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Favourite school food

(148 Posts)
H1954 Wed 06-May-20 07:37:04

I made a salad for lunch yesterday and although I had some rather nice mayonnaise on it I got to thinking about school salads and the delicious salad cream we had! I had loads more favourite school dinners and puddings! Come on GN, do share yours.

Calendargirl Wed 06-May-20 09:51:58

I loved the chocolate cannonballs with pink blancmange, also the big vats of creamy custard that the dinner ladies served out with a big ladle.
Hated the stew, also in big vats, with gristly meat and horrible processed peas, cried and wanted to go home for dinner when it was that, the teachers and dinner ladies very unsympathetic!

Also liked the luncheon meat served with salad, and delicious little roast potatoes.

At grammar school, loved the curry, first time I had eaten it.

MarieEliza Wed 06-May-20 09:52:17

I loved shepherds pie and carrots freshly made and followed by sponge pudding (sometimes chocolate) and custard. Delicious

Chestnut Wed 06-May-20 09:56:32

My favourite was definitely rhubarb crumble (1960).

I also remember gagging on fatty meat and being forced to stay behind to eat it.

Mrs Crouch was the witch who slapped me if I didn't.

Phloembundle Wed 06-May-20 09:56:33

At primary school the mashed potato had string and grey lumps. They tried to make us eat it. I used to put mine in my pocket and dump it in the bin in the playground. I had lovely starched hankies! At my secondary school the nuns were great cooks. Spotted dick, orange curd tart, rice pudding, semolina..............

Blinko Wed 06-May-20 09:56:46

Two favourites for me.
Number one, farmers breakfast (boarding school). This included egg, bacon, onion and potato all made into a sort of flan. You each got a large, square chunk. Lovely!

The second was something we used to call 'shoe soles'. They were ovals (shoe sole shaped) of rough puff pastry sandwiched together with jam and cream. A Sunday treat. Yummy!

Coco51 Wed 06-May-20 09:59:45

Butterscotch tart. I worked in a school for a while and the cook always saved me a piece!

Moggycuddler Wed 06-May-20 10:00:29

What's Gypsy tart?? I loved almost all the school lunches, they were very good and you could usually have seconds. The only one I can remember not liking was sardines (in oil) with salad.

shysal Wed 06-May-20 10:01:04

My first school (private) dished up revolting food like gristly mince. I can still remember the nightmare I used to have about being forced to eat it whilst carrying the cushion I used at home to help me reach the table.
However, at grammar school the food was delicious. I loved it all except the chocolate custard. My favourite day was Friday when we had sautee potatoes.
I even enjoyed my 1/3 pint bottles of milk unless it had been left in the sun.

Nortsat Wed 06-May-20 10:01:05

Cheese pie, chips and baked beans.

(Can’t remember much else except prunes and custard, which I never tasted, but it looked pointless... )

Sardinia2020 Wed 06-May-20 10:01:12

I loved most of the puddings. There was one called majorca slice which was a pastry base, jam and a sort of bakewell pudding topping with sultanas and cherries in it. My mum was a teacher in another school that also served it and she asked for the recipe. I still make it today as well as cornflake tart which was another favourite.

Canklekitten Wed 06-May-20 10:03:57

Does anyone remember the cheese pie/flan?? It was a bit like quiche. I loved it but no one else did so I ate theirs too! I can still remember the taste and texture .... it takes me right back to when I was 10 years old.

Rumpunch Wed 06-May-20 10:05:16

Chocolate sponge with chocolate custard!
Sticky rice crispie thing in squares with mock cream on the top. Can't remember what they called it.

You can see why I now have a weight problem!

Lucca Wed 06-May-20 10:06:51

We used have prunes and apricots together and it was referred to as “mixed bathing”.......

jaylucy Wed 06-May-20 10:10:49

I only had school dinners when I went to senior school 10 miles away.
I can't think of anything that I absolutely hated - even liked spam fritters!
Squares of jelly with a swirl of fake cream on top was fun - they were served on plates that were often straight out of the dishwasher and as we had a cafeteria system, it was fun to get back to your seat without the jelly sliding off the hot plate!
One dessert that I always remember that seems to be unique to my county is Chocolate Toothpaste - a pastry base with a chocolate mousse filling, sometimes with a peppermint flavour and a swirl of pink fake cream. Yum!

Grandma70s Wed 06-May-20 10:12:17

I’ve just remembered ‘fly cemetery’ - a sort of currant tart or pie. Loved it.

GrandmaMoira Wed 06-May-20 10:14:19

I hated school dinners with gristly meat, lumpy mash, overcooked greens, lumpy gravy, lumpy custard or dreadful milk puddings. On the rare occasion something was edible the portions were very small.

JennyCee Wed 06-May-20 10:15:52

ALl the food was awful, but worse than the food was the milk!
Dreadful in summer and we were made to drink it - hate milk!

TrendyNannie6 Wed 06-May-20 10:17:28

Sponge pudding with pink custard

Purplepoppies Wed 06-May-20 10:18:30

Spam fritters ?. In fact I have recreated them during lockdown!!
I loved the chocolate custard too. We used to argue over the skin!
Any milk based puddings and butterscotch tart.
I think the only thing I objected to was liver.... and still won't eat it.
My mum used to make macaroni pudding (like rice pudding). I think it might be a Scottish dish? I cannot eat pasta anymore but I really enjoyed that. Definitely have a sweet tooth ?

TrendyNannie6 Wed 06-May-20 10:19:36

Grandma70’s Are you Scottish by any chance as my mum used to call those tart things fly cemetery’s, you saying that brought happy memories of eating them when my mum was alive

May7 Wed 06-May-20 10:21:40

candlekitten I remember cheese pie it was lovely and I’ve never tasted outside of primary school. It was a bit like quiche but so much nicer. That was the only food I liked at school. My great dread was xmas as we were made to eat sprouts (the devil’s cabbages)

FarNorth Wed 06-May-20 10:23:48

Shepherd's pie.

Mashed potato - everyone else loved the rare days when we got chips instead, but not me.

School cabbage (okay, I'm odd).

School custard, totally different to home custard.

Crumble - rhubarb or apple. Yum.

Esmerelda Wed 06-May-20 10:24:26

Spam fritters and baked beans followed by rhubarb stodge with custard ... my dream school meal!

JaneJANE60 Wed 06-May-20 10:28:23

One of my most vivid memories of Primary School in Nottingham was crying because parsley sauce had been poured all over my dinner - still hate it. I also hated stew with the fat and grissley meat. I. Pulling a face while I’m writing this at just the thought. I loved the rice pudding. Have lived in Kent for many years and every local talks very fondly about Gypsy Tart being served in their schools. Is this a regional thing?

Witzend Wed 06-May-20 10:28:28

Fish and chips and ice cream every Thursday. Trouble was, it was always after we’d been swimming, we were invariably starving and there were never nearly enough chips.

It was a pretty dreadful (junior) school, I was there for only 2 years.

At senior school the only really nice thing I recall was something called Chocolate Crackolate, which appeared once a term if we were lucky. A bit like chocolate Rice Krispie cakes, only squashed down so much more solid.

I did quite like the school rice pudding, too.