School lunches - a pleasant memory?

We had a currant pudding which we called 'brother where art thou' because there were so few currants. We also were allocated a place at a table and as we got older we found ourselves taking turns to serve the food at the head of the table. My very real dislike was the white parsley sauce! I still can't face it even now. This was served with boiled ham and mash. Tapioca pudding was known as 'frog's spawn' and was disliked by almost everyone. Luckily, we weren't forced to eat anything we disliked, not like many of you have said you were made to do.

I hated school dinners! We were forced to eat food that we didn't like. Today I still can't eat any type of milk pudding, even the smell puts me off.
Also mashed potatoes was always lumpy with black lumps in it. Still can't eat that either!

I loved school dinners, especially the "all purpose" sponge with pink custard. I remember being sent to the staff room to collect the catering tins containing the staff leftovers. We then helped ourselves to cold mushy veg and gravy...yum!
I'd probably be OK with hospital food too.
Weird because we never eat like that at home.

Nothing but bad memories, I am afraid. In the late 1940s, mashed potato powder carelessly mixed so that it was full of tiny lumps that made me gag. I cannot eat mashed potato to this day. I am tensing waiting for the lumps.

Minced meat with so much gristle that when a loose tooth came out as I was eating it, I swallowed it because I thought it was just another piece of gristle.

Lumpy pink blancmange with a thick skin. Eggs boiled in a bain marie so that one end was cooked hard and the other the white was liquid and barely cloudy. I cannot eat eggs now unless the yoke is hard and it has some other flavouring added - cheese, mushrooms or herbs.

I have never drunk milk, even as a toddler, I have a real aversion to it, so, hours sitting with a third of a pint of slightly warm milk refusing point blank to drink it.

Lettuce served as a veg with stew. DH still will not eat beetroot. It was served as a hot vegetable and he just would not eat it.

I'm amazed to read that so many of you enjoyed school dinners! At Big School ours were mainly awful and, on a good day, were slightly less awful! I've never been a fussy eater, but struggled with school dinners. Too many 'tubes' still attached to the leathery meat for one thing! Cabbage, which had morphed into slop, lumpy puddings, various foods which completely defied their descriptions! . . .

I remember having a tour of the school before we attended and there were enormous tins of corned beef high up on a shelf in the kitchen, awaiting destruction because of a health scare.

Put up with.......

No fond memories
Disgusting!!
Lumpy mash, over boiled cabbage,
floppy carrots, boot leather meat or gristly mince.
On lump or two? Gravy
Ditto the custard
Chocolate shortbread?? that required a hammer and chisel.
What's to like??
Luckily had the option of a packed lunch,
Still had to out up with cabbage stench!

School milk made me gag!
Why did they have to keep it by the b****y radiators.

LOL same in Switzerland- yes, same spoon. And we had a bowl of hot milk at morning break - oh that skin on top Fortunately my friend Denis would always pick mine off (we turned so teacher would not see us) - lift it and drop it into his mouth. Still can't stand hot milk to this day.

In East London in the 50s we had to queue to have a spoon full of cod liver oil - from the same spoon - before eating the school dinner!!

Never ever had a school dinner, moi- so can't tell you.

I know a lot of people say they hated school dinners, but I loved them.

I enjoyed nearly everything but especially curry, salad and (proper) baked potato, mince meat pie, jam and coconut topped sponge with banana or chocolate custard.

I hated school dinners and missed many playtimes at junior school whilst sitting over the meal I could not eat. We had lumpy mash, lumpy gravy, gristly meat, overcooked greens, ox liver as mains and puddings included prunes, tapioca, semolina, lumpy custard and shaving foam. At least at secondary school we weren't forced to eat but I remember being hungry. I wasn't a fussy eater - I liked my Mum's cooking.

I too have very fond memories of school dinners at my junior school. The school had it's own kitchens, as did the attached infant school, and lovely dinner ladies. I can't remember all the choices, but mince with mashed potato and raw shredded white cabbage was a favourite. It was the first time that I had been presented with raw cabbage, and loved the different texture. Puddings were all delicious, and all served with custard. Those were the days. I also had school dinners when I went to grammar school, but can't remember those at all.

Schools vary widely and did way back then too, when it came to school meals.
I would eat just about anything as a child ( just as well.)
I can’t remember if I actually enjoyed school meals at junior school or not, but I certainly liked all the puddings, especially ginger sponge and custard and even rice pudding and prunes.
Cheese pie was especially yummy and therefore I do remember it, but have little memory for the other offerings.
I know there was plenty of food though, and always seconds.
Grammer school was another story though as prefects doled out the food at each table, and there was never enough go go round and it was universally disliked anyway as being lumpy and gristly and half cold.

Something's gone wrong, hasn't it?
We had a good breakfast, wonderful school lunch with calorie filled desert, and went back for seconds if there was any left. Evening time we always had another full cooked meal. And I don't remember any of my school friends being over weight

Primary school memories of sobbing over horrible liver for the whole of the lunch break and only allowed to leave the table once the bell went for afternoon lessons. Most days were like that for me but I didn't tell my Mum until I was much older - she was horrified but too late to do anything about it. We weren't allowed to take a packed lunch. The only thing I remember enjoying was something called Gypsy Tart for pudding but have no idea what it was

Being physically forced to eat rice pudding age 7 by a very scary dinner lady.
She held my mouth open and forced the rice in, I then proceeded to vomit all over her.
The school complained to my parents about MY bad behaviour, my Dad was very very angry. Not at me for once, no more school dinners for me.
I still hate milk puddings of any sort.

God no they left me in perpetual fear of "lumps", lumps in potatoes, lumps in milky puddings the size of small planets. Along with catechism, long division and school milk, where was the "Milk Snatcher", when I needed her, they blighted my formative school years. Forcing children to eat or drink something they can't stomach is tantamount to child abuse imo. I didn't consider myself a picky eater, I certainly ate everything that was put in front of me at home. School dinners and the fact that pupils were forced to eat meals that could make them throw up left me vowing I'd never force any children I might have to eat food they found unpalatable. I did end up with one finickity green vegetable dodger, although he was okay once he was introduced to stir fried veg.

I went to a secondary school in Berlin, an English school at RAF Gatow, the food was delicious, at break time we had fresh cakes and hot chocolate or milk. Lunch menus were varied and all a delight.

Semolina with jam in it and liver like shoe leather disgusting, hated school dinners.

Horrible memories of lumpy mashed potato - it put me off for life, I still hate mash. Gristly meat too, though I did like most of the puddings.

I couldn't stand school dinners.
Gristly meat, lumpy custard, watery cabbage..
And somebody standing by the slop bucket who would make you go and eat some more before you could scrape your plate off.

I remember having, what we pupils used to call, “all purpose pudding”, at my secondary school.

It was always the same sponge base, but some days it had coconut sprinkled on top, other times the dinner ladies stirred in cocoa powder to make it chocolate flavoured, then there was my favourite with a thin layer of jam and, intriguingly, one that was coloured green (I never worked that one out). It was always served with thick custard complete with leathery skin, one of my enduring food dislikes.

I remember writing an ode to “all purpose pudding” in an English lesson and reading it out loud to much amusement.

Ghastly grissley meat in gelatinous grey gravy, cabbage which had been boiled all morning, lumpy mashed potato dolloped out with an ice cream scoop, usually followed by some sort of cake covered in custard. To ring the changes, they coloured the custard - pink, brown or a lurid bright green. You've guessed right - I don't have fond memories of school dinners.

I also have lovely memories of school dinners. At our secondary school we sat in 'family groups' you were assigned a place on your first day and sat at that table throughout. Meals were served by the prefect and everyone was expected to join the conversation. Our cook shopped at the local market twice a week. We didn't have choices and weren't allowed packed lunches.