Tuesday 4 December 2012

Dear Martha,

We are students of the 7th class of the basic school in Chomutov. We are 12-13 years old. Chomutov is a town in the north-west of the Czech Republic – how detailed is your globe? (Not detailed enough. I found Czech Republic in 21s- VEG)

It’s very interesting to read your blog about school food and to see what pupils eat at various places in the world. We think you have done great work with Mary’s Meals. Congratulations to the Liberty Human Rights Awards!

In our school, some children go home for lunch and some eat at the school canteen. We
have a choice of two meals except of Tuesday. Every day there is always a hot soup, a main course and a drink. Sometimes there is a dessert, salad or fruit. The price of the meal is 24 Czech crowns, that means £ 0.75.

Some children like school food and some not. Some children don’t like vegetables or meal they don’t know. School food is regularly controlled by state authorities. We learn about proper food at school and this year we have lessons of cooking.

Czech meals are very tasty, but not always healthy. The most favourites meals in our country
are:
- beef with cream and vegetable sauce and dumplings
- roast pork, dumplings and cabbage
- fried steak (it’s covered in flour, beaten eggs and breadcrumbs and then fried) and
potatoes or potato salad
- fried potato cakes with garlic
- white dill sauce or soup with boiled eggs
- potato soup with vegetables and mushrooms
- garlic soup with potatoes or fried bread
- sweet dumplings filled with fruit (strawberries, apricots or plums) served with sugar,
cottage cheese and cream
- special cakes filled with jam, cottage cheese or poppy seed

We wrote the school menu and took photos of the meals during one week at our school
canteen. We voted on how we liked the meals and how we think they were healthy (we are
sorry we weren’t able to count mouthfuls). We hope that it will be interesting for you and
for all your readers.

With best greetings,

Anicka, Petra, Karolina, Adela D., Adela V., Marketa, Magda (these are the girls – their names usually end –a in Czech), Lukas, Honza J., Honza S., Filip, Premek, Honza H. (these are the boys, the last two named are two of the quadruplets) and our teacher Jarmila

Here is our school menu for last week:


Thursday:
semolina and vegetable soup with egg
beef with garlic, potato dumplings with chickpea, spinach
or pork with leek, red lentils (it isn’t on the picture)
orange
tea

Food-o-meter- 7/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Friday:
caraway and vegetable soup with small dumplings
stewed fish, mashed potatoes, chickpea and tomatoes
or mexican rice salad with beans and corn

canned pineapple and peaches
water with lemon

Food-o-meter- 6/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Monday:
fish and vegetable soup with fried bread
beef with tomato sauce, pasta (it isn’t on the picture)
or fish baked with cheese, potatoes
kiwi fruit
vitamine drink

Food-o-meter- 5/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Tuesday:
beef soup with noodles and vegetables
fried steak, potatoes, beetroot and celery salad
hot fruit drink

Food-o-meter- 8.5/10
Courses- soup/main/salad/drink
Health rating- 6.5/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Wednesday:
goulash soup with meat and potatoes
potato rolls with sugar and poppy seed
or pasta and chicken salad

apple
milk

Food-o-meter- 7/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 5/10
Pieces of hair- 0


Thursday
bean soup with cauliflower
meat and zucchini mixture with mushrooms, rice
or roast pork and kuskus, lettuce
yoghurt
fruit drink

Food-o-meter- 8/10
Courses- soup/main/dessert/drink
Health rating- 7.5/10
Pieces of hair- 0

(The photos are taken by our teacher so the portions are a bit larger than for the pupils)

21 comments:

  1. Yum! All of these dishes look delicious. I love all the soups.

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  2. Wow, your meals looking really nice and they are really well-priced! *yammie*

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  3. The dishes are lovely! Do the students use those as well? I think those are the nicest plates and bowls I've ever seen in a school. The serving sizes are quite large, even if the student portion is close in size to the teacher's portion, that is still a lot of food. I think it is nice that the students can go home for lunch. That is unheard of here (Cumming, GA, USA). Nobody lives close enough to walk, plus there are very strict procedures for kids leaving school. You must be checked out by an approved adult who shows the proper photo ID and it must be for a reason like an illness or a doctor appointment. My kids would love to be able to walk home for lunch!

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  4. I think that while those meals might be quite fatty, they are actually pretty healthy. Lots of variety, lots and lots of veg and a good range of nutrients. Plus they look very yummy. (Actually, my favourite type of food.... mmm.)

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  5. Greetings all from Chomutov, too many to name individually.

    A great post and what lovely food you seem to have - especially when compared to other blog photo's on NeverSeconds. And so cheap to.

    Perhaps all governments should look at costs and instead of making school kitchens a private business, they should re-integrate into the system and put quality/quantity back on the agenda.

    Great post, great read and thanks for sharing your meals.

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  6. Those are great looking meals - yum!

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  7. Those are the best looking meals I have seen represented here by far! They were good sized portions, appetizing looking and on real plates and bowls! Lovely.

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  8. The plates are lovely and the meals look tasty.

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  9. The food looks very good, and is served on real plates.

    I had a friend Iva from the Czech Republic. She was in England as a student during her summer holidays. She lived with a family and looked after their children.

    She hated English food.

    We used to meet in Brighton, and once in London. I would take her out to dinner.

    Once we ate in a Brazilian restaurant in Brighton (sadly no longer there). The portions were far too big for her. She said it was like food her Mum made and tears came into her eyes. I asked was that good or bad. She said good. To my surprise, she left the plate clean.

    One of the places I took her to, was Food for Thought in Covent Garden in London, where the food is always good and where I was a couple of weeks ago. Next time you are in London, a place to try.

    She said I always took her to good places to eat.

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  10. Wow, these meals look delicious! Some of the best I have seen on NS. Wonderful soups with fresh cooked meats and veg. I wish all students could have food like this. Less processed and frozen stuff and more real food!

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  11. Having been to the Czech Republic many, many times I can confirm that Czech food is maybe not the very healthiest choice, but usually very fresh and often extremely delicious - be it the salty Korbacik cheese which is awesome on buttered bread rolls, sweet and savoury dumplings, pickled cabbage, sweet palacinky, all kinds of meaty and garlicky goodness, fried Hermelin cheese, Fidorka chocolate wafers... <3
    I also know Chomutov. :) Not only do I have some relatives there, my family and me once enjoyed some days of our summer holidays at the alum lake...

    I think your school food looks quite good, and I like the way it is served: on real plates (I use the same kind in my own kitchen, heehee) sometimes a little garnish - that's lovely. It's also cool that you get three courses and something drink for your money. Are you allowed to choose the beverage, by the way?
    OK, I wouldn't eat the combination of beef, dumplings and spinach, which appears really weird to me. (OK, I admit it: I really hate spinach!) But this is still one of the better school lunches on this blog.

    Greetings to Chomutov!
    (And if you meet my uncle and aunt there: say hi from me, please! :))

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  12. Those are perhaps the best looking meals I've seen here!

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  13. Those look like really healthy lunches ! I'm a vegetarian so I'd go a bit hungry. Do you have vegetarian options at your school ?

    Thanks so much for sharing and I'm glad you put a note at the bottom that the portions are teachers size :)

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    Replies
    1. Hey Amber,
      I'm so sorry to say this, but usually you can't choose a vegetarian food in a school canteen, so that it's quite a big problem to avoid a meat :(

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  14. Those look nutritious and yummy, I like what you prepare.

    ________
    vest maxi dress

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  15. i seem to luuvv all the pics/food pictured above;; especially the soups & drinks;; those look amazing!!! keep eating healthy!!! amy, york, sc USA

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  16. No we haven´t a vegetarian option. But we often have to lunch some fruit or vegetable.

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  17. Hmm, it's a long time since I was in elementary school. But our lunches were almost the same :-)When i was 14 years, we had choice between 3 types of main meals. I think, the real expense for the menu must be somewhere about 80 crowns (£ 2,5).

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  18. it's quite a long time when I had a lunch in a school canteen ...
    but something to the czech cuisine - it's delicious but very old fashioned. it doesn't respond to changing life style. you know, people used to work more physically years ago and now? it's not a true. sitting in an office, stress, not much physical activity ... we're getting one of the fatest nation in the world, more than 30% of our population is overweight ... i think that we should start respect nature again, eat seasonal fruit and veg, not to damn traditional cuisine but get a new point of view, start to think about it like about something festive :)

    and about food in a school canteen - something is really delicious (potatoe salad, cream sauce, yeast cakes) and something is just awful! last years on high school it was sometimes possible to "meet" french fries or pizza ... and now at the university pizza, french fries, dumplings and other junk meals rock! so that i preper my meals to a lunch box :)

    so if you visit the czech republic: taste your typical cuisine, beer, enjoy not only Prague (our capital), be ready that we can seem unfriendly and grumpily ;) and definitely enjoy your visit!

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