School lunches - a pleasant memory?

My school-days were late fifties, early sixties and the food was excellent. Some people were reminiscing in the local paper a few years ago and they printed the recipe for chocolate concrete! I do remember once, we had a teacher sitting at our table and yes, as I tried to break the pudding up a piece shot across the room, I didn't get told off though. These meals were well made and if any child was unable to get a decent meal at home, it certainly made a difference for them.

I'm one of the " school dinner lovers ". The puddings were especially delicious. In particular, Cold Manchester Tart, (pastry with confectioners' custard topped with coconut) and I have to say, the rice pudding, semolina and tapioca were favourites.

For the 1 week that I had to stay fir school meals due to family moving house, my memory is of gristly meat and floppy veg but glorious chocolate pudding, warm bakewell tart and syrup sponge pudding all with huge jugs of custard.
Yummy.

School puddings, yep! Chocolate concrete with custard ?. I can't remember much about the meals. I just ate them because I was hungry. I don't recall anything really awful.

In the 1950s it was spam fritters and cabbage. I still hate spam and cabbage. If the pudding was particularly nice my friend would relate the story (very quietly, we were not allowed to talk) of a postmortem she had seen on a horse to put the others off their pudding and we would scoff the lot.

School dinners taught me social etiquette how to hold a knife and fork, how to interact with other diners, serving food fairly but ugh, the lumpy mashed potatoes put me off mad for decades.

I only ever had school dinners when at grammar school. They were mostly awful, but their meat and potatoe pie was lovely served up with grated beetroot. We used to dread the dessert when it was stewed apricots, or stewed ants as we called it, there were more ants than apricots in it, all floating on the top! My first grammar school did lovely rissoles, the only time I`ve ever enjoyed rissoles.