Jamie Oliver; Ministry of Food

growingafamily

Plum_Pie wrote: »

I’m 28 and by them time I was at secondary school, Home Ec had been merged with ‘technology’ and clumped together with woodwork lessons, product and graphic design.

I'm 26 and this is how it was for me too.
The thing is it's not just the money, but you get in such a rut. I've been there - no job, no where even proper to live, no money. And I love being a stay at home mum but there are days when you want to tear your hair out and feel you've accomplished nothing - this can be really depressing.

I have a 3 year old and a 12 week old and it can be hard work standing and making a meal every night when you're tired and had a lousy day then old habits are easy to fall back on (and I was lucky enough to have parents and grandparents who showed me how to cook, and a hubby who worked his behind off at uni for the last 6 years to bring in a good wage). She must feel terrible about it all. And the woman who didn't know what boiling looked like - why would she if she's never seen it !

Bulk cooking helps but only if you can afford to buy enough of everything you need in one go.
I think one problem they have is the dishes have too many ingredients etc
They need a "take 5" approach.
Show them how to make a basic tomato based meat sauce and then turn it into chilli, sheperd's pie, pasta bake, spag bol, lasagne etc
A Basic store cupboard (not things like balsamic vinegar etc) then how to meal plan.
Maybe showing them how to shop too would help.

I hope my children learn from me (and their grandparents). It made me realise how lucky I am.

Bargain_Rzl

growingafamily wrote: »

Bulk cooking helps but only if you can afford to buy enough of everything you need in one go.

That's not a problem at all in the long term because meal planning and bulk cooking is THE cheapest way of cooking - basically, anybody who can afford to eat and who owns a freezer can afford to bulk cook. The trouble is, getting started, especially with buying storecupboard ingredients, can add to the cost and mask the fact that longer-term there are going to be massive savings.

The other reason why the initial outlay for bulk cooking could be offputting is that in order to get a freezer full of a variety of meals you pretty much need to bulk cook every night for a week (unless you fancy making a week's worth of one dish and eating the same thing every day, which is enough to put anybody off!) so the cost of making that change all in one go could be prohibitive for somebody on a very limited income.

Having said that, it could all be done quite easily (financially speaking) for less than an £80-a-week takeaway bill :whistle:

Rikki

Bargain_Rzl wrote: »

£80-a-week takeaway bill :whistle:

That was the bit that made me stare at the television open mouthed. ......and smoked. :eek:

Bargain_Rzl

The other factor is that to make meal planning and bulk cooking work long term, you need to be able to grasp the concept of planning, budgeting, and (in the literal sense) home economics. To be honest, I'm not convinced that the younger girl with the dark hair who had trouble reading the recipe - Claire, was it? - would have the capacity to grasp that. The two Natashas on the other hand, they seemed bright and I reckon they'd stand a good chance of pulling it off.

Fourcandles_3

Well at the risk of being flamed I left home at 15 unable to cook. My mum only had Whisky in the evenings and I would usually just hide in my room till the next morning, sometimes if she'd passed out I go and get what I could from the cupboard, usually dry cereal or a jam sandwich as I didn't want to hang around in case she woke. Dad worked as a long distance lorry driver so he was only around at weekends.

I couldn't afford to live on take aways, thankfully I had my dinner at work most days and got by on fishfingers sandwiches, and ready made lasagne type stuff in the evenings and weekends.

It was only when I was pregnant (my husband doesn't cook and neither does his mum), that I took the time to eat even remotley healthily. I honestly think it was the first time I'd had had veg in years.

Everyone says learning to cook is easy, but it's not. Or at least it wasn't for me. Can you imagine how humiliating it is having to ask the greengrocer which part of the spring onions you can eat?

Following a recipe isn't the same as understanding a recipe, not does it mean you can cook. Many recipes are overcomplicated and to be honest frightening to someone who has never even made tea before.

I really feel that just having someone spend a little bit of time now and then would have made my life so much easier. Well done Jamie Oliver. Too many of us missed out on valuable life skills and have suffered for it.

Fourcandles_3

Sorry meant to say home ec at school was for 1 hour in which time we had to prepare, cook and clean up after ourselves. I remember doing pizza on a shop bought base, and basic cakes.

I can still make these, but not exactly worth the educational time wasted.

bertiebots

Fourcandles wrote: »

Well at the risk of being flamed I left home at 15 unable to cook. My mum only had Whisky in the evenings and I would usually just hide in my room till the next morning, sometimes if she'd passed out I go and get what I could from the cupboard, usually dry cereal or a jam sandwich as I didn't want to hang around in case she woke. Dad worked as a long distance lorry driver so he was only around at weekends.

I couldn't afford to live on take aways, thankfully I had my dinner at work most days and got by on fishfingers sandwiches, and ready made lasagne type stuff in the evenings and weekends.

It was only when I was pregnant (my husband doesn't cook and neither does his mum), that I took the time to eat even remotley healthily. I honestly think it was the first time I'd had had veg in years.

Everyone says learning to cook is easy, but it's not. Or at least it wasn't for me. Can you imagine how humiliating it is having to ask the greengrocer which part of the spring onions you can eat?

Following a recipe isn't the same as understanding a recipe, not does it mean you can cook. Many recipes are overcomplicated and to be honest frightening to someone who has never even made tea before.

I really feel that just having someone spend a little bit of time now and then would have made my life so much easier. Well done Jamie Oliver. Too many of us missed out on valuable life skills and have suffered for it.

Thanks for this post fourcandles as it helps people see that you should never be too quick to judge others....not knowing how to cook is like not knowing how to do anything else if your not shown. I wouldnt expect for example a child to know how to skip because I gave it a rope.
I fear that a little smugness can creep in when commenting on other peoples "skills" but never judge someone until you have walked in their shoes is my philosophy. Well done Jamie for at least trying to help.

olly300

Rikki wrote: »

I knit, crochet and sew, but have no one to pass those skills onto.

I have son's and they both love to cook. No1 son is now cooking from scratch for the students in their student house and this makes me proud.

Pass them on to your sons or all your grandchildren whatever their sex.

While I learnt to knit and sew from family and crochet out of a book I went to a primary school where boys where taught to sew and knit as well as girls. My nephews also learnt to knit at primary school. They made a hell of a mess but took making their scarves very seriously.

Boodle

Fourcandles wrote: »

Everyone says learning to cook is easy, but it's not. Or at least it wasn't for me.

Following a recipe isn't the same as understanding a recipe, not does it mean you can cook. Many recipes are overcomplicated and to be honest frightening to someone who has never even made tea before.

I totally agree. Many recipes are overcomplicated even for those who are used to cooking IMHO. It annoys me that we have so many chefs on TV with what they say are easy recipes but still not really everyday cooking - IMO we could really do with some real homecooks on the TV just like the fabulous Mrs Patten. I get what you say about following recipes vs understanding certain cooking principles. My grandma made lovely cakes but they were a handful of ones from recipe books - she is always astounded when I do my own thing and it turns out (not that all of them are great lol) which is just knowledge gained from reading cookery books.

mumoftwo

Fourcandles wrote: »

Well at the risk of being flamed I left home at 15 unable to cook. My mum only had Whisky in the evenings and I would usually just hide in my room till the next morning, sometimes if she'd passed out I go and get what I could from the cupboard, usually dry cereal or a jam sandwich as I didn't want to hang around in case she woke. Dad worked as a long distance lorry driver so he was only around at weekends.

I couldn't afford to live on take aways, thankfully I had my dinner at work most days and got by on fishfingers sandwiches, and ready made lasagne type stuff in the evenings and weekends.

It was only when I was pregnant (my husband doesn't cook and neither does his mum), that I took the time to eat even remotley healthily. I honestly think it was the first time I'd had had veg in years.

Everyone says learning to cook is easy, but it's not. Or at least it wasn't for me. Can you imagine how humiliating it is having to ask the greengrocer which part of the spring onions you can eat?

Following a recipe isn't the same as understanding a recipe, not does it mean you can cook. Many recipes are overcomplicated and to be honest frightening to someone who has never even made tea before.

I really feel that just having someone spend a little bit of time now and then would have made my life so much easier. Well done Jamie Oliver. Too many of us missed out on valuable life skills and have suffered for it.

Thank you for sharing your story fourcandles, very moving and making us see it from someone who has been there. You are right when you say that following a recipe is not the same as understanding, especially if you have never cooked before. So well done you for teaching yourself. :T

I have bought JO book, the kids (14 and 13) showed an interest and thought since they were off school it would be cheaper and more fun to do some cooking with the book than taking them bowling, pictures etc. I told them they could choose 1 savoury and 1 sweet recipe each and I would help them through the recipe. They both took some post-it notes and marked everything they liked the sound of.

Tonight my 13 year old made the butternutsquash soup with chorizo sausage from the book (the recipe says either sweet potato or butternut squash), I made some crusty bread to go with it, it was delicious and although DD had trouble with cutting up the BNS it went well, and she was very proud.