Yuk! It’s frogspawn for school dinners!
I WAS amused by the description of Chocolate Concrete, the rather hard crunch pudding, flying across the tables at school dinners (Letters). I attended a girls’ grammar school in the 1960s and remember with fondness the mostly excellent meals we were served. However, there were notable exceptions: tapioca, aka frogspawn; blancmange so stiff you needed a knife to cut it; and watery cabbage. However, we loved ginger sponge and jam roly-poly with custard. At morning break, we were able to buy for one old penny a scrumptious currant bun to eat with our bottle of milk. I keep in touch with a number of old girls and, interestingly, despite all those school puddings, none of us is overweight and we all have our own teeth! The difference with today is that in my schooldays we did lots of exercise because games and gym lessons were compulsory. We had proper meals because takeaways were unheard of and obese children were a rarity.
JUDY GREY, Biddenden, kent.
THE school cooks of the 1960s have much to answer for and represent the nadir of British culinary standards. I can still remember the awfulness of their creations, especially the inedible puddings that were so badly cooked they stuck to the roof of your mouth. They were served with custard that stubbornly refused to move — for a joke, we often upended the jug to prove the point. A single bread roll, lump of mousetrap cheese and a green apple were the luxury meal of the week. My dad, who had also attended the school, confirmed he had endured these dishes served in exactly the same way, so I suspect the food had been ruined by the same cooks. Unsurprisingly, there were no obese boys in our school. I wonder whether such experiences sowed the seeds of so many people’s indifference to British food.
DOUG JENNINGS, Mickleton, Glos.
I REMEMBER with affection the rock hard chocolate crunch school pudding. Served up during the 1960s and 1970s, it was my favourite, despite the fact that at my school in Cheshire it was called Chocolate Cement.
PAUL PROCTER, London SW5.