Semolina and sick

I went to a primary school where semolina was the weekly pudding fare. Sloshed into chipped white bowls and handed out, every bit as if it were a 19th century back street poorhouse I was in and not a suburban private prep school - greyish, sick looking, lumpy and wholly repellent. Eating all courses was compulsory in my prep school - if you skipped anything, or you left anything on your plate, you got a ticking off, usually in a form that combined isolation and humiliation. Eating all that crap is probably the reason why I developed into a close-to-obese teenager, and fear of isolation has carried me through all my life. Hats off to the prep school then - one which in fact closed down, suddenly and without much warning.  Maybe the semolina, puked up into the bins, permeated the foundations and made the school buildings unsafe. I'd love to think so. Anyway. I'm a hugely keen baker, but there are some ingredients I will avoid like the plague, and semolina is one. It conjures up the stifling smell of the communal dining hall with long, low wooden benches, grey upon grey, and weekly semolina. But it's quite hip isn't it, these days, semolina? A trend I regard with as much horrified bemusement as the relentless championing of flares and platforms. Seriously guys, we gave them up at the end of the 70s for a reason. Actually it was when I saw rah rah skirts attempting a comeback that I really gave up on the fashion industry - but I digress. My point is, just because posh chefs start using something, doesn't mean we all have to. Except that I have started obsessing about Middle Eastern food, and whaddyaknow - they make those fab looking cheesy pastry thingies with semolina. Of course, the semolina they are talking about, is the coarsely milled durum wheat that looks yellow and a bit like couscous. It really makes me wonder what on EARTH the catering lot in Chingford were thinking when they boiled their semolina to buggery, squeezing out every ounce of flavour and goodness, chucking - well, who knows what - on top of it - Angel Delight powder? Jelly cubes? It's a mystery - to turn it into Something Cheap That Kids Will Eat. OK I'm not saying I would have been more enthusiastic about a bowl of pudding that came out yellow rather than grey. But perhaps at least I would have been making a bit more of an informed choice? I haven't yet made my cheese pastries. I still can't quite believe the box I have bought that says Semolina on it, is in fact the yellow durum wheat kind. I'm a bit worried I'll open it and find sludge. But hopefully, I will get over it - not least because I LOVE cheese and sesame pastry pockets, and will go a long way for a good one. Even as far as, right back into my childhood.