The "Did you know" thread..... - Page 351

**rustler** · April 13th, 2014, 11:27 AM

Yes I remember them.... not bad with loads of ketchup on as I recall.

We had loads of Spam at home, but somehow it just got frittered away............

I'll get me coat!.......

**richardoe** · April 13th, 2014, 12:46 PM

In the USA a mobile phone (or cell phone) can call 911 even with no sim card fitted.

**pierrelm** · April 13th, 2014, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

It is uncommonly good in fritters,though..
Mmmm....Spam Fritters...

We used to get spam fritters as one of the school meal options - you can tell that pre-dates Jamie Oliver.

Wicked with baked beans and a (properly) poached egg or two. I'm sure there's a spam magnet in our grill tray as well.

**Mal Hombre** · April 14th, 2014, 08:40 AM

We had them at school as well, That's what started My lifelong love of them

**rustler** · April 14th, 2014, 09:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

We had them at school as well, That's what started My lifelong love of them

Just about anything that I attempted to eat at school ended my liking for it!

It must have been over 30 years before I ever ate fish fingers again!

I had a couple of bad bouts of food poisoning at my Primary School, and never ate there after about 1968.

Later I changed schools, to one where they had their own kitchens, and prepared their own food, and that was quite different in quality thankfully. However, though I was a prefect and a monitor, and helped to organize dinner time etc. I never ate school dinners again, and to this day I still don't eat at midday.

I do hope school dinners have improved over the years!?

For the record I left school in 1975.

**pierrelm** · April 14th, 2014, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rustler

Just about anything that I attempted to eat at school ended my liking for it!

It must have been over 30 years before I ever ate fish fingers again!

I had a couple of bad bouts of food poisoning at my Primary School, and never ate there after about 1968. I do hope school dinners have improved over the years!? For the record I left school in 1975.

Excuse me if I meander but things I remember from school dinners:
1. Fish fingers were grey inside.
2. Brussel sprouts attained a pink hue when sufficiently mushy to be served. Alas, to this day, I do not know why.
3. Everyone loved school mince - it was served weekly, sometimes with a diagonally-cut fried slice. God knows why, but it worked, and made you forget about the cabbage shreds alongside. Later cooks got more sophisticated and a pastry dumpling appeared.
4.Dessert (sorry, 'pudding' - Hell's teeth, at that age I didn't know what a 'dessert' was!) was invariably served in a drinking glass.

Right, I think I may be on solid ground here though:

1. It is highly likely that all 1960's schools had access to an inexhaustable supply of pink blancmange which sort of tasted of something vaguely 'pink', topped with a piped swirl of 'cream', which probably wasn't.

At last! A Did You Know fact:
2. this was served in the aforementioned drinking glass. Now, as a snotty 10 year old, if I had been asked to write 'what I know about France', I reckon that high on the list would have been that you could find out the main export of France by turning your school-issue drinking glass upside down. These magnificent vessels were made by 'Duralex', in France. It said so on the bottom.

Boys and girls, I think we were embracing design classics. First made in France around 1927, the Duralex design and specification has remained virtually unchanged since Saint-Gobain introduced their patented glass tempering process to the company in 1939 and the 'Picardie' has now become the quintessential French Bistro glass.

Crikey, this now feels like 'friends re-united' or some such reunion...we present:

L-R The Gigogne (seen here sans blancmange), the Provence and the bistro classic, the Picardie.

Salut!

**rustler** · April 14th, 2014, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pierrelm

Right, I think I may be on solid ground here though:

1. It is highly likely that all 1960's schools had access to an inexhaustable supply of pink blancmange which sort of tasted of something vaguely 'pink', topped with a piped swirl of 'cream', which probably wasn't.

As I can recall there were two main types of pudding in the 1965-68 era that I ate in Primary school; one was a sponge pudding covered in custard - again, I have hated custard for over 30 years as a result! The sponge was tasteless and almost impossible to swallow as I recall, hence the copious amounts of the aforementioned custard. I never ate it, but there was always someone who would eat mine for me!

The other dessert was semolina ( spelling?), or 'frogs spawn' as we called it, with a little bit of jam in the middle. I hated that then and still do!

No, sorry, school dinners put me off a lot of thing unfortunately.

BTW. I am not a fussy eater today and will eat, or try, just about anything, but the thought of those school dinners seems to make me lose my appetite somewhat!

Of course this was back in the days when you still had free school milk, which I also hated, and still do...........hang on, I sense a pattern emerging here.....

Lurk_D · April 14th, 2014, 03:08 PM

The semolina would have been some arcane type of bread pudding, as semolina is a wheat product(usually flour), or a type of wheat itself. I'd wager it looked like tapioca to some degree.

**rustler** · April 14th, 2014, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lurk_D

The semolina would have been some arcane type of bread pudding, as semolina is a wheat product(usually flour), or a type of wheat itself. I'd wager it looked like tapioca to some degree.

I am not sure about tapioca, but it was a sort of porridge type of dessert with lumps in it. As I said, we called it 'Frogs spawn', which describes it nicely!

**pierrelm** · April 14th, 2014, 04:34 PM

It was either Tapioca or the 'how do you start a pudding race..?' favourite 'Sago'. One is toadspawn, the other frogspawn, but I can't remember which way round.

Sometimes, really rarely, maybe when there was a stand-in cook, we got a proper old fashioned baked rice pudding and it was really good, honest!
There was also a 'chocolate' version of the blancmange which I seem to remember as being fairly vile. We also used to get saute potatos which required armour piercing cutlery. And peas that were like little bullets.

Wow, flashback! Just remembered - pink custard - served with shortbread. We must have been hyper-ed up for anything after that...

April 13th, 2014, 11:27 AM	#3501
rustler Veteran Member Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: South of the North Pole Posts: 4,977 Thanks: 47,583 Thanked 84,530 Times in 4,955 Posts	Yes I remember them.... not bad with loads of ketchup on as I recall. We had loads of Spam at home, but somehow it just got frittered away............ I'll get me coat!....... __________________ "I think on-stage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience." - Shelley Winters Please read and follow To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

April 13th, 2014, 12:46 PM	#3502
richardoe Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2013 Posts: 2,812 Thanks: 1,424 Thanked 24,130 Times in 2,726 Posts	In the USA a mobile phone (or cell phone) can call 911 even with no sim card fitted. __________________ Richardoe To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

April 14th, 2014, 08:40 AM	#3504
Mal Hombre El Super Moderador Join Date: May 2009 Location: Adoptive Monkey Hanger Posts: 58,134 Thanks: 772,665 Thanked 855,787 Times in 57,565 Posts	We had them at school as well, That's what started My lifelong love of them __________________ To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. If in doubt, Just ask Yourself What Would Max Do ? It is a porn site,But its a Classy porn site. To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 0 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

April 14th, 2014, 03:08 PM	#3508
Lurk_D Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 489 Thanks: 22 Thanked 3,914 Times in 467 Posts	The semolina would have been some arcane type of bread pudding, as semolina is a wheat product(usually flour), or a type of wheat itself. I'd wager it looked like tapioca to some degree.

April 14th, 2014, 04:34 PM	#3510
pierrelm Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Midst the fen mists Posts: 5,450 Thanks: 55,798 Thanked 72,920 Times in 5,422 Posts	It was either Tapioca or the 'how do you start a pudding race..?' favourite 'Sago'. One is toadspawn, the other frogspawn, but I can't remember which way round. Sometimes, really rarely, maybe when there was a stand-in cook, we got a proper old fashioned baked rice pudding and it was really good, honest! There was also a 'chocolate' version of the blancmange which I seem to remember as being fairly vile. We also used to get saute potatos which required armour piercing cutlery. And peas that were like little bullets. Wow, flashback! Just remembered - pink custard - served with shortbread. We must have been hyper-ed up for anything after that...