Little Nadia Lawrence hated her school dinners. She wasn't what you'd call a rebellious child - except when it came to the culinary horrors served up in the canteen at her all-girls' school in Oxford.
"I used to have a terrible time with school dinners," says grown-up Nadia, now an editor at Spotlight. Shuddering, she reels off a list of the hated dishes: slimy steak and kidney pie; fish in lumpy white sauce; orange jelly "so rubbery you could jump on it and it wouldn't break".
The build-up was almost as bad as the food itself. Every lunchtime, Nadia and her friends, smartly dressed in navy blazers and matching velour hats, would leave the three-storey villa where lessons were taught, and cross a wooded area with hedges that smelt of "rotting oranges" to a "faceless, grim, low concrete building".
The spartan interior had white walls, and the smell of sulphuric gravy hung in the air. Nadia would line up at the stainless-steel counter for her lunch, which was served by two dinner ladies - one big, one small - in white hats. The big one would deliberately serve supersize portions of the food. Nadia's group would grab the window seats, conscious of the patrolling teachers. The children weren't allowed to leave until they had eaten everything on their plates. It was the 1960s and memories of wartime rationing were still fresh.
If possible, Nadia would transfer her portion to her neighbour's plate. But sometimes, her lunch would end up on the floor, where small feet pushed it between the wooden floorboards.
There was one bright spot, though. Once a week, fish fingers and baked beans were served - a meal that even school couldn't get wrong. This would be followed by apple crumble. It was the perfect school dinner, provided she managed to dodge the ladle of custard with its unappetizing layer of skin. To this day, Nadia has a soft spot for apple crumble - the one good thing about those horrible school dinners!
Recipe
Ingredients
• 4 large apples, peeled and cut up
• 125 g flour
• 100 g caster sugar
• 125 g ground almonds
• 175 g butter
Instructions
Precook the pieces of apple until they are almost soft. Arrange them in a baking dish. Mix the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and rub in the butter. Spread the mixture over the fruit.
Bake at 200 °C (400 °F) for about 30 minutes, until the top has picked up a bit of colour and the juice of the fruit is starting to bubble through the crumble. If the top colours too quickly, reduce the heat to 180 °C (350 °F). Serve hot or warm with custard – or ice cream if you prefer.
Note: you can use apricots instead of apples, or add raspberries or blackberries to the fruit mixture.