School Dinners
As I contemplate the beauties of the sunset including the photo of this one that I took this past year, I am tempted to reflect on old memories.
I know for many people looking back on their memories of school dinners, it is a time of misery...
In this day and age where the likes of Jamie Oliver are trying to enhance the idea of the school dinner, I have to say, despite all of this, I am still rather pessimistic for their future.
I do feel rather strongly that education in schools does not stop at lunchtime...
For myself though, I only have the most positive of memories. For me, attending High School in the 70’s in England, one of the highlights was the school dinner. It wasn’t until years afterwards however, that I could appreciate how lucky I had been...
Then, everything was cooked completely at the school-none of this bringing in and reheating. The kitchen was run by team of redoubtable women whom nobody-including the head teacher- argued with.
Each day saw a different menu with one salad option and two hot options plus two hot puddings and a cold pudding/cheese option.
We had about 120 pupils in each year and, as I remember, only about 6-8 children in my year brought their own lunch as the rest opted enthusiastically for the school dinners. In those days we were not allowed to go out of school for lunch, so going home or considering anything else i.e. the local chip shop, would be out of the question. Not that we would ever have wanted to!
I remember we used to scrabble to get in line once we had heard what the day’s options were...
If the aroma of cooking Melting Moments drifted around the school in the morning then pulses would raise as we knew that one of the options for pudding would be the hugely popular Giant Melting Moments Oaty Biscuits served with creamy vanilla ice-cream. And, if we heard it was going to be cheese soufflé, then scuffles would sometimes break out in the waiting queue as there was always the risk that this popular favourite would run out before we got there! That sublime, billowing cheese soufflé, served with piping hot plum tomatoes with just a touch of oregano and chunky chips perfectly crisp on the outside and fluffy in the middle, was an absolute treat and one that we didn’t get at home those days.
And then the salads...these were truly outstanding... You have to remember that in the early 70’s, salad usually consisted of a couple of lettuce leaves, tomato and cucumber and perhaps some shop bought coleslaw for that touch of extra luxury.
The school, however, had a salad bar of at least 6 large bowls with each containing a different salad combination. Each pupil could choose a scoop from however many bowls as they desired. The cook in charge of that section wanted the pupil to have as much salad and vegetables as they wanted and enthusiastically encouraged them to try the different combinations. As well as the ‘safe’ coleslaw option which was hugely better than the shop bought one we were mostly used to, being freshly made, there were bowls of other salads such as ones made with cold, brightly green broccoli and sliced hazelnuts- which we thought highly daring being a vegetable that we were used to hot, Waldorf salad with crunchy chunks of apple and walnuts in a divinely creamy mayonnaise completely different from the salad cream we were used to at home, and a delicious pasta salad with very thinly sliced radish and orange. I remember still, going home and telling my mother we had a salad with cold pasta and her being rather upset and flustered at such a concept despite me saying how much I enjoyed it!
If anybody is reading this, then I wonder if you too have any memories of school dinners?
I went to a Public School in the 1960s & 70s. It was a boarding school of course. I remember the food as being dull and repetitive with very few highlihts to enjoy. Even before that I attended a Prep School, where the food was atrocious, and eating it was compulsory.
ReplyDeleteIf only the school dinners of today were as good as you describe! However, I consider it to be the parents' responsibility to introduce children to enjoyable and nutritious food - and they should teach them to cook it too, not just eat it.
Hi Mark, many thanks indeed for your reply. You are absolutely right it is the parents’ responsibility to teach their children not only to appreciate good food but how to cook it. My parents, bless them, were never really into cooking elaborately much themselves, but really appreciated good local ingredients, cooked very simply. Living near to the ‘Asparagus triangle’ near Evesham meant we had access to the very best of asparagus. In those days we drove by a house or farm and collected our bunch which was labelled fine, medium, thick etc and left our money in the Honesty Box outside. For us as children, we relished the short season of asparagus having it simply cooked and served with melted local farm butter mopped up with crusty slices from a Cottage Loaf also baked locally. We visited the dairy every Saturday and occasionally, if I was good, I was allowed to go in the back of the shop and see the milk and butter being churned and made into pats to be sold and wrapped into hand folded greaseproof paper. Collecting bread from the bakery had to be timed to make sure the loaves were just cooled, fresh from the oven but still having that wonderful just cooked aroma. The crust from the upper and lower parts of that Cottage loaf was sublime... I still remember my father pretending to be gruff and indignant when we had returned home with a loaf where all the crust had been nibbled away and my mother pretending the ‘mice’ had managed to get at it first!
ReplyDeleteYou should write a post about these memories and experiences - there are lots of people out the who would be interested to read it.
ReplyDeleteDespite the British reputation for poor food, I think we are very good at producing, cooking and eating fantastic stuff these days!
Thank you once again Mark. I am trying to follow your advice...
DeleteI do so agree that good food is certainly to be had now in the UK. There are some wonderful artisan food producers and also people who are prepared to grow their own and experiment in the kitchen. Long may that continue...
I was served something at my senior school (in the 1970s) that I still can't identify to this day. We called it kitekat. Maybe it was...wouldn't put anything past those nuns! School plays an important role in teaching children to eat healthily especially if they don't have the support at home. Thanks for the nice comment on my blog.
ReplyDeleteAustralian schools don't usually provide school dinners per se, my school had a tuckshop at which you could buy dim sims (an Australia version of a wonton or dumpling), sausage rolls, salad sandwiches and not much else. I do remember our pubs in the 70s which served counter meals all had salad bars and as a kid I used to love taking my bowl and choosing a bit of this and a bit of that, the cold pasta usually being the biggest hit.
ReplyDeleteWow some restaurants didn't serve food like this in the 70s! My school served the usual barely edible fare which was particularly difficult as I boarded. No getting away from the slops. Perhaps that's why I'm so consumed by food now! GG
ReplyDeleteI'm here on Mark's recommendation. And I agree this is a lovely post with wonderful memories. We had house-made lunches as well in High school, but it wasn't nearly as nice as yours. I look forward to reading more!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks indeed to Mark, Sally, Liz, GG and David for taking the time to post a reply-I am tickled pink that anybody is even reading this let alone being kind enough to respond!! Thank you for your kind words David. Sorry to hear about your boarding school food memories GG-‘the slops’ sound revolting! Interesting Liz, hearing about Australian school food-dim sims at school sounds very exotic...Thank you too Sally-I wonder what Kitkat actually was-was it like the biscuit to be called that?? Finally big thank you again to Mark for continuing to comment and encourage me to continue-I’m now inspired to compose another post!!
ReplyDeleteOur school served lunch but it was never particularly good though compared to what the schools here serve now it was wonderful. I worked as a substitute teacher for a while here and I couldn't believe how little the children get now. A sandwich, French fries (every damn day!) and a fruit popsicle! That was it half the time. At least when we were kids we got things like spaghetti, we ALWAYS had a vegetable, chicken pot pie, beef stew etc.
ReplyDeleteHi Becky,
DeleteWas the fruit Popsicle considered to be the healthy ‘fruit’ portion I wonder??
I was intrigued by your mention of a ‘popsicle’ so looked it up on Wikipedia and was fascinated by its history. It’s what we call a ‘lolly’ in the UK. That led me on to look up the Fab lolly which was very popular when we were growing up but I wonder how many British people realise it was based on the Thunderbirds TV series-though I should have guessed from the name...
Love the way you write. As I read this post, I felt like my mother was re-telling her school days. Now you might wonder how a school in India may have much in common with a school in the UK. Well, my mother studied in a school founded by the British and a lot of the British school customs remained, even though they had left. And so she can still recount her days of terror with prefects monitoring mealtimes. And you know what, she became a prefect herself!
ReplyDeleteHi Anita,
DeleteMany thanks for your kind words. I am so appreciative of the feedback I have had. I do think it is funny that after having ‘endured’ the prefects when younger, we end up then being one ourselves!! Fascinating that we share these experiences across the world...