becuase my mum was a dinner lady she used to always get the cook to hold back my favourite desert :-) Normally a strwberry, angel delight type thing, or a flapjack type cake and custard.
when i hit high school i went home for dinner and would normally dish up bacon sandwiches for me and my mates :-)
When i went to college we used to go intothe refectory and have panninis washed down with endless cups of hot chocolate and mars bars.
best institutional food ever tasted:that served up at army barracks and marine camps. Absolutely lovely.yum yum :-)

Beware of school dinners, push them aside
some people didn't - some people died.
look at the gravy, all thick and still
if that doesn't get you - the custard will.
Chris

Don't have fond memories of school dinners really

- the only thing I can really remember is rice pudding with jam in the middle!  Never had that anywhere else!  Oh and jam roly poly with custard!

I am not a big pudding fan though so no idea why those are the two things that stick out in my memory.

> rice pudding with jam in the middle

rice pudding ( or was it tapioca? ) with chocolate sprinkles in the middle :(

custard with prunes :(

custard with sliced bananas :(

How I hated custard! complete with skin bleughhh!!!

At primary school, meat pies, cookedin a big tray, spotted dick and custard, we had pink, yellow & green custard.

Boarding school - baked spuds in jacket and macaroni cheese, used to serve it with an tomatoe sauce YUEEK, I had mine dry. Pudding chocolate soup!!

Pet hate pichards in a tomatoe sauce. sour leaves, muslieu Im shuddering,,,,,,,

Morning at Boarding school porriage, real porriage and I loved the lumps!!

10 No.10 and a packet of crisps

Wow, our dinner times were never as strict as that and I'm 37!  I loved our school meals, they were wonderful!  We were even allowed seconds!
Do remember one time being made to laugh so much I had milkshake coming down my nose!!

10 No.10 and a packet of crisps

LOL......norty girl! (I take it the number 10 was the cigs No 10? )

Mince with butter beans and lemon curd tart and custard yummy!!!

Custard with most everything

Sago pudding

Chocolate pud with chocolate sauce

Steak pie

Mash

Jam Roly poly

steamed pudding

slurp

>norty girl! (I take it the number 10 was the cigs No 10? )

yep!

LOl, I had no 6, my 'posh mates' had red Embassy .....smokin in the girls room :) :)

lemon curd tart and custard

ohhh forgot that one! Yummy

Do any of the kids have school meals now?? I live not far from a large secondary (Well that's what they were called in my day!! When Noah was a lad!!) school and not only do they seem to all be out wandering the streets at lunch time, it would seem that they finish for the afternoon around 2.45, nightmare time to try and drive past the school gates, whatever happened to the green cross code!!
I remember the 10 to a table, two collected the food from the serving hatch in tin tubs and dished it out, yummmy food, meat pies, mince, chops etc all served with real veg and potatoes of some sort, loved the roasties. Then the comfort puds jam roly poly, fruit crumbles, rice puds, ohh it takes me back. (Snogging behind the bike shed's and having a crafty puff. Oh and I remember the 10 number 10's too!!!) LOL
Aileen (now reminiscing and feeling old)

School meals are so different now. So many choices, the healthy choice (salad, veg, meat) to pizza and chips with everything, not the good old meat and two veg with a pud from my days of old. Mine take a packed lunch.

Classier than you, it was No6 for me LOLOL

roast dinner on a wednesday was always my fave and if you were good you could have 2nd's if there was any left.
sweet fave is a toss up between jam sponge and pink custard or the carermal squares.
mummmmmm!!!!!!!!!!

Bacon wheat crunchies, Double decker or a Bounce bar...I was saving my lucnh money for cider on a Friday night!!! Shock LOL!

Oh dear me, Cider and Vimto!!! true Somerset lass as I am!!

My friends and I used to pool our dinner money so that we could buy cigs and rubbish snacks like crisps and chocolate (Walnut Whipps were my faves). 

Song from 1950s primary school:

"Say what you will,
School dinners make yer ill
Davey Crockett died from Shepherds pie
All School din-dins come from pig bins
That's no lie"!

I went home to dinner then - once at Grammar School it ws very formal - 8 to a table, table prefect collected water jug & poured water (proper glasses!) and two other monitors collected the meal from the serving hatch and served it to everyone on the table - so there could be a bit of jigglng around if someone didn't like something & someone else did - teachers would also sit "at random" on tables - so our table manners were on show!

I can't remember much about the food though ........we had Simmonds Brewery on one side of us & Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory on the other - so my olfactory memories are more of beer & biccies than school dinners!

lol lol lol

My fvourite school dinner had to be fish and chips with parsley sauce, why oh why do fish shops not do this I do not know, because home cooked fish wish lashings of parsley sauce just never tastes the same. And my favourite puddings was Ginger sponge and custard or Chocolate pud and chocolate custard.

I hated the salad days I would just have chips then and weren't keen on the meat day when we'd get 2 thin slices of meat (dunno what type) 1 scoop of lumpy mash and white cabbage (yuck - only like the green cabbage) green beans (another big yuck) covered with gravey with lumps.

I went to a Grammar school (the same one I work at now actually) we all had to say Grace before we ate and sat on tables of 8 with the water jug etc ....so different today though :)

I used to love the school steak and pigmy pie, never had anything that is as good since and my fav pud was samolina with red jam (never knew the flavour).  But that was primary school.  High school was a different story - bag chips from the chippy followed by the cheapest ciggies I could find.  Was saving my dinner money for booze, make-up and cheap trendy (unapproved by mum) clothes.  Ah the memories. 

I went home to dinner then - once at Grammar School it ws very formal - 8 to a table, table prefect collected water jug & poured water (proper glasses!)

I only remember those awful metal type jugs, with matching metal mugs, always brightly coloured, but with paint chips missing :) gave the water an odd taste.....or maybe it was just the water :)

Chocolate Haystacks (like a hard chocolate crispy cake) were a favourite.
Chips once in a blue moon, always caused a buzz in the dining hall!
Horrible lumpy mashed potato that tasted of metal.
I remember once the dinner lady heaped a load of mushy sprouts on my plate which I tried to eat but couldn't finish. The teacher on dinner duty refused to let me leave until I'd eaten them because I'd asked for sprouts. I was there ages! Happy days.

Unfortunately my primary school dinners were awful....I remember them serving me pink semolina and it put me off for life!!!!!
Not to mention the lumpy custard....ewwwww!!

At my secondary school they didn't serve hot luches so we took packed lunches in :-)