Mrs. Cooper is a retired dinner lady her career started in 1956. She started working as a kitchen assistant and then attended in-house catering classes. She started with no formal qualifications but attended evening classes and gained City and Guilds Certificates 147 and 151. She then studied at the Northern Polytechnic and gained her Institutional Management Certificate. She worked and lived in Epsom, Surrey, and cycled to work as the school she worked in was close by. She started work in infant and primary schools but moved to secondary schools which were in Sutton and Merton in London.

When she started her career she earned four shillings an hour for washing up, but as she became more qualified her qualifications allowed her to work as a peripatetic bookkeeper for the catering side of the school. This required her to travel, so she needed a car, and would drive approximately two to three hundred miles a week and be working at five or six establishments.

Mrs. Cooper retired in 1981 and at the end of her career she had gone from a kitchen assistant to a dinner lady to a school meals advisor to teaching school meal cooks.

Mrs Cooper noticed technology changes in the various field of cooking and foo

Food Preservation

In the late 1950s cooks were allowed to prepare meals the night before which included meat and meat products, but once there was a food poisoning scare all food had to be prepared on the day of consumption. Within the kitchen there would be about two to three cooks in each department, which would include the vegetable section, the pudding section and the meat section. They started work at eight in the morning and lunch would be served between midday and half past twelve. In the home, shopping would be done everyday and things would be bought fresh and consumed that day. In 1956 Mrs. Cooper had a refrigerator and so some products could be kept in the refrigerator but before food had to be kept in a cool place which would be an out-house or larder. Freezers became more popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but were introduced in the late 1960s but were not universal because they were so expensive. In Mrs. Cooper's case one year it was either a holiday or a refrigerator and she chose the refrigerator.

Exotic fruit such as bananas and oranges were only available in season and would come over in refrigerated ships. As soon as "Birdseye" frozen peas were launched it meant that peas were no longer seasonal. Chilled vans used to deliver cooked foods to schools, which meant less preparation time.

Equipment

The main utensils which were in the kitchens were gas ovens for roasting meat and gas coppers for boiling vegetables. There were no fan ovens or microwave ovens until the 1980s. When dishwashers were introduced, not so many people were needed in the kitchen to do the washing up.

Cleaning and hygiene

Hygiene was paramount in the kitchen. Floors were scrubbed every day. Food was prepared on wooden tables and chopping boards and these were scrubbed every day. Not until the late 1 1970's were plastic chopping boards used for different types of food. In the home there were only carpet sweepers and floors were washed by hand. Only in industrial places were floor washers used.

Menus

Schools had to conform to guidelines set by the council. Each meal had to contain meat and two vegetables, powdered milk, flour and pasta. These guidelines were abolished in the late 1970s when outside caterers used to prepare food which would include burgers and chips. Packed meals were allowed although these were not popular and in some of the more deprived areas a hot school meal was the only hot meal of the day. The school secretary collected the money for lunches on Monday morning although children on benefit would not have to pay.

Left-overs would be collected by the local pig owner, although uneaten food such as cakes and tarts which had not been eaten would be served the next day.

Rationing

During and after the war, rationing meant no food could be wasted as Mrs. Cooper's housekeeping was thirty shillings a week and this was to be spent on butter, sugar, tea and cheese. It would work out as half a crown a week per person.

Reflections

Mrs. Cooper retired in 1981 and was earning about £9,000 a year. She very much enjoyed her career, and feels that school meals were given a bad name that was never justified.

She feels that the improvement in technology has meant that people do not have the necessary skills to cook and are not taught them unless they are interested. Shops have prepared food for people which can be eaten straight away.

Mrs. Cooper thinks that the biggest change in technology is the preservation of food especially the introduction of freezers and mixers which has meant shorter preparation time. She is not sure if technology has improved for the better, and thinks that, although there is a wider choice of food, people don't have the skills or the time to cook properly and have well balanced meals.

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