School Meals

dick

dick

LOTSW Fanatic
I used to hate school meals.! When we had boiled fish, they always smothered it in parsley sauce that had the consistency of rice pudding. Today I had a " Birds Eye Inspirations " For anyone who has not seen them ,they are bake in the bag with sauce already in the bag . I do these in the oven, todays was Cod with a Parsley and Thyme sauce already added. I was surprised when I tasted it ,it was gorgeous! Nothing like the old school meal sauce . Have my tastes changed as I've gotten older?? I know that I've gone off some foods but back onto others! :42: :hungry:
 
My dad had those he loves them.

My tastes have changed, I used to hate lettice, dads stews and liver but now love all three. I used to like loads of vinegar on me chips but not anymore and Kiora orange juice and bitter lemon but both give me headache because of the tartrazine and benzoate.

I think our tastes do change, I liked the puddings at school and now and then we had strawberry custard but the veg was orrrible........... Mam always used fresh veg but at school it was tinned or frozen so tasted horrid.

( I used put the peas in my socks to use with the plastic outer casing of a pen as a pea shooter, you had to cut the narrow end off with a Stanley knife. :me:)
 
Am I an exception to the rule? but I loved my school meals especially when I got to the third year and became a server. You got more of what you liked then.;D
 
Oh dear, I used to thrive on my school meals. I seem to remember there were two that I especially looked forward to, the extra thick stew and mash (really thick and lumpy was the stew :D ) and then the corned beef bake which was normally topped with dauphinoise potatoes - scrummy.
 
The cafeteria at my junior/senior high school provided me with my first experience of distinct flavors. Our home cooking was quite bland to suit my father's and grandfather's taste. I first tasted pizza and spaghetti with marinara sauce there. Compared to the same dishes prepared by an expert Italian cook, they weren't very good, but at the time they were a revelation. I had my first macaroni and cheese there, too. I have no idea why we didn't have that at home, but it may have been because we didn't make our own cheese and buying it would have added an unnecessary expense.

Marianna
 
dick said:
Anyone remember "frogspawn " for puddings?? (I think it was tapioca?):30:
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Tapioca it was, indeed! Did not mind that but what I could not stand was sago.

I cannot recall school meals all that well. I suspect everyone else has addressed school lunches. I had around two years as a boarder which meant all meals including weekends. Now, that was not good.
 
index4u said:
The cafeteria at my junior/senior high school provided me with my first experience of distinct flavors. Our home cooking was quite bland to suit my father's and grandfather's taste. I first tasted pizza and spaghetti with marinara sauce there. Compared to the same dishes prepared by an expert Italian cook, they weren't very good, but at the time they were a revelation. I had my first macaroni and cheese there, too. I have no idea why we didn't have that at home, but it may have been because we didn't make our own cheese and buying it would have added an unnecessary expense.

Marianna
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OK, Marianna, just what meals did your meals consist of? I also grew up eating bland food but we had spaghetti (canned Chef Boy Ar Dee). Making spaghetti and pouring tomato sauce on it was a revelation. I first met steak in college. We also ate liver and onions once a week. Inexpensive ground beef was the basis for something we called mixture which I later learned was called chili.

And then there was Campbell's Condensed Cream of Mushroom soup. Make a quick white sauce by cutting the soup with a half a can of milk. Then add tuna for creamed tuna on toast. Or add chopped hard boiled eggs for creamed hard boiled eggs on toast. Or add chipped beef for creamed chipped beef on toast. Lovely stuff.

The only problem I had with school lunches is that they would serve Shepard's Pie so hot that was impossible to actually enjoy it. Other than that school lunches were pretty decent.

Note to everybody else. Y'all must realize that ALL food companies have making these frozen quickie meals taste good down to a science. They employ lots of professional chefs and food scientists whose only job it is to ensure that the food tastes good. They use a combinations of sugars, salts, fats, additives and preservatives to tickle our taste buds. Read the food labels and note all of the names that you cannot pronounce; these are all things that make the food taste good. And here's the big surprise. Some of these things not only make the food taste good, they are also actually addictive. They make you overeat. Isn't it wonderful.
 
Adanor said:
OK, Marianna, just what meals did your meals consist of? I also grew up eating bland food but we had spaghetti (canned Chef Boy Ar Dee). ... I first met steak in college. ... We also ate liver and onions once a week. ... creamed chipped beef on toast.
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The only commercially canned foods we had were grapefruit sections that my father had with breakfast and a few soups, mostly chicken noodle and vegetable beef. All of our other beef was from worn out dairy cows — tough as old boots. I don't know why we bothered having any of it cut into steaks — it was really suitable only for ground meat and cuts that can be cooked in a lot of water. Never anything resembling chili or spaghetti sauce — too much flavor for the men. No liver or onions because both flavors were too strong. When we butchered, we gave the liver and tongue to my aunt and uncle because they liked it. Very occasionally chipped beef on toast, occasionally because we didn't make our own chipped beef, and we made white sauce from scratch. The men had no objection to a strong flavor of salt, so they liked that.

We ate a lot of ground beef, often just dumped into the frying pan and crumbled as it cooked. Potatoes for both dinner and supper, usually topped with a lot of butter and salt. Pot roast with vegetables when there was enough prep time. Vegetables from the garden, either fresh or frozen. Always pie for dinner, usually apple from the supply we picked from one of the orchards on Seneca Lake and stored in the cool room, cherry from the many bushels also picked from orchards on the lake and frozen for later use or berries either picked wild or from our strawberry and raspberry patches, either fresh or home-frozen. Usually a bowl of home-canned peaches or pears, canned in sugar syrup, with supper, picked from orchards along the lake.

We also raised chickens for their eggs, so there were always eggs for breakfast and to make the occasional cake. Occasionally stewed chicken and dumplings when a hen got too old to lay well. If we slaughtered a young hen it was to fill an order for one of our regular egg customers, not for our own use — they were too valuable for that.

Milk with every meal, of course, because it was plentiful.

When I went away to college I gained a lot more than the "freshman 15" because the flavors on offer in the cafeteria were irresistible and I overate big time.

Marianna
 
Big Unc said:
Tapioca it was, indeed! Did not mind that but what I could not stand was sago.

I cannot recall school meals all that well. I suspect everyone else has addressed school lunches. I had around two years as a boarder which meant all meals including weekends. Now, that was not good.
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I had a year or so as an assistant master, lower forms in a boarding school. So we lived in and ate in, week-ends as well.

The food was not of the best, especially at week-ends when it would be cooked in the middle of the day and left in an oven to keep warm for when you wanted it. We used to smother everything with Pan Yan pickle (no longer available I discover) to hide the taste.

However we found that a plastic ruler would open the worn Yale lock on the pantry and we could get some eggs so often made ourselves an omelette at the week-end or cook up some sausages!
 
dick said:
Anyone remember "frogspawn " for puddings?? (I think it was tapioca?):30:
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yes tapioca, but I think we used "frogspawn" for the sago which was a glutinous mass. Semolina was not so bad. For some reason I never liked jam with the rice.
 
barmpot said:
yes tapioca, but I think we used "frogspawn" for the sago which was a glutinous mass. Semolina was not so bad. For some reason I never liked jam with the rice.
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I love a bit of jam with rice but only the home made rice pud. I remember on occasions we were given milky coffee, no wonder science was a blast. :13:
 
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