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There’s something about school dinners which unites people.

Maybe not at the time they were eaten, but years later, talk of the food dished up by the canteen staff at lunchtimes can bring a generation together with the warm fuzz of nostalgia. If the dish under discussion wasn’t particularly popular, maybe less so.

To refresh your memories, ����ý Bitesize takes a look at the food which many students tucked into in between double maths and an afternoon of PE in their younger years. Would you be tempted to have any of these for lunch?

Cheese flan: Or was it cheese pie?

Schools have potentially hundreds of pupils to feed each day, so it perhaps makes sense to batch cook foods that could be sliced into smaller portions. Cheese flan (or cheese pie, there is no hard and fast naming rule - even though this pie has no pastry lid) was served up in flavoursome squares that must have resonated with the kids who ate them as there are recipes available in internet forums hailing them as a school dinner classic.

A combination of cheese, eggs and milk in a shortcrust pastry, it was the vague wobble to a cheese flan (not to be confused with a quiche) that made it a canteen hero for some. Usually served with chips, of course - or perhaps mashed potato plopped in equal measures on pupils’ plates from an ice cream scoop.

Turkey dinosaurs: Eaten with Jurassic forks?

Now for something which may not be nostalgic to absolutely everyone, as the occasional turkey-based T-Rex can still pop up on dinner plates today.

These breadcrumbed nods to prehistoric times were definite canteen regulars more than 20 years ago, often served up with a side of potato faces, and were also capable of making the headlines.

One primary school in Bath used these dinosaurs as an example of why it opted out of its council’s school meals service and went in-house instead. In 2004, the school in question was serving roast turkey dinner to pupils, instead of the stegosaurus-shaped variety.

Chocolate concrete: Building the grown-ups of the future

You could never flag a patio with these slabs, mainly because they’d be scoffed before they touched the floor. Chocolate concrete could be eaten warm or cold, and could also be a challenge to sink your teeth into.

Again, the number of ingredients is low, as you can see in this recipe from ����ý Food. Chocolate concrete, like so many of the puddings enjoyed in the school canteen, could often be enjoyed with a dollop of pink custard - and we’ll get to that particular lunchtime legend a little later.

Cornflake tart: No milk required

Chocolate cornflake cakes may be someone's first serious venture in the kitchen, but this classic took the cereal to a whole new level.

Bringing a touch of breakfast to the early afternoon, cornflake tart was a sumptuous layer of the crunchy stuff, sat on a layer of jam and surrounded by a pastry base. It was a no-nonsense pudding that didn’t slack on taste and texture - and the amount of chewing required possibly kept the volume levels in school dining rooms across the land at an acceptable level.

You can recreate some of those memories with ����ý Food’s own recipe for cornflake tart if you fancy serving up some nostalgia for your old school pals.

Pink custard: Lash it all over… almost everything

Does anyone who enjoyed pink custard remember seeing it available in the shops? Perhaps the nation’s schools required such a plentiful supply, there wasn’t enough left to satisfy the needs of the supermarket shelves.

Looking not unlike the tubby custard enjoyed by the Teletubbies in the 1990s, warm pink custard was the regular accompaniment to many of the sweet treats mentioned in this list.

Internet forums and blogs dedicated to food (and nostalgia) have numerous mentions of pink custard, including the mystery behind its recipe. One theory is that it wasn’t simply regular custard with food colouring added, there’s a touch of pink blancmange in the mix too - could the 'secret' nature of the recipe be the reason it only existed during school lunch hour?

If those memories have made your tum rumble, ����ý Food has more school dinners recipes to take a look at, including spotted dick with custard - now that really is retro.

If you want to know more about the history of school dinners, check out this ����ý Bitesize article.

This article was published in February 2024.