The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: happygolucky on October 15, 2013, 09:04:22 am
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Just been reading about Mary Berry saying children should be taught to cook meals at school, not too sure what they actually teach now at school but so many people have no idea about the basics and have either instant of take away stuff. I still remember my cookery days at school, even though I was not that keen at the time, you do remember simple stuff like white sauce and peeling veg.
I think this topic was covered before but when I worked and went into peoples houses I often was shocked how much money they could save making more simple dishes to feed a family......On the other hand I got quite angry with good old Jamie Oliver, I do like him but, he was using recopies that although advertised to be cheap, actually were very costly, what do others think?
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I agree, Ive stopped watching cookery programmes because of the exotic ingredients the have "at the back of the store cupboard" Whilst I dont enjoy cooking I can put together a cheap, nutritious meal and knock up the occasional cake. Im not inspired by the likes of Mr Oliver, two hairy bikers etc. What I did enjoy was Delias how to cook programme which dealtwith the basics. I was taught in an era when one afternoon a week was spent learning the basics of homemaking. I think theres a need for the new generation to learn the basic skills of cooking and baking and managing a budget. A programme last night on channel 5 showed the type of people who were working the system which showed how to milk a system to the hilt. Im not sure how these people would fare in the event of a war or other life changing event...
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I agree with Mary Berry, children should be taught how to make simple meals and more importantly, how to shop for the basic ingredients to make inexpensive meals. The whole tv chef thing has made people think cooking is difficult, it isn't if you know a few basic recipes and have been given ideas on how to make other things from the basic starting point eg bologna use sauce one day, chilli the next, or shepherds pie from left overs etc. My daughters learnt to cook helping me in the kitchen, and I learnt from my mum, but so many families don't cook that that isn't going to work in many cases. We need more common sense from Mary Bery and Delia not fancy chefs smearing coulis on plates and then covering a minute portion in foamy spit!
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My eldest (nearly 12) starts 'food tech' this academic year (sounds too scientific for me!) she already cooks loads though - she cooks all the biscuits, cakes, puddings and could manage spaghetti bolognaise etc by herself. The 10 year old can gut and pluck game birds ;D (proud mummy!)
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I watched the benefit programme as well, ::) , I too get fed up with posh cookery programmes and if I want a cookery or meal idea I look on you tube or on here......on video jug, you can stop and start and follow the recipe easily, when i did cook more, i used my old school cook book.....shopping is also a skill, although again, you need to know what to cook as there are so many tempting per prepped foods around.
My children used to do a bit if cooking, it can be a fun way of interacting with your children.....I just need to get my husband interested...
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Cookery and baking programmes are entertainment - they inspire people, they encourage the general public to have a go. Not every one of the recipes are expensive. I saw one recently for soup and it was using packed pre-prepared vegetables and a stock cube - I tried it, it was delicious, nutritional, and I wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't seen it. Don't ask me what programme it was, i can't remember.
Mary Berry is right, more home economics should, be taught in schools - I learned a lot in school, but I learned as much from my Grandma - it starts with us Mums and Grannies, not just school.
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All of my kids are obsessed by Great British Bake Off. There will be arguments tonight when hubby wants to watch the football. I think the kids will win, there's four of 'em! All of mine are being taught how to cook, by me, school and my sister when she visits. My oldest daughter, age 12, is a fantastic baker and loves to make cakes. Hence me going back on my diet. My oldest boy wants to eat what he shoots, eg squirrrels, pigeons etc. My youngest son, age 9, is enthusiastic and made Spag Bol the other evening. My youngest daughter, age 11, is actually not keen on cooking but then she's not a big food lover either. The oldest two, who are at secondary school, do cookery there but they've already learnt at home what they cook at school.
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I lost interest in cookery all through senior school as it was the era of Home Economics and food technology and from our junior school baking lessons and home made school canteen food I was transported to colouring pie charts and writing essays on nutrition. It turned me off totally.
I hope Food Tech isn't like that to the exclusion of actually cooking! I began to hate the whole area. It was only when I went to college and after wards that my love of food and cookery was rekindled and have never looked back.
I'm sure some people like food to be a science but I think in a lot of cases it Is a case of schools wanting to not invest in the sort of equipment and supervision that practical cookery requires.
For me, cookery should be an art and a passion first, and then the science kicks in at a higher level when you want to know why x and y happen or why method A works better than method B? I'm with Mary on this!
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Brijjy (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=6028) , do they cook meals at school these days? I worked in Schools for years about 20 odd years ago and it was more a science ,but they did do a bit of cooking, no where near as much as I did at School, so I do wonder what's on the curriculum now? Cake making sounds good but I do try to avoid that
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Well they've made a few meals, like meatballs, pizza, soup. Nothing too amazing but it gives them a bit of confidence to use ovens etc. Spike, oldest boy, actually learnt to make pastry at school. I hate making and eating pastry so it never gets made in my house. Now he knows how to make it, he's on mince pie duty this year!
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My Mum was never taught to cook at home, so when she was first married, just before WWII, she didn't have the first clue how to feed her husband or manage her home. She had to learn quickly, and when I came along she was determined to teach me all she knew - and my brothers to a lesser extent. Helping in the kitchen was always a privilege not a chore. I started at 5 with making mince pies from scrap pastry and making some white bread while Mum was making the big wholemeal batch loaves. We were allowed to make toffee, fudge and butterscotch (which teaches you some science), and cakes. Mum let me do the grocery order sometimes too, and I would go shopping in the village with her (no supermarkets then)
By the time I was 12 my Mum was seriously ill so I took over all the household management including cooking. She died when I turned 15 and from then on I either coped or I didn't, as there was no-one to ask, and my Dad expected perfection every time (including the odd dinner party which I stumbled through somehow :o ) I could prepare a variety of nutritious meals, preserves, Christmas cake, game, and plan ahead, managing the housekeeping money my Dad provided so I never ran out.
We didn't have a single cookery class at school, or home ec, and had to fight to get dressmaking for a year (hidden away in a back room - my school considered academia was the only way forward for women)
Once I got to Uni I was somewhat shocked at the standard student fare of pie and beans or fish and chips, and as soon as I could get into a flat with a kitchen I loved being able to cook.
My own children did get cookery at school for a year and the younger boy especially loved it, but by then they had both learnt the basics from me. They both married women who couldn't cook at the time, although they have learnt too. All of us are basic cooks of wholesome family food, with no fiddly bits of jus and toffee baskets, not one of us owns a kitchen blowtorch, and we arrange our food to lie on the plate not perched in ridiculous towers.
I hate cookery programmes. We rarely ate out before, but now we never do. Seeing chefs with sweaty hair and dirty tea towels at their waists or over their shoulders, for smearing their hands on, working with their bare fingers, just kills any appetite I might have. Also their idea of cooking meat which leaves it slightly brown on the outside but still barely dead inside genuinely makes me feel sick.
When my eldest grandson moved into his first flat, I bought him Delia's basic cookery book, which is perfect for someone starting out (he didn't get taught anything by his mother)
My thoughts on home ec and cookery at school are that it can only be beneficial to young folk. Their parents' generation seem not to have picked up much and live from carry-outs and restaurants, and struggle to make ends meet. Knowing how to cook from scratch and also how to grow your own food has to be the way for the future :thumbsup: :hungry:
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I lost both of my parents within 6 months of each other to Cancer when I was only 13 , I was the main Carer for both of them for 12 months before they died.
I was able to cook a full roast dinner and bake cakes etc and I actually enjoyed doing it.
If more children where taught to cook there wouldn't be so many adults saying they cant cook
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I learnt the basics of cooking from mum . But i used to go and live in my camp in the woods most weekends so did all my own cooking there , rabbit , pigeon etc plus the veg i took from my veg plot .
I am not a foodie at all , i eat to live . What i want though , is clean food ie not grown with poison .
Not a fan of big slabs of meat , i tend to use mince mainly .
I can do full roasts , stews , caseroles , soups , puds tend to be crumbles , tarts , pies with custard or cream , all simple , basic stuff .
Drippin gets used not binned , i grew up on bread and drippin , (i still use it instead of grease
on the wheel barrow etc) .
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sokel (http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=25816) and Fleecewife, thank you for sharing, that has truly touched me :bouquet: I observed my mum but cannot remember her actually teaching me, but that's how we learn I suppose, I pick up things better on the internet as I never watch the entire TV programme without being interrupted....I have gone off cooking and particularly gone off meat.....although I still over eat!! We had a relative stay that eats out for every meal...yes every meal!!! :o :o , he has no children and on his own now and extremely £, all I could say was " I bet you have a very clean kitchen" 2 of my 3 daughters love cooking and are very good, one detests cooking but she is a very busy girl, one daughter also has a husband that fills the freezer with game, he also cooks very well...I cook better when I have very little choice, then I become more imaginative, I have often had to cook ad hock in work placements, once I went into a children's home and before the manager could show me around, the phone went for him and he just gave me a bunch of keys and said " cook the young people some dinner please" I looked and found the usual sausage and pies etc and then peeled and cut up chips with a normal knife as all Sharpe stuff was hidden away...I was cuffed that they all were so pleased with their eggs, chips and sausage and beans...and then the manager came back to thank me and gave me the Sharpe knife.......another time it was a Sunday roast, that day I put a table cloth on and the young people in the residential home all got showered and changed, it actually brought a tear to my eyes, that was one special moment. I think I learn buy remembering what I have had to eat and trying to work out how its made, and I have never ever been a posh cook or cake maker.... arhhhh off to find some food......Bread and dripping was a special treat with salt on......the tin would stay in the oven for ages in our house, possibly until the next roast went in!!!! I love simple food too much!
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My two started cooking when they were three years old. They could choose whatever kind of cake they wanted for their birthdays but they had to help make it and, later, make it by themselves. So many chocolate cakes! I must've begun about the same age, taught by my grandmother, but it was shelling peas, grating breadcrumbs and suet to start - all done for you or by machine now.
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I remember podding peas :peas: :peas: :peas: :peas: :peas: on the front doorstep when I was three too. I remember it clearly because a tiny kitten crawled into my lap and had violent diarrhoea there, all over my skirt. Mum said it was my fault for playing with the kitten when I should have been podding peas :roflanim: If I know myself, then I can assume that most of the peas went into my mouth anyway, but it kept me from under my Mum's feet :D
I grew up on a farm so we had an endless area to play in, and endless mischief to get up to 8)
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Me too, not the cat poo bit though but loved peas...we had an allotment at the back of our garden, dad grew all sorts, I still prefer vegetables to eat. Nothing quite like the smell of a Sunday roast, not had one for ages and ages. It must be horrid to loose parents at a young age, you miss so much!!
My ex's mum was not a very good cook at all, neither was his aunt who he grew up with, when we were married he never ever cooked but soon as we divorced, he became Delia Smith, although my girls laugh at some of his efforts, he made a curry and chucked all sorts in it, including a pork pie!!!
I forgot to ask, my mum and I used to make toffee apples, fudge and toffee, never ever do that now, it must have been a trend at that time?....I even made Turkish delight and dipped in in melted Cadbury chocolate, that was lovely.
I did run and own a café with my mum when I left school, we did lots of home cooked stuff and tons of chips........I was in charge of the front of house and the till mum did the cooking and it was a greasy dirty job but we made a great income, that was in the greasy spoon days!!!!
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Teaching cooking in a primary school is tricky because of health and safety, child to adult ratios etc, and also money for ingredients. I have been doing a topic on the theme of Harvest with the Primary 3/4/5 class I teach one day a week, and we cooked every week, using things we/I/parents had grown where possible, but it was still a nightmare to organise - any more than 6 in a group and they lost interest, 4 was preferable, but I still had 24 to teach. It was worth all the effort, though, we made cheese scones, baked bread, baked and stuffed jacket potatoes, cooked vegetable stew with cous cous, baked Apple and plum pie, and made pancakes. I sent copies of the recipes home each week, and I have had quite a few parents come in and say they are not confident at cooking, but have used the recipes at home and didn't realise how much fun cooking with their child would be. I guess many primary teachers might feel the same, and be doubly put off by the logistics of organising to cook.
The value of the exercise was highlighted to me when I got a 'world's best teacher' card that said 'because you teach me to peel carrots and that is good and useful' inside - although there were quite a few shocked faces at me giving them real sharp knives - they were SO careful, bless them.
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The value of the exercise was highlighted to me when I got a 'world's best teacher' card that said 'because you teach me to peel carrots and that is good and useful' inside - although there were quite a few shocked faces at me giving them real sharp knives - they were SO careful, bless them.
That's priceless, I remember working in learning support with disruptive pupils, we made crisps and they dried each one individually, they were thrilled to bits when they all came out better than ones you buy!! I understand the need for extra staff, little fingers etc, its a shame as parents should be able to come in to help, or grandparents....that would prove to be a very interesting combination, some one coming in to show young people how to cook and lots of others helping out in the lesson...but the cost is going to be another issue!!
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When I was doing Cookery at school - no fancy names then - the school provided basic ingredients like flour and margarine and we were given a note the week before to bring in special items. If you're making a Victoria Sponge by hand (oh, the muscles we had from blending the butter and sugar) there's not much that's sharp anyway.
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After all I wrote yesterday, I embarrassingly cooked the worse ever ever tea and pudding, it was a completely dry yet soggy pasta with some bits of ropey chicken, the garlic bread was OKish but I bought a packet of pudding mix with instructions in another language and it was horrid beyond eating......my husband laughed his socks off as he had 6 packs of crisps back at work......tonight I am trying a little harder....honest :-[
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I have never been good at making soup, despite my Mum, Aunt, and Grandma trying to teach me - just didn't have the patience/too lazy. But suddenly because of my illness I have to eat more vegetables, so my cousin suggested a quick and easy method.
A pack of soup or casserole ready prepared vegetables, 2 vegetable stock pots, 2 pints of water. Cook veggies in microwave per instructions(8 minutes), add to pan with water and stock, bring to boil, zap with the hand blender - instant and delicious soup - all for under £1 because I bought the veg and stock pots on special offer at Morrisons. Some to eat and some to freeze, dead easy, didn't get bored doing it, and it is really yummy.
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I remember my daughter learning to make lentil and vegetable soup at school. She decided to make some for her father and me as it was our wedding anniversary. I didn't have any lentils so she used chick peas, not realising they need soaking over night, and missed out onion as she couldn't find one. It was disgusting but we had to eat it to encourage her. ;D
Her soup making skills did improve.
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:roflanim: , I often like my girls cook, one day my eldest and her friend made ginger bread men, they looked lovely, apart from green bits that turned out to be dried parsley...her cookery skills have not improved :innocent:
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My youngest daughter once made a what should have been a savoury mince crumble...only she used a pre mixed sweet crumble topping.... we sat and ate it anyway... it was interesting :thinking:
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:roflanim: :roflanim: , what we suffer for our children...I used to make salt dough for my children to play with and of course got the salt dough mixed up with my pastry when I made mince pies, they were hard as rocks and salty......
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:roflanim: :roflanim:
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It's all gone a bit Great British Bake Off in my house. My two oldest kids had an argument about who would make my birthday cake on saturday. Oldest boy won that and made a very nice choccy cake. Oldest daughter then made me another cake yesterday! I'm surrounded by feeders and I'm going to end up about 40 stone soon!
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I dimly remember reading (on BBC, no doubt) about a school - can't remember if it was primary - where the kids took turn helping in the school kitchen cooking their own lunch; so they worked in "real" conditions, and all ended up with a basic food hygiene certificate in the end, too! Thought that was a brilliant idea. If one school can do it, why not more? Might be difficult in the larger ones, perhaps.
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I did do cooking at school but just basic stuff. I did not even know how to fry an egg when I got married. Now I class myself as an every day cook like stews, roast, soups , pies etc. On the other hand my OH loves cooking and takes over the kitchen every weekend which for me is great. he enjoys fancy cooking and will often have a go at something he has seen on the TV. I taught my sons to cook simple meals so they could look after themselves when they went to university. I also made sure they knew how to sew on a button, work a washing machine and iron. My idea was that my boys would not need to depend on a wife to look after them.
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:thumbsup: .....looking after ourself is the best and most needed skill......think I need some more training
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I did do cooking at school but just basic stuff. I did not even know how to fry an egg when I got married. Now I class myself as an every day cook like stews, roast, soups , pies etc. On the other hand my OH loves cooking and takes over the kitchen every weekend which for me is great. he enjoys fancy cooking and will often have a go at something he has seen on the TV. I taught my sons to cook simple meals so they could look after themselves when they went to university. I also made sure they knew how to sew on a button, work a washing machine and iron. My idea was that my boys would not need to depend on a wife to look after them.
Exactly the same as me and both my late dear husbands, although we got a bit more than just basics in home economics at our senior secondary school. I remember coming home with mince and carrot crumble, egg mayonnaise, fish pie etc and my mum was very grateful as it supplemented what she had prepared for us. And I taught both my son and daughter the basics too - makes sense really - they are not beholden or dependent on anyone else that way. :excited:
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My head teacher had ideas of grandeur. She was very much in the mould of Miss Jean Brodie in that her gals were la creme de la creme. Whether that had anything to do with our cookery lessons, I'm not sure, but I remember learning to cook things like stuffed rolled fillets of plaice. Very useful to know when you dash in from work and have to get a meal ready in less than an hour. Especially when you are married to someone who thinks that all dinners should be smothered with tomato ketchup and Branston pickle.
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:roflanim: :roflanim: :roflanim: , that's me. I love a bit of sauce or pickle......off to rustle up some delights now, no enthusiasm for cooking though..... :(