2007: Boys, please do not worry if you are looking at Caldicott as the school you might like to go to. The mushy peas page (below) is from 2003, and the experiment has not been repeated - though they were really tasty! 

A Delicious Culinary Experiment - Mushy Peas for Lunch!

March 2003

As a Northerner, I was really delighted to be served mushy peas for lunch: in fact I was so delighted that I rushed into the dining room to take a few pictures. Here are some comments about them written by the boys in 5a in the lesson straight after lunch.

Today, Guess what? It was Mushy Peas. Isn't that just absolutely brilliant!! It's sick! They are all soft and wet and all the chips get soggy. When I saw the menu I nearly fainted. I had a bet with a friend that there would be the odd person who would go and get seconds (weirdos), he said that no one would and fortunately he was right! Really I would rather have a lesson with Mr Pickup than have mushy peas.

When C Ryan, (our table monitor) took off the lids, the disgusting scent of mushy peas (uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh!!!). The smell was something but the taste was indescribable! I was sitting next to the teacher so I couldn't sneak mine away but my friend managed to leave his fish skin and wrapped his mushy peas in it! Then I asked for more chips and Mrs Williams used the same spoon and my chips were DISEASED!

Mushy peas my favourite (not). I was so sad to see them on the menu. I cried for help. At school they make you eat a balanced meal, which is a good thing, but not when it's mushy peas.

Apart from the mushy peas lunch was nice. It was not the best of lunches because of those slimy peas, I would rather stand watching paint dry than have a large of those peas with seconds, and how can anyone call it a delicacy?

Today in lunch we had the most horrible, the most gruesome mushy peas. I thought I was going to be indulged in a delicious and tasty Friday meal but I was completely wrong. When my table monitor lifted the lid I saw the most disgusting green slime I ever saw, or that's what's it looked like. Mr Pickup, being a Northerner, likes those kinds of foods but that is obvious because he is a bit strange.

We had MUSHY PEAS for lunch, delicious. Yeah right; I knew we were going to have normal fish and chips which I hate but not MUSHY PEAS with it. They looked like something green and disgusting. They tasted like the school's swimming pool with peas in. I wanted a tiny, incy, wincy bit but the head of table gave me a small not a tiny, incy, wincey. I would rather go on a walk then eat MUSHY PEAS!

Today we had the nastiest mushiest peas that I have ever seen. You put your spoon in it and the centre shot out onto the table. Also you had to smother them in salt and vinegar to even just dull the taste, and the green juice somehow managed to infect all of the other food with the taste and smell of the extremely radical-tasting peas. Also it turned all the fish skin soggy.

Today I had mushy peas, I hadn't looked at the menu so I didn't know what was for lunch, As soon as the servers opened the mushy peas I thought to myself YES and then I thought that I was unique so I thought that nobody else would have them and I was right. Nobody in the whole dining room liked them, I think, and then I saw Mr Pickup walking around with his superb Canon digital camera. I asked for a lot and got loads which I really wanted and the picture with the boy with peas in his mouth is me.

Today we had MUSHY PEAS!! I thought we were going to have a nice Friday meal, I was wrong. The boy at the Head of our table lifted the lids up and I saw the most disgusting sight I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of sick sights. I would rather have a lesson with Mr Pickup than have MUSHY PEAS. Mr Pickup said he had 3 helpings. I couldn't even have one helping.

I love mushy peas, and I had seconds of mushy peas. When I saw them they looked disgusting but when I tried them they tasted so nice. They tasted like Japanese soup. I really want to have it again. I really do not understand people who say it is absolutely uneatable. I want to live in mushy-peas-eating land.

Seeing people having two helpings of peas and others hiding - there is no escape from the dreaded mushy peas!

Mushy peas for lunch what is this boot camp? OK let's get this straight - we have mushy peas, fish and chips. When in the history of this earth did mushy peas go with fish and chips, that's like putting white paint with black paint to make white paint.

I was not looking forward to lunch anyway, especially as it was fish and chips which I loathe. As the lid of the container came off I stared in amazement at the green slop with little green balls floating in it. I looked around at the next table to see if it was just our table, but alas it was not. I looked around at the dismal faces and made an astonished face to my friend.

Mushy peas are one of the worst foods you will ever find in the world almost as bad as Watery Swede. YUCK! They probably find them in the depths of the English Channel lying under a school of dead, rotting sardines. They don't actually look or smell edible.

And now some extras, written a few days later. The memory was clearly still vivid.

Mushy peas are what we hate!
You might consider them as rats' bait.
It was quite a pleasant day,
When we discovered the gruesome array.

The caterers didn't get the slightest complaint
As we secretly stacked our terrible plate!
The teachers on the table who all like the fish,
Didn't see the disgusting dish!

The watery gloop was all too much,
Why didn't the staff have to eat it as such?
The slimy substance they called food,
It would kill a whole chicken brood!

Mushy Peas are dried marrowfat peas which have been soaked overnight then boiled. They are a great favourite in the north of England and are a traditional accompaniment to fish and chips.

S Patel (9.06)

Mushy Peas, now you would expect to hear me talk about how totally gross they are. I don't think so! Mushy peas are delicious! I could eat 300 of them. People say that I' m sick or that my head's on the wrong way but the real reason is, I do not know. My taste buds just don't agree with anything that isn't considered gross. I don't care what other people say! I love them. Give me a bowl of mushy peas and they wouldn't last very long!

Great, fantastic and absolutely wonderful. Life is so unfair.

We walked in the lunchroom, saw the fish and said grace, sat down and Sir asked us what we wanted. Charlie asked for large of mushy peas to try to be cool! His fate was sealed. Sir asked me and I, being normal, asked for small. Despite asking for small, Sir didn't hear me and gave me normal. I stared down at the green, boggy mush for ages and although I got many encouragements from friends I just hid them behind my fish. This meal was voted the most disgusting and horrible lunch ever!