I’ve been invited to eat with the kids again this year, although the menu is still a secret.
But this is what we had in 2016:
Foie Gras with caramelised fresh figs
Roast pork with plums and mash
Walnut bread with cheeses
Chocolate log with chocolate truffles
All of this was prepared in the school kitchen by our wonderful cook…and the kids made the truffles themselves under her watchful eye. I can confirm, it was all delicious…
My memories of UK school lunches just don’t match up … somehow…
Sounds lovely…rich and very grown up…but where were the vegetables?
Or the fruit…
Barbara…
These 5-7 year olds were happily scoffing figs, plums, potatoes, walnuts, cheese… along with meat content and then the chocolate as a treat…
My school lunch would have been murdered cabbage with mince… no contest !
Our Christmas lunch was yesterday, EVERYTHING was home-made, we had:
Gravad lax, smoked salmon, prawn and quinoa salad, foie gras
Aumônières of sweetbreads, scallop tartlets
Magret roasted rare with Mont d’Or potato gratin, poached pear and cèpe and girolle sauce
Fantastic cheese platter and green salad
Three different delicious bûches
Fruit
Again as I said all home-made, and so good. They came in at 4am to start prepping.
Our chef and his team are absolute stars, we are very lucky to have them.
Oh and by the way this was for about 600 people!
Wow… sounds absolutely wonderful… and 600 people !!
… we only have 38 kids in our school at the moment…the other 45 go elsewhere, but we hope to get most of them back next year, with a new class…
I am in lycée, they tend to be a lot bigger 
Veronique that sounds like an amazing feast.
Great that everything is made on the premises.
Food really tastes so much better when it is freshly
cooked. All those pre made things like houmous
taste so strange…pre cooked potatos really not
necessary.
Roast the capon or goose on the day and plan the
cooking time.
Was it Prue Leith who said cook it and freeze it…just cook
it and serve it…nothing better.with lots of vegies and roast chestnuts,
duxelle and prunes wrapped in bacon. Gravy…oh no need for stock
cubes or that Bisto stuff.
eeeewwww i remember uk school lunch i used to use my budget and just buy choc ice’s
the food was horrible
The only good meal at secondary school was breakfast. At prep school in the wilds of Scotland all the food was lovely, lots of game and again excellent breakfasts.
Back in the day, we had free school dinners (v. Poor😭), and although they were awful it was either eat or go hungry. Probably better than we got at home though. Can’t ever remember getting a Christmas dinner at school.
I went to school in the 70’s and our food was not free. in the 80’s I think it was 1 pound 20 a meal. when in look at my kids paying 3 or 4€ for a 3 course meal at school and seeing what they eat I often look back to the awful food we used to get served…
Secondary School food was seriously disgusting. I reckon pigs would have turned up their snouts and run. No Christmas dinners either.
Do you remember the song Out Of Town ? Well we had our own lyrics to it … "Say what you will school dinners make you ill … da da da da da da (can’t remember the bit in between) but it ended with ’ our school din dins come from pig bins out of town !
Needless to say we never sang it in hearing of the dinner ladies or our very strict teachers !
We had a super Christmas Dinner at school this Friday, followed by fun and frolics and a visit from Père Nœl…here his is with the youngest of his admirers. 
Hi Anne,
I remember the great Out of Town programme with Jack Hargreaves - the song is a little harder to recall but I remember it as being
Say what you will
School dinners make you ill
The most disgusting muck you’ve ever seen,
all our din-dins out of pig bins,
out of town.
Thanks for giving that flash-back - wish I could buy the whole series on a DVD collection 
Must be turning into an old fart !!
It wasn’t until 1956 that the consumption of alcohol was outlawed in French schools for children under 14!
My Dad always had water with a little wine mixed in once he turned 5 , at family lunchtimes in France… and they put him on a daybed beside the kitchen fireplace, while the rest of the family had a 1hour siesta upstairs…
