Mmm, I’d not heard of Gypsy Tart, and having seen the recipe I think it too sweet for me, in fact I can feel my teeth ache just by reading it… 
That was the yucky Tapioca, Art… 
Frog spawn for us was sago Mags, I loved it… and the semolina too, yum yum…
That’s strange Barry as we have always known it here in the south to be Tapioca was frog’s spawn. It must be a north and south divide!
Barry, l am heaving here!
Mags, I had a feeling it might be Tapioca but now Barry has said, Sago. I don’t know?
Ugh, lt’s the horrible globules, l remember!
I have just remembered sweet milky Macaroni… another Ugh!!
Tinned peas, covid panic buying, oh the nostalgia hit. 
D00d, At the start of the lockdown, l bought a tin of marrowfat peas and two tins of garden peas to have as a standby.
I ate one tin of garden peas but they weren’t great.
The peas we had at school, were they dried peas that came with a white hard thing?
TBH I don’t know what or where our school peas came from. But what I bought in 2020 had a hint of 1950s middle England about them. The sabor took me back. We’ve got another tin … now I’m thinking pie & mash. HP sauce?
This one isn’t steamed, it’s baked in an oven. Lush it is too.
My old mum taught me the basics, but I’m largely self-taught thanks to my trusty copy of Delia and my Be-Ro cakes and buns book. The treacle roll is from a 1905 Daily Mail cookery book.
I did all the cooking when I got wed and throughout my marriage, passing on some basic skills to the grandkids and showing them what to do. I don’t know if they will cook stuff for themselves or just buy ready meals to warm up in the microwave. (Ugh).
I could be wrong, but have they stopped doing domestic science in schools? A great pity if so.
Tapioca.
Sago and Tapioca look almost exactly the same even though they come from different plants. Either could be described as frog spawn
I’d forgotten about macaroni as a milk pudding… Yum!
That might have been Manchester Tart:-
As a child I ate everything I was given even the dreaded school sago which was like white frog spawn…yuk!! My favourite was apple crumble and I make that now especially when we have apples from the little tree in the garden…
Edited to say I just saw the post referring to white frog spawn and I will how to Judds superior knowledge…yes it was Tapioca
Was going through the hottest threads list (Food And Drink Forum | Over 50s Chat) and spotted this thread - I wanted to say I loved the…
Maybe we had different caterers but I loved the chocolate pudding with pink custard!!!
I also loved the vanilla ice cream with chocolate custard
It was yum, wasn’t it, did you like the mint one too? With chocolate concrete?
There’s a school dinners nostalgia group that I look at now and then, some of the members are old school dinner cooks and they share the recipes
The custard was really blancmange, made with cornflour and no eggs, so it was white to start with, not yellow, and that’s why it took those zingy colours so well! 
I make the sponge with jam and coconut sometimes, my husband likes it. I used to like the cheese flan
One of the old cooks said that the reason the gypsy tart and some other things will never taste quite the same is that they used to use big bottle of something called Bells Butter Essence and it doesn’t exist any more
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Bells may not exist - but Butter Essence does - Amazon is your friend!
https://www.amazon.co.uk/uncle-roy-Butter-Essence-Bottle/dp/B00Q56U7VU
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Thank you, I’ve used some othe Uncle Roy’s and they are really good 
Not sure if it will taste the same as Old Skool though, apparently they got it in in huge bottles and it lingered in the kitchens for years!
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This was the bane of my life at school .
I just could not eat them .
I had to stay in until break was finished and some merciful dinner lady took them away .
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My grandchildren love ‘‘chocolate concrete’’ that we used to have at school with pink custard.
I make it a lot but a healthier option as biscuits with added raisins/nuts/cacao also a version with fresh ginger which is lovely .
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