Taste Testing Retro School Dinners
My partner made a set of retro British school dinners for me to try, with Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday menus and a pudding for each. Everything was homemade, and by the time I thanked him, the kitchen was apparently quite a sight. I was having a wonderful time, even though liver had made me nervous and rice pudding was proving much less successful than pink custard.
These were recreations for a taste test, not meals I was being served at a school. They made me think about my own lunches growing up in Ontario, where I remembered chicken burgers, fries, an occasional sad slice of pizza and plenty of mozzarella sticks. The hot meals in front of me seemed very different, and I was surprised by what people might have had for school dinner. I still wanted to call it lunch.
Liver and onions won me over
Monday’s plate had mashed potatoes, fried liver and onions with a little gravy, and milk to drink. The potatoes and onions sounded wonderful, but the liver worried me, so I started with the easy bit before trying some liver and onion together. It wasn’t bad at all. In fact, I thought it was quite tasty and wanted to eat the rest.
I’d had liver in other forms, but I couldn’t say I’d had it served like this before, and I was certain I hadn’t had liver and onions at school. My memories were of a chicken burger, perhaps some fries or a side salad, rather than this plate. The idea of liver still freaked me out a little, but I was finding it quite tasty.
Rice pudding lost me on texture
The first dessert was rice pudding with jam, which I didn’t think I’d ever tried before. The flavour wasn’t bad. It was creamy, and the jam helped give it something extra, but the texture was the problem. I tried another spoonful and still couldn’t get behind it. It was one of those things where decent flavour wasn’t enough to make me want the dish.
Lasagne and vegetables felt like a proper meal
The Tuesday menu had what appeared to be lasagne with boiled vegetables, including crinkle-cut carrots. I didn’t really remember many vegetable options in my Canadian high-school cafeteria, so that already stood out. After tasting the lasagne and some vegetables, I thought it was delicious and was more than happy to carry on eating it.
I remembered mozzarella sticks very clearly from school. I love those, but seeing a plate of lasagne and vegetables made me think about the contrast. These recreations seemed like properly put-together meals, rather than the lunches I was used to remembering. If it had been an option at your school, I was impressed.
Pink custard was a new favourite
After almost seven years in the UK, I had never seen pink custard. Then there was a coconut and jam cake sitting in a bed of hot pink custard in front of me, and I was extremely excited. The cake was delicious, the jam and coconut on top were lovely, and I loved having it surrounded by that hot custard. I could happily have eaten the rest.
This was much more successful than the rice pudding. I was jealous of anyone who remembered having something like it at school, because it was completely new to me and I loved it. I had found a new favourite, with no texture problem getting in the way of enjoying it.
Hotpot and an Arctic roll finished the menus
The Wednesday plate was hotpot, boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes. Again, I thought it was really good, and the mashed potatoes were always going to make me happy. I was surprised by the cabbage, because I barely remembered green vegetables at my cafeteria apart from salads. The meal was almost perfect for me, although boiled cabbage wasn’t my favourite way to have vegetables.
Finally I tried my first Arctic roll. I’d heard of it but never actually eaten one, and I wasn’t quite sure about the texture initially. There was ice cream, an outer layer that seemed bread-like to me and a little jam, with the outside almost melting in my mouth. Once I’d tasted it, the texture worked beautifully. It was delicious, and I wanted the rest. Pink custard and Arctic roll had both given me something very different from the school lunches I remembered.
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