Favourite School Dinners From Childhood

[TheShellBeach]

I didn't have school dinners until I was eleven and went to secondary school. Prior to that I went home for lunch (lots of children did in those days).

School dinners were a revelation. I loved them. There was nothing I did not like.

My favourite dinner was mince, cabbage and mash. We didn't eat cabbage at home because my dad didn't like it. I also looked forward to school salad because there was coleslaw, which I had never tasted before.

Some of the puddings were wonderful, too. Jam tart and custard. Yummity Yum.

Gipsy Tart was everyone's favourite, though.

Mince, cabbage and lumpy mash
Sausage pie and gravy

Butterscotch tart
Ambrosia tart
Epsom pudding

But if it was a cold day and winter salad was for lunch it was a right downer. Coleslaw ingredients with no mayonnaise but added raisins (also would be floating in the metallic water jug) as the main part of the meal.

Spaghetti pie and caramel cake with custard

School chicken curry with rice was the best, also turkey twizzlers, we bought some when they came back out a while ago and it totally ruined it for me they're just not the same.
The best pudding was apple pie and custard or school cake (the tray bake one with white icing and sprinkles) with custard although the custard was ALWAYS lumpy

I only remember beetroot and cods roe from 1970s school dinners 🤢

I've only started to eat beetroot recently, the trauma was so deep! I'll never be in a room with cods roe though, bleurgh...

Chicken crumble in individual pots 🤤
Chicken burgers
Sausage rolls

Cornflake buns
Semolina with tinned fruit
Coconut and raspberry sponge with custard

Food was delicious at my secondary school

Beetroot and cods roe?

Did Letitia Cropley make your school dinners?

Loved: Spam fritters and baked beans, chicken curry with pineapple and sultanas, chocolate sponge with pink custard, semolina with runny strawberry jam stirred in

Christmas dinner was amazing. And there was always a shilling in the Christmas pudding (mid to late 70s so still loads around although not in circulation)

Hated: Peas, sweetcorn, carrots, Marlborough tart [puke] I used to cry when they served that, I hated it so much

Oh god yes, cods roe! I'd forgotten that. It was OK, I don't think I knew what roe was then.

@TheShellBeach

Absolutely, Gypsy Tart. I would have seconds and thirds. We had it with a thin lemon sauce which cut some but no means all of the sweetness!

Also the cheese pie with two scoops of rather grey looking mash and whole tinned tomatoes. Seconds and thirds of that too.

Did you live in Kent? I believe Gypsy tart was quite regional and not everyone had it.

Rissoles.

Cheese pie, beans and chips
fish fingers, chips and spaghetti hoops
and my top two: thinly sliced roast lamb, gravy, roasties and veg
Chicken a la king

Blackcurrant cheese cake
cherry pie and custard

They were amazing school dinners.

The few I had at home on a couple of weeks when the school kitchen broke down.

Mutton (!) - early 1980s - it was a great day when that was on the menu 😂

LOLOLOL

And Manchester Tart!

Spam fritters
Manchester tart(custardy thing with coconut on it)
Herby Cheese pinwheels
Cornflake tart
Cheese pie

Yes! Why did Birds Eye stop making rissoles?

I mourn for them.

Chicken burger cuz we never had them at home - loved them!

At boarding school so all meals

b - warm toast with butter not the cold toast in first years
l - chicken salad roll
d - tuna bake type dish and chocolate pudding with Icecream
s - raisin bun type thing

We were hungry at recess and eyed up tuck shop big time, and in oldest years kitchen let us in to make banana chocolate sandwiches

I HATED school dinners, every single one. My siblings bloody loved them which I find odd, as one was older and one younger so it's not like anything improved.

I particularly despised the boiled white cabbage and 'chats'- rancid tasting, bitter, often greenish, bullet like, tiny fried potatoes. UGH.

Spam fritters

Chocolate pudding with Chocolate custard

I’m drooling at the thought of Manchester tart, I might have to make one over Christmas.

We were hungry at recess

LOL So were we, @MarshaBradyo Our school had a staff tuck shop and I was appointed to oversee it and sell the mistresses their chocolate bars & bags of crisps.

I cannot remember how many I nicked but it must have been loads.

Lentil soup in the winter.
Mince with carrot and onion in a rich gravy and mashed potato
Sponge cake with pink icing.Lashings of custard
Fish and chips with peas
Steak pie and mash/chips

Same. And tomorrow I will make a Gipsy Tart.

To whoever asked if we were in Kent - no, but in London. Maybe the dinner ladies in our school came from Kent.

All our meals were cooked on site, but I believe that many schools received deliveries of food which was cooked centrally and then distributed.