LUNCH LINES

A VitQ school dinners special:

A recent BBC survey on school dinners found that people in the UK had the worst memories about these ten foods:

1 Tapioca
2 Cabbage
3 Overcooked vegetables
4 Lumpy mashed potato
5 Lumpy custard
6 Liver
7 Semolina
8 Gristly meat
9 Blancmange
10 Beetroot

Now, I do have some nasty memories about school dinners (East Scotland, circa '71 to '83), especially the chemistry set taste of instant mash, but I have many fond memories of school dinner delights, so in fairness, here are ten good things:

1 Curry, with sultanas. As exotic and unlikely in the early 80s as a date with Yasmin Le Bon
2 Stewed sausages - skinless links thrown in to drown for hours in gelatinous onion gravy
3 Chocolate milk in little boxes
4 Odd 70s rissole type thing made from pork mince and rice - delicious; what was it called? Dutch something?
5 Biscuity base with thick chocolate fudge on top
6 Thinly sliced hot roast in mash-mopping gravy. Roast meat was always served 'a l'écossaise' at home ie roasted then left to go cold and served in thick dollops. Why, why, why?
7 Spam fritters - slabs of processed meat dipped in batter and deep fried. It shouldn't have worked, but the War was still in our blood
8 Glazy jam tart with non-lumpy custard
9 Biscuity, thick pizza with proper cheddar cheese and tomato
10 Scotch pies - the one-eyed, sawdust gentleman himself, in his little round pastry jacket

Source: BBC / JBQ / RcL