Marmalade/cookery teachers

I still remember my cookery teacher who told me that I should never have children as they would starve with my cooking. I have, somehow, managed to raise 5 of them! I know I've mentioned this before but it still rankles - how to destroy someone's confidence in one easy lesson!

I think cookery lessons should still happen in school today and not the bring a packet type ! I remember and use everything I learnt in cookery ( except for soused herrings ) and it means when the chips are down I can still produce a decent meal from scratch !

Nothing beats pastry made from scratch although in a rush I might use a packet of puff pastry. Or a homemade cake with real buttercream filling.

Until my Mum passed away my two DDs wouldn't eat any other jam than Nana's blackberry jelly jam. And even today if I offer them jam they comment that it isn't as good as Nanas.

My school cookery lessons were an ordeal for me. I was hopeless, and the cookery teacher disliked me intensely after i accidentally threw away a saucepan full of fresh parsley instead of a saucepan full of unwanted white sauce and put the whole week's lessons of making russian fish pie (or whatever she needed the wretched parsley for) in jeopardy! If she hadn't written me off before, she certainly did from then on! Having said that, i remembered the basics when i got married so something must have sunk in, and i have a reputation for being a pretty good cook.

Domestic Science as it was called in '60s was one of my favourite lessons, I was pretty good too and still remember 95% of what I learnt.
The lessons I didn't like was when we had to sit for a double period wire wooling and scrubbing the baking tins !!!

How lucky we were to have a double period for our domestic science lessons. Nowadays, Food teachers have to cope with only one hour and that includes setting up and clearing away.

I made some orange and grapefruit marmalade the other day. The fruit came from our trees although the oranges aren't Seville ones! I used a different method than usual and it was very messy!! Didn't help when it boiled all over the hob!! I've just made tomato chutney and now the whole house stinks of it!
I remember D.S at school!! We always had to wash the equipment -before- we used it as every one was in a hurry after the lesson and didn't bother to do it properly!!

I used Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect....for marmalade last year and I'm very ( still) pleased with the result. I haven't seen any Seville oranges yet this year.