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?

@SwankyPants

Oh yes I think they were called Rounders!

Used to love rounders. Bejam used to sell them

@Scottsy100

No idea I went to Primary school in the 80’s and we had an orange bread crumbed meat thing but it never had any kind of beans or Kiev scenario in and we called that a “choppy” 🙈😂

Nobody ever remembers choppys! We used to have them at home as well, choppys and chips was a favourite dinner! I think they were made of some kind of pork meat, hence the name ‘choppy’, because they were kind of like a pork chop, and they were shaped like little chops but I always thought they looked like Mr Greedy from the Mr Men.

Beany rounders are horrifying me. Very glad that I never came across these on my school dinners.

I was at primary school in the 80s and in retrospect the food was good - balanced without being super obsessively healthy. No junk food (but waaaay more sugary puddings than would ever be allowed these days - they were incredible).

Did anyone get served parliament potatoes? (NOT parmentier before anyone thinks I’ve got the spelling wrong). These were roast potatoes rolled in stuffing before they were roasted. So tasty. I thought they were a thing until I fancied some about 10 years ago and tried to Google a recipe only to find that they didn’t exist. The only reference to them I could find was in a school dinner menu from the area in the south east that I grew up in, so they must be a made up school dinners thing from there.

Worst school dinner at new school, I asked for fish pie. It arrived as mashed potato with tinned sardines in tomato sauce at the bottom. Not split or mashed but just as they came out of the tin.

We call them beanies , a local chippie still makes them up here - lovely in a bread bun

Sounds like findus crispy pancakes

They sold them in Iceland

Was it spam? We had spam fritters but I don’t remember beans in them.

We had haggis about once a week at school, semolina with jam and tapioca for pudding. I loved just about everything.
Looking back it was pretty healthy. Everything was made in the school kitchen.

Late 70s South Wales we had a sort of really hard square biscuit together with a pink mousse. The biscuit was so hard that when you put your spoon into it to cut it, it would ping over onto the next table. It rained “dog biscuits” as we called them on the days we had those.

A little earlier some chip shops in London had something very similar .They were called Bean Roundas.

Yup, Bean Rounders. I arrived from the Far East for boarding school aged nine in 1985, and these featured regularly on the evening menu every couple of weeks for a number of years along with such delights as Turkey Dinosaurs, Smiley Potatoes, Crispy Pancakes. By the time I finished A-levels in 1994 they had disappeared, thank goodness, in favour of things with acknowledgeable ingredients, although we were still subjected to Spotted Dick occasionally.

My old school had something of a well-deserved reputation for its catering - it was normal for schools' visiting sports teams to eat with their hosts before or after away matches - and it was no word of a lie that we were considered vastly superior to most of the schools in the region. I cannot fathom why.

Honestly it seems that if you went to school in the 70's/80's/ 90's you should have cast iron guts!

@FindingMeno

Honestly it seems that if you went to school in the 70's/80's/ 90's you should have cast iron guts!

Or congestive heart failure.

@Otherpeoplesteens

Turkey fricassee 🤢 grey blobs in grey sauce.

I was thinking about the word ‘fricassee’ recently. Haven’t heard it for decades but I am vegetarian is it still used in bastardised English/American usage to describe things not at all french or fricassed. ?

Didnt have rounders bit late for me with school dinners, my mum cooked spam fritters never got at school though, love them! We had great meals at primary school but middle school circa 1980 most meals were vile until some bright spark bought in another option they called Oslo! which was apparently what Scandinavian kids ate,🤔 stuff like oxtail soup, weird salads, horrible fish, even more vile than what was already on offer lol🤢 everyone seemed to take to packed lunches except those having freeschool dinners until they started serving sausages and chips etc

Sugar puffs covered in chocolate with bright green mint custard known as poo and bogies at school.

It was actual,y really nice, people tend to use Rice Krispies or cornflakes for those sort of chocolate cakes though.

I loved all the minty stuff! Mint is a very un chic flavour now isn’t it

@HeronLanyon

I was thinking about the word ‘fricassee’ recently. Haven’t heard it for decades but I am vegetarian is it still used in bastardised English/American usage to describe things not at all french or fricassed. ?

It's things (veg or meat) in a white sauce.

Yes. Knew what it was and very familiar from 70s 80s just seems a term not used in the old angle American way as much now.

Having said that I’m now hungry for something ‘fricassee’.