What did you dislike about school dinners?

[Shandan35]

I think my only complaint was that the sweetcorn was tasteless

We didn’t have school dinners at primary school but when I went up to secondary school (v early 90s) the school dinners were amazing! Proper cafeteria where you could choose anything.

At primary school they were pretty awful e.g. curry served with spaghetti hoops or half a hard boiled egg with grated cheese and pickled beetroot.
At secondary school the dinners were actually very nice but I was veggie by then. What really annoyed me was that they would only do one tray of the veggie version but then allow anyone who wanted it to have some meaning there was often nothing left for me to eat. Funnily enough the exact same thing happened on the maternity ward and I was very hungry for the whole 2 weeks I was in there.

That our school didn’t have a kitchen so no hot dinners and only the kids on free school meals like myself would get a dinky paper plate with a curled up sandwich, a piece of fruit that looked like it had been used as a footballand a multipack packet of crisps all covered in cling film with our names scrawled in the top just to help the teasing just a bit more

I loved primary school dinners! We had a proper school kitchen, and a school cook. I still remember the butterscotch tart... it was heavenly.

Secondary was such a disappointment........ huge queues, everything "fried food" and very little choice. The only salvation was the thick buttery iced shortbread biscuits.... think I lived on those until 6th form and you were allowed into the local town.

The abuse. Hit across the knuckles for talking, not me I never did. Being made to eat baked beans which I hated. Having my nose held as they shovelled them in. Walking across town in all weathers to the church hall.

The joys of the Catholic school.

I loved them!! Right up to year 11 me and my friend would go and get a hot dinner from the canteen at least a few times a week when everyone else would eat their pack lunch in the classroom!

Mixed frozen veg, hated it then, hate it now.
Lukewarm custard.
Being forced to eat everything on my plate.

Our school had a very basic canteen which was run by a lady who lived across the road from the school (I think she paid to rent the kitchen rather than being paid by the school). Most of the food was chicken nuggets, hotdogs etc.

However she used to make baked potatoes with the most incredible homemade tomato pasta style sauce which I have never been able to make. Also she made divine brown bread and homemade strawberry Jam.

I think I'm weird, I loved school dinner. Especially the thick gravy that was like chop shop gravy.

But I'm a pig and you'd be hard pushed to find something I wouldn't eat.

Over cooked vegetables.

The best thing was on a Friday when for pudding we were given strawberry milkshake and oat cookies. Oh how I loved fridays!!

I loved the chicken burgers, cornflakes cakes (the ones where all the syrup soaked to the bottom), rice crispy bars, chocolate concrete and not-chocolate concrete, and the icing cake.

I always thought the diced carrots tasted weird. They always had a nasty sweet, watery taste.

Pink custard 🤮

Pretty much all the hot food.
I was a fussy eater though to be fair.

Primary school was generally OK apart from the dreaded Smash potatoes (the scoops) and shepherds' pie (i don't like mashed potato crust) and the first year at secondary school. But then school dinners were sent out to tender so it was a race to the bottom in quality from 1992 onwards. Then it was a mass of brown unidentified frying objects, vegetables boiled to death and water or fizzy pop to drink. I took a packed lunch and I hate packed lunches.

I had a mostly positive experience with school dinners, especially at primary school. I can still taste the fudge tart with chocolate sauce. We used to call it tealeaves & dripping ( the chocolate sprinkles were the tealeaves). I went up for thirds once! I also remember loving the sausage roll with cress & coleslaw. Can’t really remember the meals at secondary school.

The veg. Didnt like much of it and having to eat it didn't help..definitely put me off in adult years!! The pizzas were always lovely though so much dough!

The puddings though..cornflake tart..toothpaste tart..milk shakes. So nice!
The random bun which was icing on some bread.

We got ourselves drinks from a table in the hall. There were stacks of cups and huge (I remember them being gigantic) metal jugs of orange, blackcurrant and water. Someone spat in thw blackcurrant jug and the dinner ladies didn't change it dispite several complaints.

30yrs later I still cannot drink blackcurrant squash.

I was a weird kid who loved veg. But the veg at school was nothing like what we had at home and I just couldn’t eat it. I didn’t realise it was tinned and reheated etc.

I hated primary school dinners.
Spam
Mashed non-potato dished up in an ice cream scoop.
Tinned tomatoes heated up
The mushy peas
I liked the stodgy puddings though, except semolina.

Secondary school was chips chips and more chips.

I also hated frozen mixed veg and gravy...

Cardboard pizza with a horrible bready, dry base

How shepherd's pie never had a well browned top

Beetroot! I have only eaten it once as part of a school dinner and was so traumatised by being forced to finish it that I haven't tried it again since for 30 years.

The puddings. I've never had much of a sweet tooth and wouldn't touch anything like semolina, rice pudding or things covered in custard.

There was sometimes a big biscuit thing with jam in the middle, that was the only one I liked.

Semolina, rice pudding, blancmange and tapioca. However the butterscotch tart was AMAZING!!

Coloured pasta shapes. They were just boiled pasta, there were white, green and orange ones (presumably tomato and spinach?) and they were FOUL. Made me gag.