School cookery

I heard on the Today show this morning that the UK Government wants to make cookery compulsory in schools for children up until the age of 14.  The theory is that teaching children about food and food preparation will both prepare them for adult life and help tackle the nation’s burgeoning obesity crisis.

I think this is a great idea but I’m concerned about the execution. Cookery needs to be taught properly and I’m not convinced that it is. I’ve just come back from visiting family in Cardiff and my 11-year-old cousin, who has just started high school, has cookery once a week. On Sunday his dad was running around Tesco buying stir-fry ingredients since there were no bean sprouts or five spice in the house.

The idea was that they would make the stir-fry in cookery class but they had to bring the vegetables in already chopped up because of the health and safety risk. So either they would buy a packet of pre-chopped stir-fry vegetables from the supermarket, or they or their parents would chop it up at home. All that would happen in class was that they would stir the vegetables around in a wok or pan with some oil and spice.

Another class involved learning how to ‘make’ pizza. The children were instructed to bring a supermarket-bought pizza base, some pre-grated cheese, tomato paste, ham and pineapple chunks. They then had to arrange the toppings on top of the pizza and bake it in the oven. There were no herbs or garlic and everything was preprepared. My cousin, who loves to cook at home and is probably a bit more advanced than this, asked if he could make his own pizza base. (He would make it at home and then bring that to school instead). The teacher said no, as she thought that would be too much trouble. He did anyway, using his mum’s bread maker, and half-baked it at home and of course the teacher didn’t even notice.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to take shortcuts, but it’s a good idea to learn how to do it for yourself at least once, and I don’t think the kids are going to learn that much from arranging some very boring toppings on a pre-made pizza base. To be honest, the supermarkets do a pretty nice line in pre-made pizza with the toppings already on, so if you’re going to take a short-cut you may as well buy the whole thing. Or at least do some more interesting toppings.

I did one semester of cookery in high school. We did that for six months and then sewing for six months in the first year of high school; after that it was optional and I never took it as an elective. But even in that very first year of high school, when I was the same age my cousin is now, we made more challenging dishes. These included hamburgers (we made the beef patties from scratch), scrambled eggs, vegetable casserole,  apple crumble, and pastry making (which resulted in a jam roll). We had to chop vegetables for the casserole and that was done in class, under supervision.

The other thing that bothers me is that there seems to be no discussion of seasonality and locality. Telling kids to buy pineapple and bean sprouts in the middle of a Welsh winter seems a peculiar thing to do when it could be a really good teaching point to talk about what can be sourced locally.

The Government is consulting with the public on what eight dishes children should learn to make in school. I think as well as learning eight dishes and the basics of nutrition, they should be taught about where food comes from, how their food choices affect the world around them, how a recipe can be spun in different ways to create new dishes, and creative things to do with leftovers.

My eight dishes would include spaghetti bolognese with a vegetarian alternative, nachos or tacos, frittata or baked omelette, roast dinner (this would require an extended session), soup (made from something in season, eg. pumpkin or leek and potato), cakes, cookies or brownies, curry, and maybe casserole (this could be about using leftovers). I would emphasise learning a variety of techniques rather than dishes.

Do you agree with the government proposal, which would see kids learn cookery up until the fourth year of high school? What eight dishes would you nominate? What other concepts or techniques should they learn? What is your experience with school cookery, either as a child or as a parent?