What has become of the school dinners of my youth? Spearheaded by food-fascist Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef and his health-minister henchmen committed cultural genocide with their systematic destruction of the school dinner menu. Salads and “five-a-day” shenanigans now run rampant, unchecked, 12.30 to 1.30pm, Monday to Friday in schools across England. Children up and down the country now risk dangerously low levels of saturated fats and E-numbers in their diets. Healthy minds need hearty meals! Surely school results will suffer when children are faced with merely celery and humous to fuel them instead of chips and burgers?
In homage to the great lost school meal, here’s a rundown of the top five school dinner foods.
Starting off our list, in fifth place…
5) COD ROLL
A school dinner stalwart that repeatedly trumps it’s home-cooked sister-food, the fish finger. Despite not being a big fish fan, the cod roll has a mysterious hold over my taste buds even to this day that only the evil geniuses behind its creation know the secret of. Almost caused my death on numerous occasions, with extra helpings that preceded swimming lessons regularly inducing cramp. I can only imagine it was the souls of the thousand processed fish the roll contained trying to escape my body back into the water.
4) TURKEY TWIZZL
ERS
A freak among oddities, the Turkey Twizzler just shouldn’t be. How they fashion turkey into a springy coil is a question the answer to which is best left unsaid. What should be said however is that Turkey Twizzlers taste great in only the way that the innards and offcuts of a hundred of the world’s ugliest birds horrifically engineered into a comedy shape can. Far more appealing too than the disgusting, dog-muck like picture suggests.
3) CHOCOLATE CAKE AND CHOCOLATE CUSTARD
The only desert to make our shortlist, but not in the form served by dinner ladies. Preparation is simple, but of the up-most importance. It must be mashed and swirled together until the cake and custard merge into a paste-like texture. Hours of lunchtime fun can then be had with this meal by pretending to dribble poo.
2) SMILE
Y FACES
Deep-fried, fake-potato goodness that was the inspiration for the Stranglers radio friendly unit shifter ”Golden Brown”. A happy food when the faces were properly moulded, they however took on a frightful hair-lipped, Chernobyl like appearance if squashed. Also subliminally introduced a nation of school children to the joys of club-drug culture.
Which leads us onto our winner…
1) DINOSAUR SHAPES
Combining two of the worlds greatest wonders (dinosaurs and processed poultry), Bernard Matthew’s Turkey Dinosaur Shapes hold a special place in my heart. Not only were the lengthy Brontosaurus necks perfect bite-sized mouthfuls if carefully carved, but leaving them behind the radiator for a day or so also revealed them to be excellent toys.
Missed out any of your favourites? Do my taste buds need re-aligning? Is my nostalgic view of crap food symptomatic of a repressed deprived childhood? Let me know!
Gerald Lynch
3 responses so far ↓
Rickles // June 30, 2009 at 9:08 pm |
Agree with Cod Roll, EVEN though you have erronously posted a picture of fish fingers, which are NOT the same.
Chocolate Cake and Chocolate custard, YES, YES, I don’t know about it being the bronze medal, but it was nice.
Smilie faces are also incredible, I would agree with second place for those delights.
Unfortunately we didn’t have Turkey Twizzlers and Dinosaur Shapes at all, so I can’t agree with those.
BUT.
I will add,
* Biscuit and yoghurt
* Hundreds and Thousands Cake
That is all,
anna // July 3, 2009 at 5:34 pm |
Great entry!
Typically, I mainly remember the puddings.
Here are my favourites:
- Ice cream roll (raspberry ripple)
- Banana milkshake accompanied by a chunky, rusk delight
- toffee pastry square ( I only ate the top toffee bit though. I hate pastry)
- seconds…
I think turkey drummers and empty chicken pie should be added to the mains.
pieandmash // July 4, 2009 at 7:41 pm |
Such heated discussion! Who’d have Adam n’ Eve’d it, eh?