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?

@MakkaPakkas

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.

My child was given this for lunch at school last week. He said it was foul. Perhaps Jamie Oliver didn’t have as big an impact as we thought…?

When I was at college, one of the desserts that was served in the refectory called itself "Pear Condé". It consisted of a dish of cold rice pudding topped with half a tinned pear - and it tasted as revolting as it sounds.

What I remember most from primary school was the strange puddings. Milkshake with a biscuit… semolina with jam… strawberry crumble…

Ice cream with a chocolate sauce that was actually melted chocolate and rock hard by the time you came to eat it.

In junior school we had mashed potato served with an ice cream scoop, grated egg, beetroot and grated cheese. It was really nice, I also think about the corned beef pie quite often.

Also had semolina and jam

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

That kind of makes sense...can you imagine the uproar now though if coffee and doughnuts were given to 5 year olds?!

I really, really want a spam fritter now!

Yes! They were like a big scotch egg with beans in the middle, and no egg! Loved them! I presume it was pork meat, but I'm not sure.

This was in the Midlands in the 70s/80s.

@CLS81

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

That's just reminded me of Tom Tom crisps

You just don't get 10p crisps like that now.

I was at primary school early 90s up North. I have always had a soft spot for institutional food. I fondly remember:

• cornflake cake and custard (thick pastry case layer of jam and then a thick squashing of heavily syrup-laden cornflakes
• chocolate custard
• chicken curry
• mini chicken Kiev balls which squirted garlic butter when you bit in

I still eat mini Kievs today love them and white semolina with jam loved that as well you can’t buy it now.

Does anyone remember a dessert with a layer of mandarines in some sort of jelly or compote and topped with crunchy cornflakes or did I just dream it 😂

We had spam fritters, bubbling in grease, an ice cream scoop of dry smash and a spoonful of watery pasta hoops in tomato sauce for our ‘vegetable’.

Oh lovely I’ve just found it on Amazon I’ll order some next week.

[quote SirChenjins]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[/quote]
A heads up for anyone wanting to bake Gypsy Tart at home - you need to whisk the sugar and evap together for AGES (about 15-20 mins) to prevent it separating while cooking. I spent a looong time perfecting it.

@Palavah - the green custard! I’d completely forgotten that.

At my primary school (late'70s / early '80s) we had similar, called Beanos. Bit like a flattened Scotch egg with beans inside instead of egg and served hot. The meat was gristly pork sausage.

We had to totty cake (Tottenham Cake) which was sponge with pink icing and hundreds and thousands. Usually serves with custard, pink or normal yellow.

It totally blew my mind when I eventually realised that spaghetti hoops aren’t a vegetable. Thanks school dinners.

My personal fave were those chocolate cornflake slices with green minty buttercream? I’d love the recipe

I was brought up over seas and came on a school exchange about 12/13 -school dinners were a revelation and not a good one!!

Spam fritters were fab but rice pudding and semolina with a blob of jam in the middle still makes my stomach church. Pink, green yellow blancmange and the rush of the table monitors to get the chocolate one for the table.

Have to say as a foreign kid- had never seen anything like it. Bu tplease tell me where I can find a spam fritter oh and corne beef hash - I think is what it was called.

@Holothane

I still eat mini Kievs today love them and white semolina with jam loved that as well you can’t buy it now.

Ambrosia do tinned semolina, just add a dollop of jam. You can also still buy semilina in packets to cook at home - love it!

@PatriotCanes

www.schoolrecipes.co.uk/index.php/school-dinner-recipes.html

But I think I've eaten what you're describing. Like a large chicken nugget/kiev with its own ketchup. Definitely supermarket bought.

Thanks for the link! Gypsy tart how scrumptious was that!

(Sorry, off topic)

I mostly loved school dinners as we did not get fed properly at home. My worst meal at school was fatty meat, which we had to eat. This was back in the 60s and we couldn’t leave the table until we had finished everything. The fat made me heave and to this day I carefully shave off any suspicion of fat on meat.

We used to eat the small ketchup-filled ones, Tom Toms, at home and I loved them! Along with cheese hamwiches (breaded stack of ham and cheese), mini kievs and crispy pancakes.

Loved those unhealthy dinners!

In the 90s we had a type of chicken burger with a popcorn type crumb on the outside, they were sooo good id love to know if they were still around.

@Babdoc
Cornflakes in syrup, glued to a concrete pastry base that no spoon could ever cut (or even dent).

OMG yes we used to have that back at my primary in the 1960s early 70s.for done reason it was really popular but I never cared for it.

Another one here liking spam fritters.

The beanie rounders thing described by OP sound grosd. Looking back most of our school meals were not bad really. They were "proper" dinners with neat, potato and a veg followed by a pudding, usually something with custard. Although often it was done sort of milk pudding, OK if rice but not so much if semolina or tapioca. No choice of course.

Not sure how much accommodation would be made for special diets. One boy in our school was diabetic and he sometimes got different things. There was always fish on Friday, presumably to accommodate Catholics. I imagine vegetarians would get short shrift but there were none