SCHOOL dinners evoke different memories for different generations. For wartime children, it might be lumpy mashed potatoes with margarine; later pupils fondly recall suet puddings and pink custard; and the children featured on Jamie Oliver's programme will never forget those turkey twizzlers.

That documentary dished out shocking revelations as to what the state fed our children. With only 44p spent per student lunch, pupils were too often dining on fatty, salty, indigestible rubbish.

Shamed ministers promised more cash. Today we learn how much more. North Yorkshire, East Yorkshire and York councils have £790,000 to share between them.

It is hardly a king's ransom, but it could make all the difference. School caterers in this neck of the woods have long worked hard to provide nutritional food at rock-bottom prices. The challenge now is to make that bit extra go a long way.

Good school dinners boost children's health, fight obesity and help them concentrate in lessons. But they should also be part of the children's education, introducing them to a variety of flavours and dishes they might not get at home.

We hope school caterers can now dream up exciting new menus, with more dishes created from locally-produced ingredients reflecting seasonal changes.

If they get it right, the present school generation could be set on the road to a lifetime's love of good food, without a plate of pink custard or lumpy mash in sight.

Updated: 11:30 Friday, August 26, 2005