A spot of lunch and a cheese memory...

First of all, a genuine big thank you again to everybody who has been kind enough to respond to my musings. It feels so strange to be writing and have responses from people you have never met but somehow have links in common.

I’m glad my ramblings about food memories regarding school dinners touched a chord with some people. It’s funny that obviously at the time, we certainly didn’t appreciate at our school how lucky we were. All we did was moan if our year wasn’t at First Sitting and to try to avoid sitting at a table with one of those dreaded prefects. The prefects, naturally, were the bane of our lives when we were in those first few years of school...

One of the perks of being a prefect was that they were allowed to ‘jump’ the queue for lunch which, of course, we as younger pupils considered most unfair. Then, to make matters worse, they had to spread themselves around and sit at a table with the younger years. The idea being they would monitor the behaviour of the younger ranks and at the same time provide a good example of ‘table manners’. Thus, the prefect would curb any rowdy or too noisy behaviour and at the same time make sure we used our forks correctly-no turning your fork upside down and scooping your peas up common style!!Also nobody was allowed to leave the table until everyone had not only eaten but had also correctly placed their knife and fork on the plate at the end to signify they had finished.

Now just in case you think we were all rather good and proper at lunch and all the food was wonderful-let me tell you about the cheese...

One of the cold options for dessert was cheese and biscuits. It was always the same cheese-a small oblong of processed bland cheese wrapped in plastic served with two Jacob’s Cream Crackers and a small foil wrapped butter. The cheese was absolutely tasteless but had one redeeming feature...it bounced really well! Once out of its plastic wrapping you could warm it up in your hands and then mould it into a ball. Then you were ready to play the game...The water jug was placed on the far side of the table to you and you then had to throw the ball of cheese so that it bounced just once and then landed in the water jug. To get the perfect bounce took skill and there was the added thrill that of course this whole activity was banned! First it meant you had to forgo one of the other scrumptious puddings, then try to ensure you got onto a table without a prefect and then try and carry out the whole procedure without a prefect from another table spotting you! If caught, it meant being sent to a teacher who then read you the riot act about being disrespectable to the food and the people who had provided it. If you were caught too often then you were made to stand at the side of the Hall until the end of the lunchtime and then, horror of horrors, had to apologise to the head school cook herself. A terrible punishment indeed. It happened to me just the once...

And, of course, in the fullness of time, yes, you’ve guessed it, I became myself a prefect. Then, naturally, I had to be a model of good behaviour-something I now think those sneaky teachers realised when they made some of us prefects...

I was zealous in making sure those younger years behaved at my table. No slurping their spoonfuls of stew or putting their knives in their mouths. And of course I was eagle- eyed to make sure nobody was playing the banned game of bounce the cheese. I could spot all the giveaway signs-the surreptitious placing of the water jug, the warming up of the hands etc.

After all, I had been an expert player in my time!

Those were the days...

Back to my lunch now.

 It is cheese which I adore and why it sparked another school dinner memory. Simple fare though today as I’ve only had two hours sleep this past night as I was up until 5.30am being a midwife to one of my cats.

Lunch consisted of some rather tasty cheese-Lincolnshire Poacher. Fresh bread-a Pain au Levain- bought I’m afraid but served with a locally picked apple (Ashmead’s Kernel) my own homemade Pumpkin chutney and my homemade pickled balsamic onions. I did put out a bottle of one of my favourite localish ciders-Organic Black Fox by Dunkerton’s http://dunkertons.co.uk/  but in the end forwent its delights as I’m just too tired and that would have probably resulted in me having a siesta...Oh, and for those that are interested, we now have 5 new additions to the family!

I’ll post my recipes for the Balsamic Pumpkin Chutney and Balsamic Pickled Onions next time if anyone is interested. And to redeem myself for having a shop bought loaf, I’m going to be making a Soda bread with buttermilk and smoked flour...