School Dinners, Pink Custard Dreams and Sandwich Swaps

I was walking past a school this morning when a familiar smell drifted out of the kitchens. In an instant, I was back in my childhood.

That unmistakable school dinner smell.

I couldn’t tell you exactly what was cooking, but my memory immediately supplied mince, carrots and gravy with potatoes. Or perhaps liver, onions and mash. Funny how a smell can take you somewhere you haven’t thought about in years. One minute you’re out for a walk; the next, you’re standing in a dinner queue holding a tray.

I can still picture the dinner lady serving the mashed potato. Not with an ordinary spoon, mind you. With an ice cream scoop.

A perfectly rounded dome of mash, sitting proudly on the plate. Add a piece of liver, onion gravy and a spoonful of peas, and lunch was served. All the excitement of an ice cream scoop, with absolutely none of the ice cream.

I don’t remember being particularly keen on liver back then, although tastes do change as you get older. Cheese flan and chips, on the other hand, needed considerably less persuasion.

And then there were the puddings.

Semolina with a spoonful of jam, ready to be stirred into a pink swirl. School cake with pink icing and sprinkles. And gypsy tart: so sugary sweet, with that slightly grainy filling I still remember.

Whatever reservations I had about the main course, pudding always deserved a fair hearing.

Despite that, I remember pleading with Mum to let me take a packed lunch. There was something exciting about bringing your own, and the lunchbox was almost as important as what went inside it.

Mine was Star Wars.

A plastic box with a clip to keep it shut and a picture on the front. That was enough to make sandwiches feel considerably more interesting. Liver and onions were going to struggle to compete with that.

Then came the lunchtime reveal. Open the lid, see what Mum had made and find out what everyone else had brought.

“What have you got?”

A simple question, but one that could lead to some serious negotiations. There may have been a few swaps. Don’t tell Mum.

I don’t remember us thinking much about food allergies at the time. Peanut butter sandwiches seemed common among the children around me, and we swapped things without giving it much thought. That’s my memory of it, rather than a sign that allergies weren’t there.

As for my own sandwiches, there was quite a rotation. Strawberry jam some days, egg mayonnaise on others. Cheese, or even banana. You never quite knew what you’d find until you opened the box.

And then there were the little jars of sandwich paste.

Beef paste. Chicken paste. And, for some reason, my favourite: crab paste.

Of all the things to get excited about finding in a Star Wars lunchbox, crab paste probably wasn’t the obvious choice. But there we are. That was me.

It’s funny what stays with you. The shape of the mashed potato. The sweetness of a pudding. The picture on a lunchbox and the sandwiches inside it.

And all it took to bring the whole lot back was a smell drifting out of a school kitchen.

Were you school dinners or packed lunches? And what was the pudding or sandwich filling you always hoped for?