To ask whether you had this bizarre school dinner dish & if anyone knows what it is called

[Frightmare]

It was round breaded meat (no idea what meat it was) and inside it was filled with baked beans like a weird kind of chicken Kiev.

This was a regular dish at my school in South London in the early 90s. Never seen it anywhere else. Occasionally, we would also have smaller versions filled with ketchup. Although, I think they may have been sold in supermarkets.

Was anyone else served this at school? Or have any other tales of weird school dinners?

We used to get chicken and mushroom vol au vents - god they were horrible but also strangely good. I have not seen a vol au vent since.

For pudding we used to have a Weetabix, a smear of butter and a piece of cheese! I loved it and actually now realise that it was very healthy.

This thread brings back hideous memories of 1960s school dinners. Green tinged liver that you could sole your boots with. Spam fritters which, if lightly pressed with a fork, exuded a tidal wave of grease. Mashed potato that tasted of cigarette ash (we suspected the dinner ladies smoked over it). Cornflakes in syrup, glued to a concrete pastry base that no spoon could ever cut (or even dent). Glutinous pink blancmange, quivering repulsively in the bowl. Cabbage boiled until all flavour, colour and texture was gone.
Luckily, there was one boy on our table who was desperate enough to eat these vile offerings - he was one of seven children at home and always hungry, poor lad - so we piled our five helpings onto his plate and he demolished them. The dinner ladies wouldn’t let you go out to play until your plate was empty, so he was a godsend!

@MrNapkinHead

We didn’t have the baked bean weird things, but we had a pork pie that was a thin pastry base with a sort of sausage meat filling but no pastry top. I loved that.

Also a caramel / toffee tart that I still dream about now.

That was probably Gypsy Tart 😋 www.schoolrecipes.co.uk/index.php/school-dinner-recipes/34-desserts-puddings/105-gypsy-tart.html

In the 70s (natch) we had milky coffee and doughnuts for one of our puddings. It was absolutely brilliant but must have been hell for the teachers afterwards trying to control a class of 30 eight year olds pepped up with caffeine and sugar.

Also had something called gypsy tart which was a local Kent dish - absolutely gorgeous. One day I’ll have a go at making it.

Crossed posts!

Sounds like meat loaf..... kind of.....

I can not believe my eyes about the baked bean rounders. And please do tell me what was in the gypsy tarts.

Gypsy tart is muscovada sugar and evaporated milk whisked up, poured into a pastry case and baked. I remember it being delicious en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_tart

Chocolate concrete with green custard

Yes! Beanie rounders noone else I've met as an adult has ever heard of them!

I bloody loved beanie rounders too😄 looking back they were obviously pretty grim

They are nowhere near as unhealthy or the likes as bean rounders, but I occasionally satisfy my childhood beans cravings (beans were a staple food when I was a kid - chuck a bit of cheese in them and even the cheapest ones are ok) with a Smartprice cheese and bean bake.

Cheap beans, cheap cheese, cheap pastry. But it's lovely.

I taught in a school in the early 2000s that had a meal of baked bean lasagna, which could be eaten with baked beans, chips and copious amounts of ketchup. We got them free for doing lunch duty.
That was pre Jamie Oliver obviously.

We were served chalupas that were not in the traditional way. They are now known as lausd chalupa. Lausd being the name of the school district...

Had them at home in the 70s I can’t remember what they were called.

@HeronLanyon

There I was also thinking I was reading about good old spam fritter until the beans become involved. Got to say it sounds awful. Haven’t had a spam fritter since the 70s - can see and almost smell it as if it was in front of me ! Loved them. Home food was so healthy and parents were great cooks so they were bliss for me when on the ‘menu’

I loved spam fritters SO much. I bought some Spam recently and it was so disappointing - all it tasted of was salt. I guess we were starved for flavour back in the 1970s!

As soon as I saw this thread I knew it would be about baked bean rounders. We had them at school too and no one else has ever heard of them. I began to wonder if they were made up by our particularly sadistic kitchen staff!

I used to love the "Melting Moments".
Re the doughnuts and milky coffee for afters, I remember DM ( a school cook from 1975 for 30 years) telling me that if the pudding didn't include milk, eg something with custard, a milky drink had to be offered instead.
We had a framed cartoon on our kitchen wall, of a little lad saying to his mum: "Now that my friends have found out you're the school cook, they won't come for tea."

I love gypsy tart, I live in Kent now and sometimes you can find gypsy tart in the local bakeries.

@MakkaPakkas Baked bean lasagne sounds mental!

The small round balls filled with ketchup were called Tom Toms, I think.

Gypsy tart was lovely!
We used to get bread pudding at 11am

@CLS81 I think your right, Tom Toms sounds very familiar.

Looking back we were just fed complete junk at school!

I came on to contribute pink custard with with either chocolate hedgehog or chocolate concrete.
But 1sadpapercourtesan I must have blocked memory of the surfburgers. Yes we had these and I hated them would have been around the same time.
Used to alway be upset if we were last sitting for lunch and the puddings ran short, that's when the emergency golden delicous came out. Delicous they were not.

Our school dinners were good when I first went to school (late 70’) we would get proper fish and chips just little portions was my favourite and the butterscotch tart was delicious

I remember one pudding that I’ve never seen since it was a pastry tart with a thin layer of jam then a lilac colour mousse. It was sweet and slightly sour and I loved it

They the supplier changed and the food wasn’t as good and often soggy