JAS_OH1
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At my school they would have made you eat meat. Everyone got the same thing and everyone had to eat what they got unless they brought their own food from home.
School Lunches
- Thread starter TastyReuben
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Not nice. I was in a normal state 60's grammar school and they certainly didn't insist you ate anything you didn't want.We had a few Jewish pupils who would not eat pork for example, so were given something else. It may have been different in private schools here.
JAS_OH1
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Probably in private schools they were even less strict. I was in a public school in the south and they certainly didn't foster individuality there. It wasn't until I was in my last few years of school that I ever met anyone who wasn't a Baptist or Catholic.
I was shy and small for my age (at that school) so I was already picked on by other kids and really didn't need the bullying from the lunch lady too! But taking my own lunch solved the problem and my teachers were very nice (mostly).
SandwichShortOfAPicnic
Legendary Member
I think it varies school to school area to area.
I went to a state school (fortunately grammar schools had been abolished by then) and you had a couple of choices and had to eat everything on your plate.
You weren’t allowed to scrape your plate until the dinner lady had inspected it and you’d better not be trying to hide whatever grossness you couldn’t stomach under some mash potato.
My son’s school didn’t allow packed lunches but they had good food on a month long rotating menu which was changed up often and a wide choice including a large help yourself salad bar, if the options didn’t pique your interest jacket potatoes with multiple toppings were also available.
Any new teacher at the school used to complain they were putting on a lot of weight
A far cry from wanting to chuck up your lunch!
JAS_OH1
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Yeah by the time I got to my junior and senior years I was going to a school where if you had a car, you were allowed to drive for an off-campus lunch. Back then Taco Bell bean and cheese tostadas were .49 cents each. I'd get two of those and a water and be happy. I didn't set foot in the lunchroom so I've no idea what they were serving!My son’s school didn’t allow packed lunches but they had good food on a month long rotating menu which was changed up often and a wide choice including a large help yourself salad bar, if the options didn’t pique your interest jacket potatoes with multiple toppings were also available.
Any new teacher at the school used to complain they were putting on a lot of weight
A far cry from wanting to chuck up your lunch!
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I was at a private school and we had to buy lunch, but they're was always a reasonable choice if you were not vegetarian which I was. I usually had a cheese and salad sandwich and because I refused to eat anything else and literally didn't eat if they had run out of them, I was made to request one be made up for me whilst I just had a Mars bar and a carton of milk.
And if you had a packet lunch, very few did, you were not allowed to eat it in the classroom. You had to go to the canteen else it was reported that you'd not been.
Windigo
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Actually there were some occasions where we did eat at school, we had a Christmas dinner and an Easter breakfast. Those are normal on non religious schools here too. The Christmas dinner would be a potluck style dinner where every parent would make a dish that would then be served at the dinner, but it would be determined by a list made by a teacher of which dishes were required and parents then chose what they would make. Easter breakfast was just the parents paying and the school buying us a regular breakfast with the added extra's of eggs painted by the teachers and Easter stollen bread.
We also ate at school at the yearly school camp where we'd spend a week with our classmates on a holiday. When we were at elementary school there would be volunteer parents cooking meals for us that were considered palatable to children. So usually we'd have a week of pasta, pancakes, fries, and some kind of soup with bread. For lunch and breakfast the meals would just consist of sandwiches and milk, tea or water and maybe a piece of fruit.
When at secondary education we were usually camping and expected to cook our own meals on a camping stove we shared with our tentmates. That wasn't exactly eating well for a week, until dinner on the last day when the teachers would serve us fries and snacks.
We also ate at school at the yearly school camp where we'd spend a week with our classmates on a holiday. When we were at elementary school there would be volunteer parents cooking meals for us that were considered palatable to children. So usually we'd have a week of pasta, pancakes, fries, and some kind of soup with bread. For lunch and breakfast the meals would just consist of sandwiches and milk, tea or water and maybe a piece of fruit.
When at secondary education we were usually camping and expected to cook our own meals on a camping stove we shared with our tentmates. That wasn't exactly eating well for a week, until dinner on the last day when the teachers would serve us fries and snacks.
No-one obliged us to eat lunch at Grammar school, but if you didn't eat anything, then you went hungry. There were no alternatives and no menu. I didn't eat meat or fish in those days, although I poked at some chicken from time to time. I used to work my way around whatever overcooked protein was on the plate and just eat the veg.
I suppose schools in those days varied a lot (as they do now probably). You and I attended Grammar schools at the same time. Mine in Portsmoth, yours in Maidstone. I think my parents might have given me a letter to say I didn't eat meat. I honestly can't remember but the dinner ladies were very understanding.
Evidently, you never had school dinners in the 60s....
No chips
No beans
DEFINITELY no pizzas
No pasta
We had things like "Faggots" with mashed potatoes and overcooked carrots; suet pudding ( a humongous lump of rubbery dough with grade V meat & gristle in it); liver and onions (with carrots); sausage lyonnaise (with carrots) ; haddock with white sauce (fish cooked until it fell apart and bathed in lumpy flour with milk in it); Irish stew; Lancashire hotpot (same as Irish stew, but with potatoes on top); roast chicken with soggy vegetables (mostly carrots, but some cabbage); fish pie (made with the leftovers from yesterday's haddock); and then the most unbelievable sweet courses, usually centered around suet pudding: spotted dick, semolina pudding (we used to call it frogspawn); blancmange (good for practising pingpong); rolypoly pudding; bread & butter pudding (loads of bread, no butter); gypsy tart. Probably served with carrots. Or boiled cabbage.
By the time I was 15, I'd make a couple of sandwiches at home (told my mum they were for elevensies) then use my dinner money to nip down to the chippie for 6d of chips and a pickled onion, plus a quick fag ( cigarette for you blokes over the pond!!)
Seriously - the food was dire, very overcooked and incredibly boring.
I ate my first REAL pasta in Ramatuelle, south of France, in 1966, where I also enjoyed my first ever yoghurt and fresh peach .
We never had fresh fruit at home; always tinned.
I first tasted broccoli (raw) in my first year at uni. That's where I also discovered Indian food, Chinese food, Turkish food and real Italian pasta (rather than that stuff out of a can). My foodie experiences only began after I moved to the big city
badjak
Veteran
I had a slight different childhood 
No school dinners & lunches for us.
Mum was interested in healthy eating and a pretty decent cook
Dad was a good cook and cooked every weekend and holidays and was a keen gardener
When everyone still ate potatoes, meat & vegetables every day and thought Chinese take away was terribly exotic, we ate pasta, rice, noodles as well as potatoes. A lot of ingredients had to come from "special" shops (toko's)
No school dinners & lunches for us.
Mum was interested in healthy eating and a pretty decent cook
Dad was a good cook and cooked every weekend and holidays and was a keen gardener
When everyone still ate potatoes, meat & vegetables every day and thought Chinese take away was terribly exotic, we ate pasta, rice, noodles as well as potatoes. A lot of ingredients had to come from "special" shops (toko's)
Lullabelle
Midlands, England
We lived close so walked home for lunch, the smell from the cafeteria put me right off eating in there.
JAS_OH1
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Pretty sure they were both still in nappies when you were in school (I believe TastyReuben was born in the late 60s and SandwichShortOfAPicnic might be 70s) but I'm not sure.
SandwichShortOfAPicnic
Legendary Member
Started started school in 77 and I can assure everyone school dinners were still absolutely diabolical then too!
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I actually have found memories of my infants school lunches but then we didn't have much at home and school lunch was our only cooked meal. I know now looking back that my mum was skipping meals too feed us.
My favourite was steak and kidney pudding because all the other kids hated kidney so I'd swap my steak (which was stringy) for their kidney. On a table of 6 or 8, it meant I got more kidney than they did steak. I don't remember the vegetables being up to much though. We also got free school milk.
I'm trying to think when I started there, I guess it must have been 76 or 77, but none was a village school, not a city school, so it may have been different.