School dinners. What are your memories?

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BN9 BHA

DOCKERS
NSC Patron
Jul 14, 2013
22,684
Newhaven
I went to Coombe Road primary school in Brighton, the school dinners were horrible, my mum's cooking wasn't much better but she made me have school dinners for some reason.
Some of the dinner ladies at Coombe Road were evil and made us finish food we didn't like.

I have not eaten custard since primary school because of school dinners. :sick:
 










Mr Bronson

Member
Feb 24, 2009
45
Liver - I can't touch the stuff now. Mashed potatoes with the ice cream scoop. School dinners at the old St Martins in Brighton were delivered in cylindrical metal containers that must have been used to transport nuclear waste (which was much safer than that liver).

I still remember being guilted into eating the school dinners...."there's starving children in Etheopia......"

Slightly off topic but talking about milk I vividly remember the ammonia smell from the diary at the bottom of Islingwood road. That's a smell you never forget.
 


Superphil

Dismember
Jul 7, 2003
25,679
In a pile of football shirts
Cheese Grott.

(c) Steyning a Grammar School (Boarding house) 1977-1984.
 






Murray 17

Well-known member
Jul 6, 2003
2,163
At secondary school we could choose as well. I had chips and baked beans for lunch every day for five years. Hove was a lot less multi cultural in those days and we had one Asian kid in the whole year who was from Bangladesh, and whose family ran the excellent Curry Mahal. We got him on to chips and beans every day too. I've only just thought that was probably because it was the only vegetarian option.

Chips and beans was also CHEAP so I saved my change, along with my paper round money to buy 10 Bensons.
Would that have been Hove Park? I knew someone who had that exact same meal everyday too!
 


jakarta

Well-known member
May 25, 2007
15,738
Sullington
Slightly off topic but talking about milk I vividly remember the ammonia smell from the diary at the bottom of Islingwood road. That's a smell you never forget.

I did a job in a cheese processing factory in Mid Wales a few years ago - well to be absolutely accurate it was their effluent treatment plant. The smell in there was utterly eye watering and made me remember why cheese pie at Primary School made me gag so much. :sick:
 








fat old seagull

New member
Sep 8, 2005
5,239
Rural Ringmer
Tapioca. It makes me shudder even now. Frogspawn. It was called frogspawn. Never found out if that is what it really was.

This was without doubt my very worst nightmare, somehow it appeared to be lilac in hue. Not that I stared at it for long. Tapioca always meant I had to skip pudding as there was never an alternative. Best dinner was Sausage Pie, I wish I had the reciepe.
 










Gwylan

Well-known member
Jul 5, 2003
31,827
Uffern
Tapioca. It makes me shudder even now. Frogspawn. It was called frogspawn. Never found out if that is what it really was.

Er ...probably tapioca. This was one of my favourite things at school. I still occasionally eat tapioca now

Varndean Grammar - can't think of anything good

The cheese pie was good and the salads were decent; some of the desserts weren't too bad. The rest was a horror show
 


Nibble

New member
Jan 3, 2007
19,238
Went to boarding school so it was weeks on end / 3 meals a day of school dinners. Breakfast was good, cereal, toast, eggs, bacon etc. could have a fairly passable full English most days (similar to the old BHS canteen). Lunch was okay if you first went to get chips then to the salad bar for pizza and cold baked beans. Dinner was awful, usually casseroles. Most of us used to eff it off and get a sweet dinner from the tuck shop topped up by toast and jam back at house later.

As you can imagine there was a pretty sturdy hierarchy system in place so if you didn't get to the dining hall quick enough you'd basically get pushed to the back of the queue by anyone in a higher year. On some days you were lucky of you got anything of you shared a dining hall with the 6th form. If you tried to protest YOU would be the one getting the punishment.
Grace had to be said before breakfast and dinner, noise had to be kept to a minimum, especially at dinner, if it was too raucous everyone was sent on a run once prep was finished. So most nights were spent with casserole repeating on you as you jogged round a field in the pitch dark.
Worst part of it all was the duty master would take up position by the scraps bin and ensure you weren't throwing away all your lunch. Grim.
 
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gregbrighton

New member
Aug 10, 2014
2,059
Brighton
Liked:

Chicken supreme with rice and fried bread
Cheese flan
Queen of puddings
Butterscotch tart
Manchester tart
Bakewell tart with custard
Christmas lunch

Disliked:

Tapioca
Dairylea triangles and cream crackers
Hot chocolate and an apple (the hot chocolate had a horrible skin on top)
 


Questions

Habitual User
Oct 18, 2006
25,508
Worthing
On a Tuesday at St Mary's primary we would always have stewed steak, mash and carrots. The thing was you had to eat your dinner or you got walloped. I couldn't stand any of it so and you could chew the steak all day but would never actually break it down so I used to throw it under the table. I got caught and smacked round the back of the head by Mrs Dear (ironic surname there) and then stood over whilst eating the carrots which I hated then. Anyway I spewed up all over the floor and was then grabbed by the ear and marched off to the toilets before being walloped again.
Wednesday's were worse.
 


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