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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU to think heating up Birds Eye Fish fingers is not cooking from scratch!

22 replies

Snowkey · 15/02/2013 14:58

We have been reassured by our catering department at school following the current food crisis, that all food is freshly prepared and cooked from scratch in school, then on the menu all their fish fingers are Birds Eye and chips are made by McCain - frozen chips and fish fingers are from scratch cooking.

I know there's debate as to where the line is drawn between from scratch and processed but saying McCain frozen chips and Birds Eye fish fingers are from scratch - they are taking the piss surely?

OP posts:

Floggingmolly · 15/02/2013 14:59

They certainly are!

yaimee · 15/02/2013 15:14

Are there multiple options available? Say one homemade option but fish fingers offered as a choice too?
Yanbu, fishfingers and chips isn't a meal prepared from scratch but offered alongside other made from scratch options I think its fairly harmless.

Annunziata · 15/02/2013 15:15

YANBU.

But Birds Eye and McCains in a school? Here they don't tend to have the huge brands (please correct me if I'm wrong).

Scholes34 · 15/02/2013 15:16

Fishfingers are rather nice. Is there anything to be wary of if you're being served a cod fillet fishfinger? No danger of passing off a seahorse as cod fillet?

yaimee · 15/02/2013 15:18

Heehee scholes plenty to be wary of imo, fish don't have fingers for starters!

Scholes34 · 15/02/2013 15:19

Gosh yaimee - good point well made. We sometimes have fish goujons in the canteen at work, and we call them fishthumbs.

RightUpMyRue · 15/02/2013 15:20

YANBU. Fish fingers and chips out the packet are not cooking from scratch.

There is nothing wrong with fish fingers and chips out of the packet though. Most kids love fish fingers and chips.

MrsTerryPratchett · 15/02/2013 15:24

at seahorse.

DomesticCEO · 15/02/2013 15:26

Yaimee, Barry has fingers!

YouTheCat · 15/02/2013 15:29

Our school meals are dire. They have frozen potato wedges and other assorted crap which they pass off as food.

The thing that irks me is that if they actually looked into the costing properly they could provide cooked from scratch soups and stews and salads at a fraction of the cost.

Original poster

Snowkey · 15/02/2013 15:31

I think it's misleading parents to tell them all the food is cooked from scratch - there's nothing particularly wrong with fish fingers but there is something wrong with promoting the menu as "ALL food is freshly prepared from scratch"

OP posts:

BonaDea · 15/02/2013 15:31

YANBU. The school is being completely moronic.

yaimee · 15/02/2013 15:36

domestic Barry grew up next to a nuclear power plant!

haggisaggis · 15/02/2013 15:36

I'm wondering if your school uses the sane catering company as ours...ours uses Birds Eye fish fingers and McCains oven chips too. They also provide a "useful" interactive dinner menu which lists the ingredients and portion size for each meal..50g chicken for a 10 year old?

yaimee · 15/02/2013 15:38

not sure its misleading parents if it says clearly on the menu where the fish fingers and chips coke from!

FeistyLass · 15/02/2013 15:38

My mum passed fish fingers and oven chips off as cooking from scratch for year but the school are mad if they think they can get away with it.

RobinSparkles · 15/02/2013 15:40

YANBU. Definitely NOT cooking from scratch.

However, fish fingers are food of the gods. Yum yum!

WilsonFrickett · 15/02/2013 15:42

It's heating up from scratch, innit?

That said, I do love fish fingers. But it's not cooking.

Original poster

Snowkey · 15/02/2013 16:10

The letter came from County Council Caters via the school, I think they shouldn't have used the words all freshly prepared from scratch - why didn't they say "most" - it's more accurate but it would also highlight that they used processed food.
Yes it's written on the menu in very small print - hidden in the detail. I only realised that they used McCain products because I saw them being unloaded outside the school and then had a look at the menu - mind you the food on the menu, served on lovely white plates with lovely garnishes looks nothing like the food they get served on the plastic prison trays at school everyday.

OP posts:

HoratiaWinwood · 15/02/2013 16:18

I agree that fish fingers isn't from scratch, although it is more "from scratch" than doling out brown gloop delivered hot in a van from a big kitchen off site. Perhaps that's the distinction? Freshly heated up on the premises.

I thought Jamie's School Dinners proved it wasn't cheaper to make from scratch because of the man hours required? Laying out, baking, serving and washing up fish fingers and chips takes a maximum of two and a half hours, start to finish, pretty much regardless of quantity. Preparing enough fresh vegetables for soup/hotpot for five hundred would take all day.

NorthernLurker · 15/02/2013 16:32

I think what they were trying to say as that the food is prepared in school - so the raw oven chips and fish fingers are cooked there as opposed to the scenario when ALL the meals arriive ready cooked and frozen and are only re-heated there. I agree it could have been better phrased.

DomesticCEO · 15/02/2013 17:26

@ yaimee

It didn't mention that in the book!

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