Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

kerrensimmonds wrote:But hey shouldn't they (the sausages, eggs and bacon) have been better drained before serving....

Deeerrrrrr!!! (Slaps head in frustration) If they'd been better drained, they wouldn't have been swimming in fat and we wouldn't have been able to dip our bread in them! Honestly....

Has anyone ever had a shot at making marmite fritters since leaving CH? I'm guessing that'd be a taste to revive a few memories.

And those other monstrosities they used to serve up.....Clifton Grid....Hamburg Roast....Do they actually exist as recipes beyond the ring fence? If so, has any of you ever tried to recreate the culinary experience? Or do prefer to stick with burnt toast, sour milk tea, charred Vesta Chow Mein and over-chlorinated water, for fear of accidentally creating a monster?

Spoonbill wrote:Has anyone ever had a shot at making marmite fritters since leaving CH? I'm guessing that'd be a taste to revive a few memories.

And those other monstrosities they used to serve up.....Clifton Grid....Hamburg Roast....Do they actually exist as recipes beyond the ring fence? If so, has any of you ever tried to recreate the culinary experience? Or do prefer to stick with burnt toast, sour milk tea, charred Vesta Chow Mein and over-chlorinated water, for fear of accidentally creating a monster?

Not marmite fritters but the cheese and potato pie I sometimes make on winter Saturday evenings has always gone down well with the wife and children.

Mid A 15 wrote: Not marmite fritters but the cheese and potato pie I sometimes make on winter Saturday evenings has always gone down well with the wife and children.

Now come on, be honest, how often is 'sometimes' and now you know how much they love you!


I'd forgotten about marmite fritters, spoonbill, but I was a Bovril Boy. Someone brought me a small (tight git, not that I wish to appear ungrateful, and he forgot the Ribena...) jar recently, which I dip into from time to time (this is Bovril, not Marmite - I put it down to being in the Boys' Brigade rather than the Scouts), but it's not the ecstatic pleasure it used to be...

Mind you, what is?

Actually I quite liked Marmite Fritters, which is more than I can say about CH roast meat or roast potatoes, or porridge, or fried bread, or "toast". (One house -- Th.A. I think -- was "off toast" for a month because one of its monitors had the temerity to take a piece of slightly brown cold white bread to Johnny the hall-warden, and say: "May I offer you a slice of so-called toast, sir?")

There was an occasion when the whole school voted with its gullet. Tripe was served for tea, and virtually none was eaten. It never appeared again.

michael scuffil wrote: There was an occasion when the whole school voted with its gullet. Tripe was served for tea, and virtually none was eaten. It never appeared again.

We were (between 65 and 70 at least) made to eat whatever concoction was put before us: no matter how unpalatable we found it.

I have previously recounted my thoroughly unpleasant experiences with Friday lunches of fish bones in parsley sauce (one week) or cheese sauce (the next).

Off to the little girls room for a quick chunder .........................

A few years ago, I needed to call on a very old and very blind gentleman in his splendid unmodernised-since-the-thirties house. I rang the bell, and, as the door opened, I was engulfed in an overpowering aroma that took me back instantly to every other Saturday lunch time at Hertford. The eight long tables with stained cloths in the blue Hall! The clatter and banging of the dining rituals! The relief that prep was over and "free time" was imminent!

The smell was exactly that of authentic Saturday stew. Never before and never since have I encountered an exact replica of the pervasive whiff of that conglomerate of meat served in a tin vat with a ladle. Pot would be at the top of the table serving it out with an air of immense self-importance. It would be accompanied with a scoop of stiff mashed potato, plonked by an assisting Mon on each plate. I found myself thinking nostalgically of the Spong with Syrup that would be bound to follow. I quite enjoyed these dishes just because they were served on a Saturday, best day of the School week.

I can hear now the banging and scraping of the ladle in the tin vat. Stew!

Surely spong (not a mis-spelling this was what we called it) with syrup was on Friday, spotted dick and custard and chocolate sponge and chocolate sauce too. I remember Saturday stew but blowed if I can remember what the dessert was.

I once had the misfortune to see the stew awaiting reheating. Imagine the copper/boiler like the one used to make the "tea" filled with cold, congealed fatty entrails. Not a pretty sight, paryicularly knowing I would have to eat it at some furure date.

englishangel wrote:Surely spong (not a mis-spelling this was what we called it) with syrup was on Friday, spotted dick and custard and chocolate sponge and chocolate sauce too. I remember Saturday stew but blowed if I can remember what the dessert was.

As I remember it, Mary, spong came in a flat tin and was divided up into squares. Spong with chocolate sauce, syrup, custard - there were many interpretations. We become sick of the stuff. Spong again! Oh yes, Eve's Pudding and Apricot Eves were slightly nicer variations, baked in a deeper tin.

Stodge was the Friday pudding. Syrup stodge, spotted dick, jam stodge; always with tin jug custard with a thick leathery skin. (Skin!!!! I still shudder at the thought of it.) There were three steamed mounds of stodge - on an oval flat tin dish - per house, and it was sliced vertically from the centre of the pudding to serve it. Real solid suet puddings.

Hmm, thinks; I once made a nice version of Apricot Eves. With lashings of thick cream! They loved it.

Of course, how could I forget? the spong had the colour and consistency of those sponges for cleaning saucepans.

englishangel wrote:Of course, how could I forget? the spong had the colour and consistency of those sponges for cleaning saucepans.

Thank you for that Mary

Memories of the smell of stew and hot snot were making me feel nauseous (or however it should be spelt), but the thought of using CH grub as cleaning implements has put things into perspective.

xx

Bells, argh the bells.....

Also the smell of books, wood polish, sulpher (from "Ratty"s chemistry classes) and cows (from going down the sheds for a quick smoke).

Tim_MaA_MidB wrote:Also the smell of ... cows (from going down the sheds for a quick smoke).

Blimey, Tim, you went a long way for a quck smoke!

The smell of the Wardrobe (at the back of the kitchens) was certainly unique...