I remember horrid fish fingers,
Lumpy mash with green bits in it.
Liver
Beans on toast but only for the Asian lads :-(
Deserts
custard
Some sort of special biscuit, this was introduced a little bit later, a bit like shortbread/rusk combination with a carton of milk with a lightning bolt on it. This came in after they ditched the milk in the morning. Smelly milk with those horrid foil tops :-( In hotter months tasted like yoghurt. In a blue crate with milk all over it.
Lumpy mash? Luxury! At least there was some evidence that it was made with potatoes. The mash I had was instant mash hydrated with dishwater and sour milk ISTR. Utterly foul.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas
Cabbage boiled to death in dishwater.
All other vegetables boiled to death in dishwater.
Liver. Kidneys. Mushrooms :-(
And until age 12 I had to eat it all.
They wouldn't let us leave until we eat everything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
The fish fingers I had were so bad I hid them in the metal jug of water we had on the table.
I'd have killed for proper instant mash. It did at least taste of something - not potatoes, of course - but something. No, school dinners had the weird knack of forming mash into dense, odd-smelling balls that didn't really taste of anything at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
It's the gristly, sub-Tyne brand mince that haunts my nightmares. Occasionally they'd throw a bit of crappy, lard-laden pastry on top of it and call it a pie. :-(
Sausage and mash was a good day. Crappy, catering pack sausages and the aforementioned mash, but at least they'd throw gravy over it. A bad day was a piece of liver you could sole your show with accompanied by tinned boiled potatoes.
Fridays at least you got fish and chips. Weird fish and shĂ*t, cold chips, but still.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas
Fishfingers were fine! I mean they were the worst fishfingers you'd ever eat, lacked any structural integrity and tended to fall apart, of course, but they were at least fishfingers and - as such - a relative treat.
Until recently I wouldn't ever eat them, They seemed sweaty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
I don't think school dinners were the problem when they were looking at the obesity problem, We all eat this crap and you'd only get 1 or 2 fat kids per class.
In secondary school we had an ice cream van in the playground that sold hotdogs and burgers. Or we'd go to the cafe or McDonalds again we were not all fatso. I used to be skinny like rake until I was about 23.
I would have preferred food that tasted of nothing. It would be easier to eat than vegetables tasting of smelly socks and the fruit in the crumble tasting of the inside of an electric razor. Not sure how they managed that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
There were some good days. Sometimes we'd get an edible pasty and we'd punch a hole in the top, fill it gravy, then squash it down. Volcano!
Oh, no. Whatever else you can say about the school dinners, they were nutritionally balanced and no-one was going to be malnourished or obese because of them. The problem has arisen since children were given choice over what they eat at school as - surprise, surprise - they all chose chips and sweet crap. I can think of few more idiotic ideas than giving a child choice over what it eats. Sadly you now have a generation of kids growing up whose parents eat nothing but shĂ*t either, so the cycle continues.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas
A typical day might start with Tranche de foie gras poelé avec son pain d'epice, followed by a brace of fowls, a dish of chops, Sole bonne femme, Iles flottantes and a cheeseboard.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas
Of course one was always revolted by the British habit of serving the cheese after the dessert, but there you have it. Needs must.
Oh, I could never distinguish between the puddings. They were mostly essentially custard-based and what the semi-solid matter under the custard was I found it best not to ask. Apart from semolina and tapioca, of course, whose sole concession to dessert status seemed to be a dollop of jam lurking in the middle with all the ameliorative effect of a pound coin in a pile of dogshĂ*t.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ash
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir C
But surely this was at St Stab's Junior School, Kidbrooke, wasn't it?
I ****ing loved those biscuits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas
Are we talking these bad boys? If so, I still love them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Billy Goat Sverige
Attachment 329
Well we still had rationing while I was at junior school, so the little luxuries were in short supply.Quote:
Originally Posted by Burney
It does sometimes feel that way, doesn't it? Mind you, an era when school dinners meant you had no choice and adults stood over you and made you eat it - sometimes to the point where someone would vomit does seem rather remote. But we all took it as normal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sir C
Our school dinners were great.Especially when you reached 7th year and got to serve outQuote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas
I loved 'em. Never got that sort of thing at home so it was all wildly exotic, to me. Lovely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pat Vegas