School dinners

[Once a Wheeler]

At one school dinner, a table of eight of us were served with a single steamed bacon roll which it fell to me to divide equally between us. In all the intervening years, no exam, and no job interview has ever subjected me to the level of scrutiny under which I fell at that moment. At other tables, howls of indignation were going up as grossly unequal slices were getting dished out. Fortunately, I had taken engineering drawing as an optional subject and saw the problem for what it was: dividing a line into eight equal parts. So I halved the roll, halved the halves and then halved the quarters. The sigh of relief that went round the table was audible and a look of esteem even crept into some of the glances that came my way. Many are the lessons of a broad-based education!

 

[MontyVeda]

Loved the school dinners at Junior school. Especially the chocolate sponge with mint custard. Occasionally in summer it would be a salad, which was fine apart from the crisps... they tried to make their own which were either soggy and soft and dripping with grease or so brittle they'd crack your teeth. But other than the crisps, they were good wholesome proper meals.

At high school they were crap.

 

[Electric_Andy]

High school for me was early to late 90s so was ok. Burgers, sausage rolls and pasties were great and all kept in self serve hot cupboards. A good selection of sandwiches but the good ones sold out quickly. If you weren't quick, or if you only had 40p then you'd have to make do with cheese and onion. There was a plated meal of the day but only the teachers had that. I remember once on my birthday I spent my £1 dinner money on 5 mars bars and felt very ill

 

[Pale Rider]

Reminds me of a themed restaurant in Baker Street, London, W1, called School Dinners.

The main attraction wasn't the food, but the waitresses dressed as schoolgirls, and lots of 'fun' with the cane and squirty cream.

None of which was in the best possible taste, but this was the 1980s.

 

[Bazzer]

Foul.
Although from the age of 12 until 15, I had to go home every lunchtime to let the dogs have a run in the garden. Although that was hardly nutritious; often a bag of crisps and a penguin biscuit.

 

[byegad]

At Grammar school they used to serve ice cream on red hot plates. By the time you got back to your seat the plats was cooler and you could drink the ice cream.

 

[Ian H]

I left school long before the British learnt to cook.

 

[Chief Broom]

This was a favourite school dinner chant of us Bash Streeters
Shepherds pie with a dead dogs eye
Yellow matter spread on thick
All washed down with a cup of cold sick!

 

[Tenkaykev]

🎶School dinners, School dinners,
Concrete chips, Concrete chips,
Soggy Semolina, Soggy Semolina,
I feel sick, I feel sick 🎶
EDIT: Just corrected my mis-remembering of the lyrics...

 

[Svendo]

I can recall the small milk bottles in Infant school. Senior school had school dinners that were done in a big kitchen onsite by Compass, who are still in business. I couldn’t eat the mash, served with an ice cream scoop, there were usually a couple of options. We still had the traditional horrors but did get some decent meals. Friday was always chips, but not necessarily fish. If you traded well or got lucky on salad day you could get a roll and a pork pie and have a pork pie and salad sandwich.

 

[Bromptonaut]

I also recall the bashed about metal water jugs and that all the water glasses had France stamped on the bottom. This used to puzzle us at primary school as the head dinner lady was called Mrs France

Those Duralex tumblers in toughened glass were universal 'over the hills' in the West Riding too.

Today you can buy them from Heals:

https://www.heals.com/gigogne-tumbler.html?

 

[Gwylan]

I left school long before the British learnt to cook.

Sounds about right.

 

[Gwylan]

Well it was post war. The excuse for numerous food crimes. There was no obesity, except Elizabeth Jay.
Country, back country, primary school meant daily gardening was for the boys and sewing for girls.

We ate what we grew. But not before the cooks were allowed to render things uniformly grey and without taste or nutritional value.
The slightest reluctance to eat what you were given usually brought the response, "you'd have eaten that during the war"

Grammar school was not better, just Latin grace and more food criminals.
We all feigned amazement when the Head announced in Assembly that the kitchen had served more meals than had been paid for.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Those Duralex tumblers in toughened glass were universal 'over the hills' in the West Riding too.

Today you can buy them from Heals:

https://www.heals.com/gigogne-tumbler.html?

We had these Duralex - and we use them at home - A classic!

 

[Julia9054]

Country, back country, primary school meant daily gardening was for the boys and sewing for girls.

Boys at our school did woodwork whilst we did sewing. I recall a clip round the ear and losing my playtime for questioning the "because I say so" reason as to why this should be the case.