What was the smell of school dinners ?
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School dinner smell for me was mashed potatoes, overcooked cabbage, and sloppy mince, or rissoles, and gravy.
Followed by custard, which we had with everything except sago (frogspawn) pudding, where you got a dollop of jam.
I still can't bear school dinner smells.
Still hate gravy and custard, and don't you DARE serve me an ice cream scoop of badly mashed potatoes with no milk or butter in them.!
Followed by custard, which we had with everything except sago (frogspawn) pudding, where you got a dollop of jam.
I still can't bear school dinner smells.
Still hate gravy and custard, and don't you DARE serve me an ice cream scoop of badly mashed potatoes with no milk or butter in them.!
Passing the boys loo though there was the unmistakeable smell of Jeyes fluid....and carbolic soap
Strange name for a Boy - new one on me, ' Jeyes '- I guess it must be of the time or Scottish.
Poor lad.
I used to love school dinners.
I had a friend who alarmed his parents when he reported that he’d had sec’s this dinner time.
I remember huge rectangular aluminium pans into which any leftovers were scraped. (To which I rarely contributed.) That had an accumulated blend of smells. No idea what they did with it.
My gran had a pig bin so maybe the school did too.
Edited to explain:
sec’s = seconds = second helpings.
I had a friend who alarmed his parents when he reported that he’d had sec’s this dinner time.
I remember huge rectangular aluminium pans into which any leftovers were scraped. (To which I rarely contributed.) That had an accumulated blend of smells. No idea what they did with it.
My gran had a pig bin so maybe the school did too.
Edited to explain:
sec’s = seconds = second helpings.
Last edited:
We could tell what day of the week it was by what was for school dinner, they changed the menu each term...I don't like meat, I have never, ever, liked meat, so I used to ask the Dinner ladies just to give me gravy. The only time I didn't was the mince pie day. Puff pastry
We had a lot of stews, by the end of the week they added sausages and made stovies...big chunks of carrots, stewed long and sweet and tasty in the gravy.I loved the rhubarb tart with custard
or the sponge and custard, especially if they dolloped stewed apples on top the dumpling was pretty good, but they didn't make those often. I liked it when they baked the rice or sago pudding, not keen otherwise. Sometimes they gave us a bit of a tray bake instead of a pudding.The vegetable broth was good. I liked the barley in it.
We didn't get cabbage. No idea why not, I would have remembered because I really like cabbage.
Looking back on it, I don't know how we ever managed to eat all that. We had soup, then main course and then a pudding. I think we spent the afternoon in a calorie induced stupor. We had milk (1/3rd of a pint) at morning interval too.
I think they really did try to give us a decent meal, one way and another there was a lot of food at school. Even into Autumn when we had apples every day for weeks.
I know most of us paid for our school dinners, but there were children who were excused..
It's pretty awful to read that the meal in school is still the main meal for so many children
you'd think we'd be better by now.
Duff and custard with a sprinkling of cabbage and fear. No different to the smell of Prison meals i dare say. I salivate at the thought...
Pink or green custard on a rectangle of tray-baked chocolate or vanilla cake. Great stuff.
My junior school had two enormous slop bins outside. All the leftovers from the school dinners went into them and a lorry used to come to collect the contents. We were told that it was taken to feed pigs at a farm, but now that I think back, the bins were emptied into the lorry rather than being exchanged for clean bins. I don't remember the bins ever being washed and they were emptied once a week, which seems to be somewhat unhygienic.
I only had school dinners for the first term of infant school (we went over the the junior school), and that was only because I'd stayed for school dinners at nursery school. Nobody else in reception was alloyed (or made) to stay, so I was sat at a table with older kids. The food was generally bad, vegetables overcooked and the meat was tough, the only thing I enjoyed was fish and chips every Friday. In the end, I made such a fuss that I came home to my grandmother's house every day; it was not allowed to come home Monday to Thursday and stay for the fish and chips on Friday.
Secondary school was just as bad until it changed from everybody getting the same set meal to having what was called "cafeteria" arrangement with a selection of different dishes. An unexpected perk was that sausages or meatballs were at the start of the serving line, curry and rice was later... so we could get the sausages or meatballs first then get the curry and rice served on top, hiding them, and only pay for the curry and rice.
I, in recent years went to various colleges/unis and the food was very variable; ranging from a good selection of nice things (with ethnic days every month) to poor stuff with no change.
SERCO did a grand job, I must say.
But the youngling mostly just wanted chips or sandwedges....
SERCO did a grand job, I must say.
But the youngling mostly just wanted chips or sandwedges....
It was the cabbage. I had school lunches in the US, no cooked veg of any kind was ever on the menu, and the kitchen smell was nothing like that in the UK.
We never had cabbage, sprouts or cauliflower though. We did get tatties, turnip, onions, carrots, peas and beans, and vegetable soup usually made with leeks.....up here we use the greens of the leeks for soup.
That was pretty much it for vegetables.
That was pretty much it for vegetables.
Yes they did used to have a pig bin, not everything ended in the pig bin though, if they happened to cook a bit too much pudding, some of it got taken home, perks of the job.
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