The UK’s first-ever exhibition dedicated entirely to school dinners has opened at the Food Museum in Stowmarket, Suffolk.
A nostalgic experience, visitors are invited to step back in time with a lunch tray as they reminisce about vintage recipes, retro lunchboxes and more memorabilia from across the world.
Free tasters based on authentic school dinners, which “promise to delight and disgust visitors in equal measures”, are on offer as part of the exhibition.
Tasters in the first few months of opening are based on menus from the 1940s from Norfolk schools.
Food on offer includes roly poly, meatloaf, spotted dick, and egg, cheese and bacon pie.
The museum’s café is also providing a two-course lunch inspired by popular meals from the 1950s, 1970s and 1990s, as follows:
- 1950s: stewed beef, jam roly-poly pudding, a glass of milk
- 1970s: spam fritters, rice pudding, flavoured milk
- 1990s: rectangular pizza, chips and sweetcorn, sprinkle sponge pudding with pink custard, orange squash
Jenny Cousins, director at the Food Museum, said: “School dinners are a shared experience that cut across generations, bringing back childhood memories of lunch lines, long tables, lumpy custard, and everything in between.”
Tasters based on authentic school dinners
She added, “Our School Dinners exhibition invites visitors to take part in a nostalgic journey, exploring the tastes, smells, and stories of the past.
“Visitors will hear from dinner ladies that have shaped school meals over the years, explore unique artefacts that bring them back to their school days, and can even tuck into a traditional school dinner as part of their experience.”
Developed in partnership with seven young curators, the exhibition also explores the serious side of school dinners.
“For some children, school dinners are a matter of choice. For others, they may be their only hot meal of the day,” said Cousins.
“School meals are a flashpoint in an ongoing debate about poverty and the exhibition asks big questions about our values.
“Whose responsibility is it to feed children? How much help should the government give, and who should get it?”
The museum‘s School Dinners exhibition is open through February 2027.
It’s funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Arts Council England as part of a wider redevelopment of the Food Museum’s 84-acre site.
Images courtesy of the Food Museum
