Top Five School Canteen Classics You Can’t Get Anymore

School dinners in the ’80s and ’90s were… a mixed bag. Sometimes delicious, sometimes suspicious, but always memorable. Whether you queued up with your plastic tray or pulled one out of your packed lunch, there were certain dishes and desserts that defined childhood. Sadly, most of them have disappeared, replaced by “healthier options” and Jamie Oliver’s crusade against Turkey Twizzlers.

Here are five school canteen classics that you just don’t see anymore — but will live forever in nostalgic glory.

5. Rectangular Pizza Slices

The dish: Thick, doughy slabs of pizza, usually cheese and tomato, sometimes with mystery meat sprinkled on top.

Why we loved it: It wasn’t remotely authentic pizza — but it was cheap, filling, and you could fold it in half like a massive pizza sandwich.

Why it’s gone: Standardised school menus and “healthier options” did away with it. Still, nothing hits like the memory of a floppy square slice and a carton of Um Bongo.

4. Turkey Twizzlers

The dish: Spirals of processed turkey meat, battered and fried to perfection.

Why we loved it: Tasty, fun, and weirdly addictive — they were the ultimate playground talking point.

Why it’s gone: Jamie Oliver’s healthy eating campaign famously killed them off in 2005. Bernard Matthews briefly relaunched them a few years back, but they weren’t quite the same.

3. Pink Custard (with Sponge Cake)

The dish: A wobbly square of sponge drowned in luminous pink custard.

Why we loved it: No one knows why it was pink. Strawberry? Raspberry? Just “pink flavour”? Either way, it was the highlight of school dinners for a generation.

Why it’s gone: Modern school desserts are more fruit-based and less neon. But no yoghurt pot will ever replace the magic of pink custard.

2. Chocolate Concrete with Mint Custard

The dish: A slab of rock-hard chocolate cake, softening only when drowned in green custard.

Why we loved it: It was basically edible masonry — but somehow that was the fun of it.

Why it’s gone: Replaced by more “nutritionally balanced” puddings, but still made in some nostalgic bakeries and retro cafés.

1. Sausage, Beans and Chips Friday

The dish: The holy trinity of school dinners, always served on a Friday.

Why we loved it: Chips at school felt like rebellion. Add in sausages (questionable meat content optional) and beans, and you had the best meal of the week.

Why it’s gone: Many schools phased out fryers and chip days in favour of pasta pots, wraps and salads. Progress? Maybe. Fun? Definitely not.