Dishes that stir the dinner memories

Mar 14 2008 by Bill Oldfield, The Journal

WHETHER schooling on its own can turn a little so-and-so into an academic angel or a committed student into a thieving, vandalising, hooligan is definitely up for debate.

But whatever your views on the nature verses nurture argument, no matter what your politics, I think you’ll have to agree that schools carry a tremendous burden of responsibility and therefore, by inference, have a lot to answer for. But there’s no argument that the most important part of the school day, the part where the pupils are at their most vulnerable, can effect a person for life. And that particular moment is the school dinner.

Apart from the masochistic way children have been forced to clear their plates, the actual quality of the meals affects an individual’s buying habits in later life as well as what’s actually supplied in shops and, most importantly of all, what we in the trade cook in restaurants. Let’s start with the one item that most people think of when the subject of school food is brought up: liver. It’s not the memory of the taste that makes so many mouths turn down when their owners see liver on the menu but the texture. The grainy, dry, inedible stuff that I was served at school bore no resemblance to the tender, juicy, luscious mouthful that it should, and can, be. Then there’s spinach. That slimy, bitter-tasting gloop that left your teeth feeling like sandpaper is a different vegetable from the one I love today and its serving was a crime against humanity, along with broccoli, cabbage, just about any green vegetable and of course, the pièce de résistance, custard. How anyone could have made custard so nauseating is beyond me and itself probably needed years of training and dedication. But it’s not all bad.

I loved my school’s apricot crumble and insisted that my mum made it the same way. Thank goodness for the things we actually liked because there’s no doubt that they shape our tastes for adulthood. And in the restaurants we’ve found that, as we’ve moved our menus more and more to include British classics such as steak and kidney or, dare I say, liver, we’ve had a great response from our customers as it brings back many happy memories. I dined at Durham with some friends recently who ooh’d and ah’d over the great British classics we have on the menu but all three of them decided there was no way they were going to order liver like me.

Which resulted in a double-edged sword because, in my zeal to prove them wrong I persuaded them to try a little. Which they did, liked it and left me very little. Maybe I should address the horrendous legacy of PE lessons.