Tory MP blames food bank use on people not knowing how to cook or budge

I learned home economics and cooking at school. Much good it did me as I’m a hopeless cook. My elder son who didn’t take either of these subjects at school is a fantastic cook, who batch cooks family meals, other son sadly is a ready meals type. But hey ho, younger son earns more money living in Canada so can afford to eat out and eat premade meals!

I'm not denigrating those skills WWM2 but surely to goodness the most necessary course one can do at school isn't one that can teach everyone what fish is in season? Schools are about education. I understand that people who are interested in food tech and so on could learn it, but not everybody.

I'm not knowledgeable about school curriculums at all, it's not my area. But someone said above they are finding it hard to find time for humanities subjects? So surely baby food preparation shouldn't be a high priority?

Whitewavemark2

Lucca

Obviously it’s not my subject but for gcse food technology with todays class sizes I can’t imagine you would ever be learning all that . A bit more for A level of course.

I think that Os equated to a bit more than whatever it is these days at age 15/16

Well yes I know that ! But the fact is that is what is available at that age.

Whitewavemark2

growstuff

why not spend it talking about nutrition instead

Because pupils wouldn't listen and, even if they did, would forget it by the time the skills were needed.

PS. What are "cutting skills"?

The other things you could not forget are how to make every different sort of pastry, from rough puff to choice to pate Sucre etc. the different cake making methods, cuts of meat necessary for different dishes. Seasonal cooking, fish seasons, even meat has a season! Rechauffe and safety. Stock making, sauces. Etc we did lessons on the preparation of baby and young childrens food.

It was outstanding

I have never forgotten any of it. It is probably the best most useful and necessary course that I have ever done.

It certainly was outstanding, Wwmk2. Nothing at all like the sketchy and not very well taught 'domestic science' that I did at school. I don't remember a thing about it, apart from the fact that the first thing we made was rock buns and nearly everyone's were more like biscuits than buns because some people went round opening everyone's oven doors to see how they were doing..

I learned much more from my mother and grandmother and a college catering course.

But, having said that, there never was a golden age when all women knew how to cook delicious and nutritious meals from scratch. Women living in poverty, or near poverty (and historically there were many more of them in the population) had neither the equipment or ingredients needed for that. Lots of truly dreadful cookery lore has been passed down the generations...

volver

Pastry? You were taught at school to make pastry?And baby food? And this was the most necessary course you did?

No sorry. French. Maths. English. Etc. Not "how to be a housewife."

I wouldn't say it was the single most important thing, but I learned cookery skills at school too, including pastry, and they have stuck with me, it was from the ages of 11-14, and sat well with the Maths, sciences, English etc. - in fact it was light relief. I hate cooking now, but we learned to budget, do rechauffe meals etc. too, so it wasn’t wasted time. My niece on the other hand did GCSE Food Technology, and her practical lessons involved making Cornish pasties to different recipes for two years. Both my children (male and female) also did cookery lessons at school between 11-14, and they are now better and certainly more interested cooks than I am.

I didn't say that young people can't cook - mine both do, but they didn't learn at school.

My DDs had "Food Technology" [finger-down-throat icon] in school where they learned about packaging and marketing food - one "project" consisted of bringing in ready made pizza bases each week with different toppings, bunging them in an oven, and then designing marketing strategies for them. So much for learning to feed a family.

This was in Thatcher's "golden years" - stupid woman. Price of everything and value of nothing.

volver

I'm not denigrating those skills WWM2 but surely to goodness the most necessary course one can do at school isn't one that can teach everyone what fish is in season? Schools are about education. I understand that people who are interested in food tech and so on could learn it, but not everybody.

I'm not knowledgeable about school curriculums at all, it's not my area. But someone said above they are finding it hard to find time for humanities subjects? So surely baby food preparation shouldn't be a high priority?

Well I guess it depends where your priorities lie. Given that the basics, like maths, English, science etc are a given.

I can’t see why nutrition and the preparation of food for all ages, should be any less important than say art, history, etc.

My boy has done food tech at school, and it was no different at all to the lessons I had as a teen.
About £8 in ingredients, a load of kerfuffle getting them the night before (!) to cook something neither of us would eat.

"I can’t see why nutrition and the preparation of food for all ages, should be any less important than say art, history, etc."

In an environment that is meant to be educational? Then we'll have to agree to differ.

volver

"I can’t see why nutrition and the preparation of food for all ages, should be any less important than say art, history, etc."

In an environment that is meant to be educational? Then we'll have to agree to differ.

Yes we will. You have defined the concept of education very narrowly.

Perhaps.

Plenty of videos on YouTube to show people how to cook, simple easy cheap meals to exotic dishes it's not rocket science. Nearly everyone has a phone nowadays and access to the Internet, if not a trip to the library where you can access free computers or go to a charity shop where their are always cheap cookery books for sale.

If you have access to a Library as they are being closed. Buy a cookery book when you have no money? Jack Monroe has given 20,000 of her cookery books to foodbanks. What have you done to help the poor Maudi?

A simple way to help would be to go to the thread asking for suggestions for £1 per day menus.

Whitewavemark2

volver

Pastry? You were taught at school to make pastry?And baby food? And this was the most necessary course you did?

No sorry. French. Maths. English. Etc. Not "how to be a housewife."

I did those as well. I have been educated to post degree level But that course has stood me in good stead throughout my life.

Don’t denigrate those oh so necessary skills.

I don't think pastry-making is an essential, but all children regardless of sex or gender-orientation, should be taught how to feed themselves with simple, basic meals. It's the stuff of survival!

When they are pitchforked into the adult world, if they don't know how to look after themselves, they will waste time and money puzzling over what to buy and wondering what to do with whatever they've bought. If they understand how to knock up a simple Cottage Pie or Vegan Casserole - or if they're armed with the knowledge that a can of low-salt baked beans on wholemeal toast topped with grated cheese is quite acceptable as an alternative when they can't be a**ed to cook - will surely make them a healthier generation, and give them more time to concentrate on their studies?

It's such a basic element of everyone's life, a 'skill' that everyone needs... a rudimentary knowledge of food and its nutritional value is an essential. It's no good sitting down to study if your stomach is rumbling with hunger an hour after you've eaten yet another pot noodle...

I never had cookery lessons at school and seem to have managed over the years .....

Regardless, nobody has yet come up with the means to make nutritional meals for £1 per day.
Whether they "cook from scratch", learned at school, grew up on fast food, or otherwise.
Nobody.
No-one.
Zilch.

When I did cooking classes way back in the Stone Age sometime, I learned to make porridge, scrambled eggs and scones. There must have been other things, but I don't remember them. I also learnt how to clean a pan and what roughage was.

Not knowing how to make pate sucre and different kinds of cake, along with which fish was du jour, has not held me back in my life.

bring Delia back

I was given the Delia book as an engagement present in the eighties. I've still got it, use it all the time.

I think that we have deviated a long way from the subject?.

The reason people can’t cook proper food is poverty.

Nothing more or less.

Callistemon21

I never had cookery lessons at school and seem to have managed over the years .....

I'm sure you're not alone in that.

Do you think it's a good argument against teaching basic cooking skills?

That, we agree on. ✔️

That to WWM2

Dickens

Callistemon21

I never had cookery lessons at school and seem to have managed over the years .....

I'm sure you're not alone in that.

Do you think it's a good argument against teaching basic cooking skills?

I think if you can read you can follow a recipe.