Disgusting school dinners


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I read that pupils at Greenwood school are complaining about disgusting school dinners. Poor things. Haven’t they been told they’re supposed to be disgusting. Back in the 50’s/60’s our dinners at Mellish we’re supremely disgusting. The most sickening god awful slop you could imagine. Some of the braver ones even went back for seconds! It’s all about character building. Kids want everything on a plate these days.smile2

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I didn't stay for lunch at Manning. Always took sandwiches. Every so often, there'd be a dish amnesty. The kitchen was running short of pudding bowls. They were all growing penicillin or other fungi (the only fungis we had at The Manning!) in one of the labs on rhubarb crumble and custard!

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Only had school dinner once at Ellis then went else where to eat.

 

Then when I was 26 and working for Sturtons I went back to fit a new range and one of the ladies asked if I would like something to eat, you can imagine my reply.

 

Then she bought out a plate of food that the dinner ladies ate, bloody delicious nowt like what the poor kids were getting next door.

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Loved them. I was table monitor and had six 1st form girls on my table, so any leftovers came my way. I especially liked Fridays when it was fish, and caramel tart. The young girls hated that !

Although my parents owned a chippy, I only went there at lunchtimes when I went to school on my pushbike.

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I was school cook for Notts County Council up until 2010 and am disappointed to see children are finding school dinners disgusting as long before Jamie Oliver crusaded his way through NCC were pioneers in improving the meals. I can hand on heart say that whilst I was cooking in any school (I was a mobile cook supervisor for several years) the meals were home made and tasty,  from meat pies, casseroles and pasta dishes to burgers (we made our own from scratch) and local venison sausages....always popular with caramel tart still being on the menu, but by far the favourite of my children was the Magic Chocolate Pudding. Fresh fruit, vegetarian options, salad and yogurt were always available with the veggie choice being popular with many regardless of their specified diet. I also produce meals for coeliacs, diabetics and lactose intolerant children.

Sadly a lot of children were pulled out of school meals by parents due to Jamie Oliver denigrating all school meals as a whole and we worked hard to build up the confidence again. The only reason some children didn't like the meals was because it wasn't sausage and chips all the time. So many of them had never had a home produced meal, just pizza or MacDonalds as the parents were too busy to bother with cooking. However the children from less well off families who were on free dinners would always queue up for seconds.

 

I used to love my school meals and always cleared my plate as a child, and even if I didn't particularly like something I would eat it due to my sea faring grandfather telling me about the real starvation that he saw, and being grateful for what I had.

 

Ok I'm off my soap box now and it is quite possible that school meals may have deteriorated again, I know they were struggling against rising costs at one time, but I am still of the opinion that there are a lot of faddy fussy eaters out there in the younger generation because parents simply make no time for proper meal times and home made meals.

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That multi millionaire thick tongued herbert JO has got a lot to answer for ! 

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I forgot to mention as well as chips and beans, sometimes we had beans and chips.  :biggrin:

 

I usually went to my grandma's after school as me mam worked afternoons at Boots.  She (grandma) usually fed me hot buttered Pyclets for tea.  Sometimes as a special treat she'd put some baked beans on 'em.  How did I make it to my 70s?

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1 hour ago, darkazana said:

I am still of the opinion that there are a lot of faddy fussy eaters out there in the younger generation because parents simply make no time for proper meal times and home made meals.

You're not wrong, Darkazana. When I was teaching, I sometimes presided over dishing up dinners if staff were absent. I lost count of the times children told me they didn't want any Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, etc. They would always point to the veg and decline it. I'd then ask them what the veg was called. Usually, they didn't know because they had never seen or eaten it before! Crackers! All they wanted was chips!

 

I made them have some of everything and no leaving the table until they did. Amazed me, too, how many were unused to sitting down to eat with cutlery! :(

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I was at Mellish in the sixties Phil and in the main I thought the dinners were good, especially some of the puddings. My favourite was what I now know as Manchester tart, a pastry case filled with jam, banana and custard. Of course not every day was great but for a shilling a day it wasn't that bad.

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Jill I was serving dinners at a primary school in West Bridgford and offered a child a banana....they asked me what a banana was!!!:ohmy:

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Makes you think back to the war years when rationing was in force and fruit, unless locally grown, was nonexistent. There were reports of children eating bananas, skin and all, when they first reappeared because they'd never seen one! The thing is, rationing notwithstanding, the population of this country had never been so healthy!

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On ‎22‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 2:34 AM, darkazana said:

I was school cook for Notts County Council up until 2010

Nowt wrong with the dinners where I went to school but please tell me darkazana how did the school cooks get the cabbage to be such a fluorescent green colour.

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On ‎29‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 1:32 AM, Oztalgian said:

Nowt wrong with the dinners where I went to school but please tell me darkazana how did the school cooks get the cabbage to be such a fluorescent green colour.

 

Not something that I ever mastered :Shock: but I do believe that in t'owd days they used to add bicarbonate of soda to greens to keep their colour which would otherwise be insipid looking with the amount of boiling they employed :rotfl:

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13 minutes ago, darkazana said:

 

Not something that I ever mastered :Shock: but I do believe that in t'owd days they used to add bicarbonate of soda to greens to keep their colour which would otherwise be insipid looking with the amount of boiling they employed :rotfl:

darkanza..some year ago a school where I was working decided to close their kitchen and bring in food from an outside catering company. Will save money was the reason given, it worked for a few month, till children stopped staying for dinner. They sent out a survey and most replies were, children were hungry as they would not eat the food, one mother said her son would not eat food that looked as if it come out of a dog food can. All staff refused to eat it they  soon changed back as they were losing money. Nobody ever said how much it cost to re-open the kitchen.

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