Friday 13 January 2012

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...

14 comments:

  1. Sounds like you were a real terror at school... We had a very similar regime, I must say. Meal-times were generally functional and not a lot of fun. As they say, some people eat to live, whereas others live to eat. I'm one of the latter.
    Hope you didn't eat all that cheese in one go! And yes, I am interested in seeing the recipes you mention. Balsamic onions are lovely, but very expensive to buy. (I love the Cippolini from Waitrose).

    BTW: We want photos of the kittens please!

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    1. Hi Mark. Yes I’m also one of those people that lives to eat! However I did only have a small chunk of that cheese in the photo you will be pleased to hear! I’ll do another post on the recipes too. I only got into Balsamic onions last year but like you was struck by how expensive they are to buy so thought blow it-I’ll have a go and make my own...
      I tried to take some photos of the kittens but the photos appear a little ‘grainy’. I’ll see if I can sort them out before posting later on.

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  2. Now we were totally the opposite. No one ever watched us eat or cared what our manners were. Normally we wouldn't even get assigned seats unless we were consistently too loud or a food fight broke out. We always had a teacher or two monitoring the lunch room but that was it. I don't ever remember us having cheese at school at all. Cheese is not a really big thing here. It is mostly sliced cheese for sandwiches or shredded to put in things. There are block cheeses and there are some good block cheeses available but they are mostly expensive (the good ones anyway) and small. When I was young my father used to go to this one country store where he could get a good wedge of cheese, even to this day, I don't think I have tasted a cheese as good as that store had. Phil and I are just now getting into and buying more "real" cheese and tasting them all to see what we like. I have found a cheese called Godan that is smoked that I like a lot. At the moment I can't remember the one he likes but I think it is good too. Oh and your loaf of bread looks pretty good for store bought. I am hoping to get a chance to make some sourdough bread this weekend.

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    1. Hi Becky,
      Many thanks indeed for visiting my new blog website and leaving such a thought provoking comment. I spent a year in Wisconsin when I was growing up and so experienced ‘typical’ cheese from there. Interesting experience...I just remember the cheese being predominately orange in colour. Dredging up my memories from thirty plus years ago there was something called ‘Brick cheese’ a softish, very mild cheese often sliced into our sandwiches, Colby cheese which was very, very mild and sponge like and a rather squeaky thing called cheese curds-sort of rubbery blobs which literally squeaked when you bit into them.
      It is fascinating also how different our experiences have been for school meals. And lunch time in an American High school...so very, very different indeed to what I had been used to. I had never had a ‘bag’ lunch before and was highly intrigued that food to eat such as sandwiches could be bought from a machine...how times have changed...and then I had my first experience of a food fight in the high school in Wisconsin...oh my goodness...being young and impressionable I thought the movies had come to life!!

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  3. Well, you are an extremely good writer and I enjoyed reading your post.

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    1. Thank you, thank you Becky. You don’t know how much you have made my day!! Now waltzing off to do a little happy dance...

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  4. I also enjoyed reading your post you do have a talent keep it up.

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    1. Oh my goodness-thank you so much for saying so. I will certainly now try to do my best!!

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  5. I'm looking forward to the Balsamic pumpkin chutney recipe. Keep up the good work. GG

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    1. Hi GG,
      Many thanks for the encouraging comment. I hope to have the recipes up later today-the garden is beckoning now though it does seem a little chilly out there. Perhaps another cup of coffee will spur me on...

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  6. I'm looking forward to the balsamic preserve recipes but what do you mean that scooping the peas up with your fork isn't proper etiquette? With anything else they either squash or roll onto the floor....yes I know with that attitude I'll be forever lost to the fine dining tables of the European aristocracy...but I am from the colonies afterall.....he he he

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    1. Hi Liz-thanks for your comment-I will get going with posting those recipes-promise!
      I do find it interesting how behaviour at meal times varies so much from one culture to another but also how it has evolved in successive generations. I found this website which might amuse/interest you! Just think of how many ways a visitor could commit a ‘dreadful’ faux pas...
      http://projectbritain.com/behaviourfood.html

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  7. Talking of food etiquette... Remember this?

    I Eat My Peas with Honey
    By Anonymous:

    I eat my peas with honey;
    I've done it all my life.
    It makes the peas taste funny,
    But it keeps them on the knife.

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    1. I had never heard of this one Mark-you learn something every day!!Though I do hope that doesn’t encourage anyone to eat peas off their knife...tut tut...

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