French school dinners. Compulsory

At primary school you have two choices, your child can either eat their main meal at home or they can go to the school canteen, usually the village hall, for lunch.

At secondary school, as most children are a bus ride away to the nearest town with a secondary school, there is no choice, school dinner are compulsory. A packed lunch is NOT an option.

I am very impressed by the school dinners. My daughter is now into her second year of school dinners at secondary school… she gets a choice of 3 or 4 starters, then a main course which always contains meat or fish, a choice of 8 – 10 cheeses, then a choice of puddings. A school dinner in France costs €2.89.

There are 250 children in her school, (I know, it is a small secondary school by UK standards!) and every single one of these children eats a school meal. There are no children with dairy, gluten or peanut allergies. I have no answers but I am pretty sure if you took a sample of any 250 children in the UK there would be some allergies or food intolerances. Why don’t these exist in rural Brittany?

And it completely goes without saying… vegetarianism doesn’t exist in Brittany!