School Dinners in the 1960's

I agree with your post Eloethan - except that I don't think it is trivial, and you go on to say that the the food in those days was freshly cooked from scratch; some schools do manage to achieve this today, but with the rush to provide free school dinners many schools have to 'bus' them in from elsewhere. I do hope they are improving on the rubbish that my DC were offered in the 1980s and 1990s. I used to send them with a packed lunch but they used to look longingly at the chips, chips, chips and burgers etc and ask if they could have them one or two days a week, like some of their friends.

I don't think school cooks had heard of curry when I was at school gillybob although DM used to make one with leftover Sunday roast!

It might seem like a rather trivial thing to discuss but the point is, I think, that in those days there were proper kitchens, properly staffed and with fresh food being cooked daily from scratch. I think, following Jamie Oliver's campaign to reveal the ghastly state of school dinners, there has been a move towards less convenience-type food and more freshly cooked, healthier food but I don't know whether the changes have been susbtantial or fairly superficial.

I would have had school dinners from 1967 (when I was 5) as my mum worked. I can remember huge hexagonal folding tables and a jug of water in the middle . A teacher would pour the water . The food was almost always pretty good with the exception of soggy, overlooked vegetables and bland watery custard. I loved the school curry and rice (it seemed very exotic and had loads of sultanas in it) and the delicious Manchester tart. Heaven if you could get the corner bit.

As far as I recall, we had fairly edible meals that included things like goulash, chops and apples and cheese rolls for pudding. After all these years I can't really remember and don't really care.

I have fond memories of school dinners which, for the most part, were delicious. We had no choice but to eat what was provided. If it was something you didn't like, you still had to have a 'small' helping. The only thing I never learned to love was semolina pudding.

At primary school I remember being asked to bring in a cup full of blackberries on a Monday morning. Everyone did the same and by lunch time a delicious, freshly made blackberry and apple pie, crumble or summer pudding would appear for dessert.

All the food was prepared every day on the premises by our wonderful dinner ladies who were under the control of our formidable 'domestic bursar'. We were all petrified of her, but she was extremely good at her job. I saw her at a school reunion when, aged in her 90's, she did not seem scary at all, and was thrilled when I told her how fondly I recalled her school meals.

We also had to help with clearing and fetching food to the table which would then be served by one of our teachers who would eat with us, and I can't remember anyone being overweight. What has gone wrong, I wonder?

I went to several schools and loved school dinners in all of them.

Soz, wrong page.

I would run a mile too.

We were told that if we really didn't like any food our mothers should write to the school about it and we wouldn't have to eat it. I never did find out why my mother didn't write to the school and left me being forced to eat endless hideous milk puddings. I can only think that she must have believed it would be character forming!

I remember Toffee cream tart being a favourite, and mmm chocolate sponge and chocolate custard. No idea what the dinners were.

I ate everything years later met my old dinner lady in the supermarket she told my wife I always asked for seconds

My School dinners where also nice , Manchester tart , chocolate pudding and custard , stewed fruit and carnation . The only thing I wasn`t keen on was liver , we had no choice but to eat it as we couldn`t leave the table until our plates were empty . Children get far too much choice these days about what they will or won`t eat , I get so annoyed by pickiness about food . In the 50`s we regularly had just mashed potatoes or jam butties for our tea when my Dad was out of work ( he was a lagger so had to go where the work was and often had weeks where there was nothing) Maybe that is why I remember school dinners fondly !

I must have been lucky with the schools I went to In the Altrincham area in the 60's and early 70's- 2 choices of main course with veg/salad and 2 choices of dessert - always hot and well prepared and lots of variety over the weeks. Great dinner ladies and kitchen staff. People went up for seconds if there were leftovers. Must admit I still like tapioca though but like many DH can't stand it.

When I was seven, I remember hearing my mam having a conversation with a neighbour about how I would only eat hard-boiled eggs and rice pudding and the neighbour suggested that she make me have school dinners, as I wouldn’t dare refuse the food there. I loved them and, in the fifth year at school, a pupil used to get the chance to help the dinner ladies serve up.

I loved the stew and always loved the apple crumble. I can’t actually remember anything that I didn’t like and, though we didn’t get a choice of menus, the food was always good.

I love stuffed hearts. Reminds me, I've some in my freezer

Stuffed heart is lovely, made with tenderly cooked lambs' hearts, and a bacon and onion stuffing in a rich gravy. I bulk cook my own faggots (belly pork, liver, bacon, onions, breadcrumbs, herbs and seasonings in gravy) as it's too much faffing about for anything less than two dozen at a time.

Tip: food process the breadcrumbs last as it cleans all the liver, bacon, belly pork and onion off the processor blades and makes the processor much easier to clean.

I can't imagine stuffed hearts appearing on any school menus now. Most kids would run a mile if they had to eat them.

Leslie Grimshaw would eat my lumpy mashed potato and I would eat everyone's lettuce. To this day dislike mash but the puddings were lovely

My Mum did stuffed heart. I think I quite liked it then. But wouldn't now. We also had a lady down the road who made faggots one day a week. My Mum would send me down with a pudding bowl and a think sixpence, and I came back with a steaming , fragrant bowl of faggots in lovely brown gravy.Yumm

Stuffed heart. ?

Home for lunch at Primary school. Secondary school meals pretty grim ( dead fly pie comes to mind), but when I was teaching in a school in the 70's the food was pretty good, and I can remember the cook making something different for a staff member who had been off sick.

I never had school dinners, lucky me, as I lived within walking distance of all my schools. Mum worked an evening shift as a nurse, so I had my main meal at lunchtime.
I came across a similar discussion somewhere last summer where 'chocolate concrete' was also remembered very fondly. Inspired by this I searched for a recipe on t' Internet and found one, so duly made it, wondering what I'd been missing for some fifty years.

Chocolate concrete turned out to be tooth-rottingly sweet and went in the bin.
I would probably have loved it as a child, though.

I remember being made to eat rice pudding, which I hated and sitting on my own in the dining hall ( I must have been about 7) until I actually gagged and vomited into the rice! Still can't bear to be in the same room as rice pudding now, some 50 years later....

I liked some school dinners, but not the salad. One day I put grated carrot into a bag in my pocket. Later that day we were getting changed for swimming lesson. I thought 'what on earth is this in my pocket?' Then I realised and managed to get rid of it.
Before that, at Junior School, when our favourite dinner lady was supervising, she sometimes emptied our plates of what we didn't like, and gave us back the empty plates.

We had fantastic school dinners, freshly cooked every day and lovely puddings.
My mum was a school dinner lady and was absolutely dedicated to making sure everyone had tasty, nourishing meals. She went in early to put the joints of meat in the oven then came home and got us off to school, then went back and started on the vegetables. All fresh every day. When she came home she cooked a dinner for me, my dad and my sister. Great Mum.

I gave up school dinners, and went home and cooked beef burgers and fish fingers.