I'd like to open a 70's cafe with 70's theme food. Think it would catch on?
A friend's husband has cadged a load of his parents Dairy Diaries - recipe books handed out by your milkman - from the 70's and is working through them. We had a grand chocolate and lime "cheesecake" the other week. Sod mascarpone, It was made with marshmallow.
What was the meat served during lunch, it was grey in colour and always seemed to have bits of tubes in it.?*
Had a chat with a old friend and we both wondered?*
*He said stingy bits I recall tubes?
I read that as "pubes"! Haha well I'm too young to even have been a squeak in the bedsprings in the 1970s but those dinners sound gross! I wouldn't have eaten them.
Our school dinners were great in the 70s. My favourite was the meat and tater pie we used to get. God, it was lovely. Ditto the savoury mince and spuds. I also liked the liver and onions. Dunno. Maybe I was just a greedy guts as a kid, but I loved school dinners.
The puddings especially were epic, as has been said. Manchester Tart, sponge and pink custard, semolina and a splodge of jam. All really nice, I always thought.
My Mum was a dinner lady in a different school and the kitchens in the school where I went made the school dinners for lots of other schools in the vicinity. Mum has since said that she reckoned by the time the school she worked at got the food it was not as good as it would have been at our school, where it was made. Sounds about right to me.
I think the meat with tubes was pigs liver. I have never eaten it since. The grey sludgy stuff was a generic 'mince', probably beef. Our school used to do something called 'mock cream' to go with puddings, which managed to be about 27 times as sweet as pure sugar.
I have never eaten liver since, and to be honest is partly why i rarely eat meat.
Nobody took packed lunches when I was at school in the 70's. You either had a school lunch or went home for lunch. I loved school dinners apart from the custard. There was always skin sitting on top of the custard as it cooled down. If you got the first pour from the jug the skin would land with a plop into your bowl. Bleurgh! You had proper cooked dinners too made by a horde of dinner ladies. Everything was made from scratch - no processed foods in those days apart from Spam.
ETA and all the food was served on proper plates with stainless steel cutlery - none of this sectioned off plastic stuff that kids have got to eat from now.
Our school dinners were made in a central kitchen which served all the local schools therefore it was probably cooked by 10a.m. and then kept warm for distribution.
We had salad once along with the added ingredient of dead flies in the lettuce!
I also remember having a sort of savoury crumble i.e. savoury mince topped with savoury crumble, we also used to have tapioca or something similar but we renamed it as frog-spawn!
The meat with tubes in was almost certainly liver. Certainly featured quite regularly in my school dinners in 1970's Lancashire.
Yup! A cheap liver with veins in it, probably pig's.
I quite liked school liver & onions, but would cut out any veins I saw.
My fave pudding was a kind of cross between rice pudding and custard, which was set in blocks and had a consistency a bit like blancmange - absolutely loved it.
I remember trying to make it at home by mixing a packet of custard powder into a tin of rice pudding, and leaving it to set in the fridge - It was very similar to the school version.
You might have to make it a bit nicer than it actually was. The 1970's were a bit of a low point, where home cooking had declined sharply but good quality ready meals had not arrived on the scene. I'm not sure how many takers there would be for luminous prawn cocktail, shoe-leather steak in rubbery pepper sauce, stiff and synthetic black forest gateau and Cresta - the fizzy drink that actually made you radioactive.
Ugh ! spam fritters my pet hate. Ours were served on a large stainless steel tray with 8 fritters on it and they slid arould like Torvill and Dean on ice! But the sausages were great quite short and very fat.
I left school in 1972. The meals at my secondary school were so good most of the teachers voluteered for dinner duty. The ones through infant and junior school were just boufin' though and we were forced under penalty of pain to eat them - kids regularly threw up and would get hell for doing so.
Nobody took packed lunches when I was at school in the 70's. You either had a school lunch or went home for lunch. I loved school dinners apart from the custard. There was always skin sitting on top of the custard as it cooled down. If you got the first pour from the jug the skin would land with a plop into your bowl. Bleurgh! You had proper cooked dinners too made by a horde of dinner ladies. Everything was made from scratch - no processed foods in those days apart from Spam.
ETA and all the food was served on proper plates with stainless steel cutlery - none of this sectioned off plastic stuff that kids have got to eat from now.
I agree with all of the above, including your point about custard. We had a kitchen within the school where the meal was made fresh each day, apart from cold custard but you knew it was a day old and it was quite a treat for those that liked it.
Not sure I would have liked today's cafeteria style, make elsewhere reheat to make money. We had simple but good food as I recall.
Kent school dinners were a bit awful sometimes, but generally okay.
But my Birmingham school dinner were just flamin' AWESOME. Wonderful roasts, meat and potato pie, liver and onions, mashed potatoes, and swede. Loved it all.
My mum wasn't that bad a cook either, so I wasn't deprived exactly.
We always had fish on Fridays and Mrs Side, the Primary School head would wait till everyone was seated with their dinner and announce its fish today children, so what do we have to do?" to which the whole school would chant "Mind the bones!!"
And I had gypsy tart a couple of years ago and couldn't believe how sickly it was!
Never had them, always flatly refused to stay for them.
'If you stay to school dinners
Better throw them aside
A lot of kids didn't
A lot of kids died
The meat is of iron
The spuds are of swill
And if that doesn't get you
The afters will'
Comments
A friend's husband has cadged a load of his parents Dairy Diaries - recipe books handed out by your milkman - from the 70's and is working through them. We had a grand chocolate and lime "cheesecake" the other week. Sod mascarpone, It was made with marshmallow.
I read that as "pubes"! Haha well I'm too young to even have been a squeak in the bedsprings in the 1970s but those dinners sound gross! I wouldn't have eaten them.
The puddings especially were epic, as has been said. Manchester Tart, sponge and pink custard, semolina and a splodge of jam. All really nice, I always thought.
My Mum was a dinner lady in a different school and the kitchens in the school where I went made the school dinners for lots of other schools in the vicinity. Mum has since said that she reckoned by the time the school she worked at got the food it was not as good as it would have been at our school, where it was made. Sounds about right to me.
Dental floss alert?
:eek:
Bet we didn't have that in the 70s, did we?
I have never eaten liver since, and to be honest is partly why i rarely eat meat.
The meat with tubes in was almost certainly liver. Certainly featured quite regularly in my school dinners in 1970's Lancashire.
ETA and all the food was served on proper plates with stainless steel cutlery - none of this sectioned off plastic stuff that kids have got to eat from now.
Thatsh right, wheresh me falsh teef ?
Glass on your bedside table
We had salad once along with the added ingredient of dead flies in the lettuce!
I also remember having a sort of savoury crumble i.e. savoury mince topped with savoury crumble, we also used to have tapioca or something similar but we renamed it as frog-spawn!
I quite liked school liver & onions, but would cut out any veins I saw.
My fave pudding was a kind of cross between rice pudding and custard, which was set in blocks and had a consistency a bit like blancmange - absolutely loved it.
I remember trying to make it at home by mixing a packet of custard powder into a tin of rice pudding, and leaving it to set in the fridge - It was very similar to the school version.
Yeah, but it was frothy, maaaaaaaaannnn!
Have a heart.
I agree with all of the above, including your point about custard. We had a kitchen within the school where the meal was made fresh each day, apart from cold custard but you knew it was a day old and it was quite a treat for those that liked it.
Not sure I would have liked today's cafeteria style, make elsewhere reheat to make money. We had simple but good food as I recall.
http://www.littlestuff.co.uk/2011/02/sunday-recipe-school-dinners-chocolate-concrete/
But my Birmingham school dinner were just flamin' AWESOME. Wonderful roasts, meat and potato pie, liver and onions, mashed potatoes, and swede. Loved it all.
My mum wasn't that bad a cook either, so I wasn't deprived exactly.
I've got such sensual and nostalgia about Gypsy Tart, I've never had it since being at school. And I sort of loved/wasnt' sure about it.
And banana custard with SKIN. Bloody hell it was good, as was rhubarb crumble and custard.
School dinners have gone massively down hill in recent years (years in between, can't judge) according to the child.
And I had gypsy tart a couple of years ago and couldn't believe how sickly it was!
'If you stay to school dinners
Better throw them aside
A lot of kids didn't
A lot of kids died
The meat is of iron
The spuds are of swill
And if that doesn't get you
The afters will'