School Cantine

Sophie at the school canteen (cantine).

Every Tuesday and Friday the children stay at school all day, instead of coming home for lunch. This means that they eat at the school canteen, as there is no such thing as a packed lunch in French schools. Unlike the good old days when there was a cook at each canteen serving up delicious French food to the children, today there is a central kitchen in a large centre (Pontcharra in our case) that delivers the food to the canteens at smaller schools. Our children regularly complain about the food they have to eat, and I am regularly told by the canteen supervisors that my children don't eat the food they are given.
On Tuesday I had the pleasure of photographing the canteen in Sainte Marie d'Alloix, where Sophie eats. The menu was potato salad, followed by crumbed fish with green (well greyish green) beans, a cheese, then an orange.

Mmmm... delicious!

After the meal the children play in the canteen or an adjacent room with games and puzzles, before going out into the playing fields for an hour before the afternoon session of school starts at 1:50pm.

Sophie setting up a game of Hangman.