Happy Memories of School Dinners

I remember my school dinners fondly the only problem I had was with pudding I am to this day a jelly and ice cream man and if it’s not on the menu then I prefer to go without.

You hear many negative vibes around school dinners. Even my school peers seem at ease dishing them disliking more than liking, which is a shame. I didn’t have dinners in junior school seeing I only lived five houses away from the school but I sometimes wished I stayed in for dinners not that my mummy was a bad cook I just felt I was missing out on something. Although the great hunger match from my school where we had no kitchens to Eleanor Street School, rain or shine, was not for me.

In Secondary School, it was school dinners for me and the first term was hit or miss until I learnt the trick to be nice and polite to the dinner staff. Advance tips on the menu meant I could dodge meals I didn’t like so why queue up if there was no need.

It was nice food some today would call it “stodgy” but when it came to the main meal, I found them likeable if they stuck to the British classic and had chips every day. On an average day, the dinner ladies would dish up the likes of chips, Cornbeef pie, and mashed potato and there was always a cooked Sunday type dinner once in the week, followed by some kind of sponge pudding and custard that like I earlier wrote I gave a miss or passed it on to a friend free of charge. My god remember semolina pudding! I remembered why I never liked it when of an age to have a drink, get drunk, and get sick, look semolina all over the floor.

We did need the stodgy food to fuel us up for the endless football in the school yard/fields at playtimes, dinnertimes – until it become uncool to run about so we leaned against the wall checking out girls, talking about girls, becomes all consuming.

The food didn’t change much during my 5 years in secondary school we didn’t have no campaigning Jamie Oliver to champion healthier school meals, thank god. A ploughman’s lunch the fancy name for a salad could cause a riot unless it came with chips. My friends and I would often be tail end Charlie in the food line in the hope of a big payday with some extra grub but it was not always the best idea.

Being able to buy a dinner daily was a great development it was easier to dodge a meal you didn’t fancy which lead to a trip down to the local chippy.