General Chat

Twice a year I have to suffer going to "Grandparent's School Dinner Days" when my wife and I attend school dinners with our granchild. Last week we paid £2.52 each. I had one fishcake, made of (mostly) potato, with a taste of tinned salmon, and breadcrumbed. It was three inches in diameter and half an inch thick. With it I had a spoonful of mixed (tinned) peas and sweetcorn and two scoops of mashed potato. For pudding it was a slice of tart, 3" by 2" and a spoonful of very watery custard. The drink choice was about quarter of a pint of weak orange squash or a beaker of water. It was disgusting and tasted very bland. The cost of the ingredients could have been bought in a supermarket for under £1. The education authority say they subsidise the meals and that there are wages and overheads to consider but I think the meals at this school are very bad value for money, both in quality and quantity. My wife and I went straight home and made ourselves sandwiches.
If I was my daughter I would send the children to school with packed lunches. I dread the next time we have to attend one of these meals.

Oh dear StaffyKnot, I do hope that you complained to your local authority, as they can do nothing about second class meals unless they are told. Bad catering companies will lose their contracts if meals are not up to standard.

A grandchild of mine pays £1.50 per day for a school lunch (primary school) and I often wonder whether it's worth it.

The times he comes to me after school I often give him his dinner/tea and it's become difficult to hit the right note with food because, although he has two choices, much of the time the second choice or all that's left is something like a ham sandwich, salad (which he eats but there's only sometimes lettuce and tomato or lettuce and cucumber left). On more than one occasion he's had mince, potato and a bread roll (and this child eats a big variety of vegetables). For dessert he will sometimes choose an apple but they're often gone and he ends up with a yoghurt or, as he calls it, cake (sponge but no custard - he doesn't like custard).

Why can't schools make 'proper' school dinners any longer? We used to get mince and vegies, chicken and roast pork dinners, casserole, vegies and mash, pie, peas and mash, baked fish (never battered or breadcrumbed) with peas/macedonies (is that the right spelling?) and mash followed by custard/white sauce with ginger sponge, chocolate sponge, bakewell tart, rice, sago and tapioca pudding and fruit. We never once got chips at school and every day we got a couple of vegetables.

If a school dinner was a school dinner (even curries and pasta dinners included) with a decent dessert which would include fruit one would know that a salad or sandwich would be enough in the evening. If they could do that years ago what's stopping them now? It would also mean that children who get free school meals were having vegetables every day.

I remember my grandmother telling me that the fat rendered from horsemeat made the best chips , as she used it during the war. My grandad was quite partial to whalemeat steaks, apparently! :-P

Some have mentioned how good school dinners used to be
I started school in late 1957 or mid 1958 - left secondary school in 1969 our school dinners were vile.

Lumpy mash - sausages where the skin was totally inedible - vegetables which were cooked beyond recognition.

The only meal which no-one tried to avoid was Fridays as it was either cod and chips or Fish FIngers and chips - although the chips were often soggy.

Better school meals in the past - not in my opinion and you were kept at the table until your plate was clean - for me many a rush to the loo afterwards to be violently sick.... Desserts were less hit and miss...