SPAM!!! (food???)

[Kaz]

The dinners at my primary school were horrid, but when I moved up to the grammar they were brilliant. I would still happily eat what they served up there

Mick still remembers the lovely dinners at his school, particularly one day when he was allowed to have not only seconds but fifths of a pud they called Poor Clare’s, a sort of fried jam sandwich dusted with icing sugar, drowned in custard

[miasmum]

My primary school had horrible school dinners, but my middle school had dinners to die for. I can still remember the chicken and mushroom pie with flakey pastry.

[TheOstrich]

I didn't have primary school dinner as it was only a 10 minute walk from home. We did get those small bottles of milk at morning break, however.

At secondary school, dinner was mayhem. You had to buy dinner tickets a term in advance at the Porters Lodge and then cash them in on the day. Tables were arranged in "houses" with a raised table on a dais for the masters. Prayers were said before the kitchen doors were ceremoniously flung open and teams of charioteers pushing trollies, two for each house, roared out into the main hall like a Formula 1 Grand Prix start. No trolley was overturned to my knowledge, but collisions were frequent. There was a roster for trolley-pushers which you were put on, possibly as punishment duty. Any trolley that made it out of the door late for any reason, i.e. slow to be stacked up in the kitchen, was greeted with scorn when it eventually arrived at the house table.

Anyway, that was where I fell in love with plum tomatoes. I'm still passionate about them today! It was the only thing to make palatable and help down the strange-tasting mashed potato and brown meat from some dubious source, anything from aardvark to zebra for all we knew.

Puddings were very often one of those very small, round, tube-shaped ice-creams which came in a sort of paper wrapper. Otherwise it was something and custard.

I abandoned school dinners as soon as I could. There was a healthy black market for unused tickets, a good way to make some extra pocket money on the side .....

[cromwell]

We sometime get PEK, but never Spam.
Like Kaz, our primary school dinners were awful, but the secondary school ones were good. I'd happily eat them now.
Primary school was bright green leathery cabbage and tapioca (not for the same course, thank God but bad enough anyway).
Secondary school was nice veg, sometimes a savoury pie, maybe roast potatoes and a nice pudding to follow.

[Kaz]

Your school sounds very posh Ossie

[cromwell]

I've just seen my old school's fb page and on it found this :- "Brilliant dinners, I can still taste them now. Best of it was when I was on rota to serve the teachers on the stage, we used to get extras and watch ***** doing his extra curriculum gymnastics with the canteen manageress in her office, wink wink nudge nudge".
(***** being one of the PE teachers).

I had no idea!
There must have been some good stuff in that apple crumble!

[JanB]

[TheOstrich]

Your school sounds very posh Ossie

There was a strong military element to it, Kaz.
The Chief Master was a clergyman, a Reverend Canon, who had served as an Army chaplain in WW2 and had won the Military Cross.
The Head Porter (who monitored all the comings and goings through the main entrance) was an ex-Regimental Sergeant Major and terrified everyone .....
Friday afternoons were reserved for the Combined Cadet Force - Army, Navy and RAF sections. I think the latter mainly spent their time pushing a battered old glider across the playing fields in a vain hope it would take off.
Ossie was a confirmed civilian (and therefore regarded as lowest of the low)

[Kaz]

I've just seen my old school's fb page and on it found this :- "Brilliant dinners, I can still taste them now. Best of it was when I was on rota to serve the teachers on the stage, we used to get extras and watch ***** doing his extra curriculum gymnastics with the canteen manageress in her office, wink wink nudge nudge".
(***** being one of the PE teachers).

I had no idea!
There must have been some good stuff in that apple crumble!

[Kaz]

Your school sounds very posh Ossie

Ossie was a confirmed civilian (and therefore regarded as lowest of the low)