Favourite school food

My mum, God bless her soul was a hopeless cook so I devoured practically anything served at school

The only thing I enjoyed was jelly and ice cream. Hard to not cook jelly right and they didn't make the ice cream. School dinners were tolerated as my family was poor and we got free dinners.

Manchester tart, oh yes, seconds please miss ?
School dinners were a disgrace. I was lucky and only had to stay for 1 week (5 days) when we moved house.
The puddings ?? now you're talking.
Chocolate sponge with custard, jam roly- poly with custard, treacle sponge with custard, suet syrup pudding...yes, with custard, semolina with jam (still love it) and the above Manchester tart with custard.
I always had seconds and thirds if they had it as many girls on my table were picky eaters.
I still love all of those puds.

Primary school meals were dreadful, but my secondary school ones were cooked on the premises and were generally great. Fridays were either fish fingers & mash or kedgeree (one of the few things I hated, but still don't like fish except for fish & chips). Friday dessert was stodge with ginger toffee sauce topping and custard (not lumpy!) - delicious. Another favourite was "splossified sploof" - jelly with half water, half evaporated milk and whisked till fluffy. I also loved sausages with onion gravy and Spam fritters. Overall we were lucky,

Years later, when I was a student nurse living in, the canteen ladies knew my weakness for chocolate and plain suet syrup pud and made sure there were plenty of leftovers. ??

I remember "splossiflied sploof" Skweek but we certainly didn't know it by that name!

Most memorable lunch for me was slug infested salad

Butterscotch tart - yummy. I’ve tried to make my own, and bought some from our local farm shop, but it’s never as I remember it!

I hated school dinners almost as much as I hated the little bottles of milk we were given. My mother was an amazing cook so anyone would have to be extra special to come anywhere near her standards. In the end, I used to bring a packed lunch.

Re Grandma 70s I too was at school in the forties and fifties. School dinners were horrible. The worst main dish was brown stew, lumpy and gristly, and steamed pudding, probably the same as was served in Nelson's navy. A teacher caught a friend and me modelling little men out of the pudding and sent us for punishment. Despite rationing and shortage of money, my widowed mother, who was an excellent cook, gave in and provided packed lunches. After school I went home to nutritious scotch broth, fresh fish from the visiting fishwife, Dutch apple cake.

We had the most marvellous steamed pudding with jam on the top, steamed treacle pudding, apple crumble and in December mince pies.

Some of the meat course was good too. Macaroni and cheese which my mother never made, chippolatas with mashed potatoes, roast pork with apple sauce. Yummy!

I remember something called ‘Hatstacks’. I think it was shredded wheat with melted chocolate but it had a toffee taste so not sure. Would they have known about melting a mars bar in the early 70’s as that is what it tasted like.

In 1964 I was 11 and started having school dinners as my mum was working. I seem to recall meat pies with lovely pastry and I tasted my first parsnips then as there was a potato shortage so we had parsnips instead. They were brilliant and I've been a fan of parsnips ever since.

My school dinners were in wartime and rationing so things were very difficult. I remember mince (Gravy with little lumps) and stew (Gravy with big lumps) and salads but the things which stick most in the memory are sponge puddings of every kind and semolina (usually pink) and the occasional
milk puddings like "frogspawn!)

I can't really remember school food. I ate what was offered and didn't dislike anything enough not to eat it.

Our lovely nuns cooked our food on the premises. It was usually quite good, but the ginger sponge pudding and custard was memorable.

I used to love the school roast dinner and the salad which contained peanuts.

Gypsy tart was always served with an apple,to counteract the sweetness I suppose. I liked all the various sponge puddings served with custard.

I loved school dinners. even sago and rice pudding. Considering there were 1700 pupils at my secondary school and the majority stayed for dinner, in two sittings, the food was of really good quality.

I always looked forward to our school meals; everything was prepared from scratch in the school kitchens. The food was simple but beautifully cooked, and for the 60s quite remarkable - vegetables were always 'al dente', and not boiled for hours before serving. There was an apricot tart that was absolutely amazing - I can taste it now!

Fantastic thread. I was at senior school in Bristol During the late 60s/early 70s and this has brought back SO many memories. Mostly good but a few horrors- the cheese and potato pie was fine but served with warmed up tinned tomatoes (very nasty) which I refused to eat, and had to sit there looking at for ages. Puds were the best bit, I’d forgotten the pink custard ? and chocolate custard ?. Oh the liver ... very grainy and with thick gravy so disgusting! And I remember the communal tepid tap water jug with bitten plastic glasses ?. Shared experience obviously. ?

I loved the Savory mince with triangles of Crispy fried bread.

I don’t remember many of our school meals 1950s, but I ate them.

Favourites I do remember were, cheese tart, tapioca, semolina and fly cemetery with custard.

Manchester tart is pastry then jam with custard on top of that and coconut sprinkled all over, mmmm yummy

For me our school dinners were really great, but the very best had to be chocolate sponge with brown or pink sauce.

Cheese & Potato Pie. It's still one of my favourites.

The only things I remember from school lunch is that beetroot turned everything else on the plate pink (it makes me shudder to think about it) and having to eat every scrap of food- not good memories.