What was your favourite school dinner?

[TheQueef]

Mine was sausage meat pie in grey pastry.
Always served with lb carrots mash and gravy.

I was at school when they invented blackboards though, doubt it would pass nutritional needs now.

What was your favourite and what decade was it?

I remembered two more! The mince pie (it was the thickest pastry with a gravy and beef mince filling) and mash. Heaven! And the manchester tart(?)!!!

Early 80s my very favourite was cheese pie which was instant mash with onions and then cheese melted on the top served with beans and then a cream eclair after

Chicken curry and boiled rice on a Friday. Absolutely great. Was so excited to moved into p6 and get this as it was usually stew on a friday and I hated it.

Minced beef tart was my absolute fave. Then a mean boy said I was eating 'Poo Pie' and I cried because it was ruined forever.

Also cheese pasties and fishcakes. All with chips and a cake for pudding because it was the 80's and nobody gave a shit about sugar.

Stovies! (I went to a Scottish school). We also had haggis 😆

I remember once we had the most revolting curried mince for lunch (with the obligatory sultanas of course) and I got half way through and refused to eat any more. We had a clean plate policy so they made me sit there in the dining room for half the afternoon til I finished it, gagging at every mouthful. Can you imagine the amount of Daily Mail sadface material that kind of thing would generate these days?!

Early 90s turkey dinosaurs were the best.

Potato croquettes
Baked beans

Followed by Chocolate cracknell.

Curried lamb shepherds pie! Making my mouth water....!

Spam fritters. I’ve been a vegetarian for 30 years but I’d break for a spam fritter.

Roast dinner with a square of stuffing, but the stuffing was a perfect square shape and was amazing ... would do anything to find that stuffing

Really good quality stuff, late 1970s.

Mains:

Bacon and scrambled eggs! So good!

Chicken casserole, mmm.

A fab turkey dinner before Xmas.

The mashed potatoes were dreamy, and served using an ice cream scoop.

I would often eat other people’s leftovers.

Puddings:

A square of dense chocolate cake, with chocolate custard.

Strawberry yoghurt, with some sort of delicious big biscuit, soft and chewy. Not quite shortbread, not quite a cookie. What was it???

Massive chocolate cornflake cake. Hard to get your gob round it. Awesome!

I was in hospital (NHS) a few years ago, and was served stuff like this. It was great!

Typical packed lunch (maybe my folks were on a budget at this point): fish paste on white bread sandwiches, packet of tomato Snaps, Penguin bar, a bruised golden “delicious”. Don’t remember a drink.

Sliced potato fried in beef dripping were called scollops for us.
Looked like Swiss cheese with the eyes cut out.
Always with bacon and dirty liver.

Chips with grated cheese on top.

Sweet and sour or curry as it was the 80s and we’d never had anything like it at home. Pudding has to be chocolate brick and pink custard

Did you want the cheese aigrettes recipe OP

www.schoolrecipes.co.uk/index.php/school-dinner-recipes/56-cheese-and-egg/150-cheese-aigrettes.html

This is close. I was at school in the 70s and 80s and a school meals inspector in the late 90s!

Mid 70's, towards the end of my primary years they installed an amazing canteen with actual choices. Before that there was no choice. However they did use to serve sponge pudding with custard. It wasn't anything special taste wise but they'd colour the custard green and flavour with mint, and the sponge would be coloured green too. There was a pink version too, flavour unclear. I used to detest the rice pudding (which I now love) swirled with jam.

Manchester tart - delicious.

cheese and potatoe pie
macaroni cheese
Australian crunch
chocolate sponge and chocolate custard
cornflake tart

Turkey drummers werey favourite. Mother was a health food nut so we never got anything like that.

And the syrupy cornflake tart for pudding.

No mash though 🤢

Corned beef, instant mash and baked beans.

Semolina and chocolate buttons for pudding.

School dinners were wonderful

We used to get the most amazing quiche at primary school, that was about 3 inches deep, it was served with proper homemade coleslaw. I still dream about it.
At high school I had sausage,chips and beans followed by banana custard and a glass of tizer for years!

I shall make an attempt at those Sparkle thank you

We had a Muslim table (even back then) for the two Muslim pupils, I used to be deliberately naughty so I could sit there next to the teachers and eat all their left over pudding. Yasmin C was a hero who would swap if it was steak and kidney pie 👌

There wasn't a single desert I didn't like.

It all seems to vanish by the 80's before that almost everyone loves some of the home cooking.

Can't really remember the meals but my favourite ever pudding was strawberry yoghurt with a giant cookie