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Food

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.

Hermia46 Wed 06-May-20 10:29:15

Chocolate tart, I think you can still get the recipe on line..yum yum!

Hated tapioca or sago always lumpy....!

jacalpad Wed 06-May-20 10:29:26

H1954, thank you for starting this thread. I loved the chips, and most of the puddings ....... but most of all I loved the fake frothy cream. Does anyone know how to make it? I have been told it was whipped evaporated milk. However, was it whipped from room temperature or chilled, was anything added, and was it really evaporated milk? I’d love to recreate it and see if I still like it!

Grannycool52 Wed 06-May-20 10:29:34

I went to school in England for a few years and I tried the school dinners, but they were awful- watery mince, overcooked vegetables and various lumpy white puddings. I soon started going home for lunch!
Do you remember the school milk, a third of a pint, warm in summer but had ice in it in the winter, & it was compulsory!

frankie74 Wed 06-May-20 10:29:35

Meat and potato pie with suet pastry top followed by ginger sponge pudding and custard has my mouth watering as I write

Millieangel Wed 06-May-20 10:30:09

Cheese pie was lovely!!

Craftycat Wed 06-May-20 10:31:09

Oh how I wanted to have school dinners!!
I lived 2 mins away from my primary school so went home for lunch every day. I was so jealous of all the others staying for dinner & getting a long play time. Even if Mum was out for the day I had to pass my grandparent's house to get home so Nanny gave me lunch.
The only time I got to stay was Wimbledon weeks when Mum & Nanny went to the tennis every day.
When I went to Grammar school I had to stay as it was miles away & the food wasn't great- except the chocolate pudding!!

Grandma70s Wed 06-May-20 10:32:27

TrendyNannie6: I had a Scottish grandfather, but the fly cemetery was a school nickname, and the school was in Cheshire. That was at senior school.

I went to a small private infant school, and we were taken by bus to a shop in the village for lunch. It must have been a baker’s, I think. We took over an upper room. The only thing I remember about the lunch was the horrible jelly. It was very brightly coloured and very firm, almost hard, and not sweet. Served with very fake cream. Well, it was just post-war, so we didn’t expect much.

Calendargirl Wed 06-May-20 10:40:11

Purplepoppies

No, we also had macaroni pudding at home, and we aren’t Scottish!

frankie74 Wed 06-May-20 10:41:01

Fly Cemetery..haha..that's what we called it if a teacher could hear. Otherwise it was Spotted Dick, which is the correct name I think, but not the way we said it in our repressed all-girls' grammar school

leeds22 Wed 06-May-20 10:41:08

Loved most of the stodgy puddings: spotted dick, various sponges, all served with custard. Even loved all the milk puddings, sago was called frog spawn. Then there was pink slop and chocolate slop - kind of hot runny blancmange. Would still eat them today if the waistline allowed.

CraftyGranny Wed 06-May-20 10:42:10

My schools, in 50s/60s cooked on the premises and served up really lovely meals. I mainly remember puddings, butterscotch tart, Manchester tart, rice pud with jam and shortbread biscuit.
They must have been good because the teachers ate them too !

Mollygo Wed 06-May-20 10:46:07

Cheese and onion pie, served on alternate Fridays. Jam rolypoly, all the milk puddings. I still make them now, mmmm.
I didn’t like school meat So Friday was the only day I got to play -the rest of the days meant sitting in front of things I wouldn’t eat, then gobbling pudding in the last 5 minutes. In 1986 I was asked if I wanted a school dinner at a school I was visiting. I chose fish pie, only to discover that meant a slab of mash on top of pilchards-still with the bones on!???

annodomini Wed 06-May-20 10:48:20

My mum made 'fly pie' - raisins, currants, sultanas etc with brown sugar, and sometimes a little mixed spice, between two sheets of pastry. I'd forgotten about this family favourite until I read this thread.

Thecatshatontgemat Wed 06-May-20 10:55:01

Lashings of chocolate custard on our "afters". Yum.

Aepgirl Wed 06-May-20 10:59:16

My school dinners were lovely - probably because my mum was the dinner lady, and it was a small country school.

Secondary school dinners were not too bad, and I loved tapioca pudding. Also chocolate sponge with chocolate sauce.

Redhead56 Wed 06-May-20 11:09:42

We only had school dinners when Fords factory was on strike in the 60s. We lived across the road from primary school. Braised steak with veg and potato sponge pudding for dessert. We had a mixed salad with ham aand egg with a lovely peppery salad cream. We always had lemon meringue pie after the salad.

lulusmf Wed 06-May-20 11:14:40

Our school lunches were excellent, i particularly liked the macaroni cheese on fridays. The one exception was what we called 'locust pie' a syrup tart with cornflakes in that you couldn't get your cutlery into!!

Alioop Wed 06-May-20 11:14:51

My mum worked in the dining hall at my school, but always gave a packed lunch. I wonder why lol...

Theresamb Wed 06-May-20 11:16:40

Caramel tart or I think some called it butterscotch tart???. I have tried to reproduce it with no luck.
I Have no memorable savoury courses, except chicken supreme which was disgusting.
We never had any fried food even Fridays it was usually a sad bit of poached white fish with boiled potatoes..

CarlyD7 Wed 06-May-20 11:22:23

Our school dinners (in the 60's) were pretty standard meat and two veg stuff (sometimes with lumpy mashed potato) which we had to eat or got shouted at by the dinner ladies. But I LOVED the puddings - jam roly poly, chocolate steamed pudding, spotted dick, all with thick custard. Didn't much care for the prunes and custard except that we could eat the prunes and spit out the stones around the edge of the dish and then play "tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief" (almost made up for the taste of the prunes).

Yangste1007 Wed 06-May-20 11:26:47

Gypsy Tart, my favourite.
Lemon Meringue Pie made in a large rectangular tray and each portion had its own blob of meringue.
Meat and Potato pie.
Roast on the rare occasions we had it.
Hated and still do custard especially with skin. I can remember sitting and gagging on it and being made to eat every mouthful. I feel the same about blancmange!

maryhoffman37 Wed 06-May-20 11:38:25

I hated school dinners so much I was allowed to take a pacled lunch! So, no favourites here.

Traceyac Wed 06-May-20 12:00:35

I loved school dinners always remember mum not liking us having salad and chips

Bikerhiker Wed 06-May-20 12:01:24

Steak pie with suet crust pastry, savoy cabbage, new potatoes followed by treacle sponge. Yum.

Saggi Wed 06-May-20 12:03:48

4 of us kids and parents couldn’t afford school dinners at 5/- a head per week.... that’s a whole £1.00 for dinners! We weren’t allowed to take sandwiches so my gran ( who lived with us) would have us home for dinners( always cooked).... our family food budget was only £6 for the week so taking a £1 out just for dinners we weren’t gonna eat was a waste. My gran and mum were great cooks. It was always ready when we got in at lunchtime ....only a five minute walk.... then we had to wash up ....10 mins.... so we had . Loved it!a good 40 minutes to ourselves