School dinners

An article in The Guardian this week brought back some unpleasant memories for me about school dinners. Dinner time at my girls' grammar school in Derby was always full of jeopardy - it wasn't the main course but the 'eat it all up' pudding that worried me. I actually gagged on each one of the milk puddings - semolina, tapioca, sago and rice - each one nothing like the comforting sweetness of my Mum's home baked versions. And the inevitable custard was always lumpy and equally ghastly. I couldn't wait to reach the sixth form and so be allowed to take in a packed lunch - so grown up - and edible! 
I was very pleased therefore to read about the very good fortune of one school in east London which has employed a former restaurant head chef, Nicole Pisani, ex-Nopi in Soho, as its new cook. Nicole was recruited by Henry Dimbleby who not only co-founded the fab Leon restaurant chain but has also produced the new School Food Plan which takes effect from this month and which sets new standards for all school food. Nicole describes how excited she is by the challenge of producing dinners for only 92p per pupil - and that she's looking forward to working shorter working days than the back-breaking hours that had exhausted her. The list of some of the ingredients she had become used to in the world of chic restaurants baffled me: burrata, skordalia, yuzu, agrodolce - crikey, a million miles away from what she can afford over in Hackney, I expect. But I'm sure the kids will love whatever she serves up for them - and has to be better that what we had to force down in Derby.