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 jave this. 80's/90's school dinners were amazing. Burgers, turkey twizzlers, chips, chips, more chips, cheeae and potato pie, pink custard. Good times!

I was at primary school in the 80s and very early 90s.

We used to have flapjacks made with cornflakes instead of oats, mashed potato served using an ice cream scoop, and custard and gravy were served from big metal jugs. Everyone used to like the skin off the custard after one of the dinner ladies told us it was the best part so it was a really lucky day if the skin slipped into your bowl of cake and custard.

The dinner ladies did all the cooking on site and they picked the menus, my friend's nana was the head dinner lady and she used to cook very traditional food that would make the most of what I imagine was a limited budget as it was a very small school of just 100 pupils - stews, hashes, soups, pies, etc. We had the bean rounders now and again, fish every Friday, those super cheap 6" pizzas that have a blush of tomato and three strands of cheese laid artfully across the far left inch and nowhere else.

At one point the council took over deciding the menus and sent the dinner ladies a list each week telling them what they were cooking. One week it was waffle and syrup for pudding. It turns out that waffles as a dessert hadn't made it to our corner of Northumberland in 1988 because what the dinnerladies served for pudding that day was a potato waffle drowning golden syrup.

Chicken rissole?

I remember a strange thing we had for school dinners and I think it was called Ducky egg! It was in a huge silver tray and was just baked beans with eggs on top cooked in the oven. The egg yolks were always really dry and hard! I have no idea why it was called Ducky egg! Maybe they were duck eggs!?

I had school dinners in the 90s (not in the UK) and the stand out for me was cod liver (a little slab of cod liver.... usually grey) swimming in cod liver oil served with potato salad. It was so so bitter.

Ooh yes, Gypsy tart at primary school.....heavenly! Available now in lots of Morrisons in Kent and Essex. I also remember the pink custard served with what was called Chocolate " Cracknell" ( sp?). Our only other desserts were semolina or rice pudding with really cheap jam. All served on or in pale green China plates and bowls that are probably retro chic now!

Primary school in the 70's - the Irish stew was fantastic. Cornflake tart was great. Jam tart. Home made crisps. I loved when desert was a glass of yogurt and a homemade shortbread biscuit. I hated custard, and they made me have a tiny drop on the bowl. Loved rice and jam. Semolina and tapioca were the absolute pits.

Lots of ‘school dinners’ recipes online. I’ve just been looking hard at Butterscotch Tart. I used to queue up for seconds for that !

I remember looking liking a hamwich for school dinner, ham and melted cheese in breadcrumbs. It seems Bernard Matthews are keeping that particular dream alive to this day, but somehow my adult self can't quite bring myself to buy any.

Potato waffles with golden syrup

God schools dinners were dreadful in the early 90s....

Cheese whirls
Turkey dinosaurs
Bacon! Really watery white flecked fatty bacon!
Mashed potatoes served with an ice cream scoop
“Salad”- iceberg lettuce, watery beefsteak tomato slices , cucumber and sliced egg. Sometimes with pasta “salad” - pasta and salad cream with seeetcorn

Sad to say DS has started school this year and dinners still sound pretttttty grim (and with far more pizza and burgers than I expected!)

Eeek! Sounds almost as horrid as the meal we had at uni every 3rd Friday (I went to uni in the days when mostly halls were catered and they wouldn't let you live in the self catering flats until you were at least 2nd year). I still shudder if ever anyone mentions cod duglere.....

My Dc school has nice dinners. Turkey meatballs and pasta in a tomato and sweet pepper sauce, roast dinner every Wednesday, chicken casserole, beef cobbler, crispy vegetable stir fry with noodles, fish every Friday. Not a nugget or a burger in sight.

Did no one else have chocolate concrete at school in the 70’s? I recently found the recipe (I use that term loosely!) and made it again for my D.C. it was lovely! Mind you , I spent a lot of dinnertimes being kept indoors because I wouldn’t eat my semolina or egg custard , both of which still make me vom.

Some type of spam fritter?

We used to have "goulash" made with a powder mix that was never quite mixed properly so there were big powdery lumps in it. Hideous.

I remember pink custard. With a little square of cake. I really liked that.

I did not like the tapioca. It always made me think of frog spawn.

I liked the little bottle of milk we'd get in the morning.

Apart from that it was horrible mash, or greasy chips and cheap beans and a range of things that had no business calling themselves meat. Or food come to that!

sounds like the disgusting crispy pancakes my mother used to make us eat, well try.

Primary school in the 70's here too. Excellent home cooked dinners, I loved the school dinners. Our dinner ladies were amazing cooks. Loved a bit of stodge and milk pudding.
High school introduced me having to budget and choose what to have. Money was tight so if I went for the best mains I'd have nothing left for puds or drinks. My favourite bargain lunch was a sort of hot cheesy sponge (nicer than I have made it sound) with beans. Apparently I was a fussy eater at home but not school.

We didn't have school dinners, just packed lunches.

Yes! Often served with mash and a scotch egg or sausage roll. I loved it!

Crispy pancakes?

Yes!! The smaller ones were called Tom Tom's. You could find them in Iceland for a while after they started serving them in school but didn't taste quite as nice. We didn't have the baked bean thing though

It was strangely nice @Frightmare, normal lasagna but with the Bolognese replaced with baked beans.

I grew up heading my parents complain bitterly about tapioca, and find it really funny that teenagers go mad for it now in bubble tea.