Economy Gastronomy - new budget cookery programme; BBC

rosieben

CLARABEL wrote: »

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It's very easy to criticise the teacher when in fact, the time constraints ( often 1 1 hour lesson in a week only!) and lack of facilities available cause a lot of the problems.
schools are always looking for people to help, and I think teaching the basics could be something more people offer to help out with....we could show everyone a thing or two!! Clara.x

I agree, domestic/cooking skills arent given anywhere near enough prioirity in the curriculum; in the early 60's we used to have a whole afternoon (1 - 4pm) DS and a double lesson besides; we were taught to plan meals, budget, nutrition, care of invalids (not medical stuff), making beds and cleaning (in a small room with a bed next to ds room), sewing and knitting etc. Cookery was sometimes a complete meal which would be our lunch for that day.

The boys did woodwork and metalwork and gardening sometimes, these subjects should be taught also to help with home maintenance etc.

We needn't be sexist about this either, we had a boy in our cookery class who went on to become a chef and (caused a few ripples of shock at first) one of the girls chose to do metalwork

I'll get off my soapbox now

ALIBOBSY

When I was at school during the first year you rotated through those sort of practical subjects, so both boys and girls had a go at woodwork and metalwork (CDT), sewing classes, home economics and "life skills" which included budgeting and an overview of the adult world such s writing cheques, work and taxes, benefits etc. Thinking back it never went far enough and needed to be more MSE, but it was a start.

We then got to choose which subjects you did the next year, most girls chose home ec and or sewing, but some did CDT. Most lads did CDT but I remember a few doing home ec and at least 1 doing needlework.

I remember having one of those baskets with the material cover on to take ingredients in.
I remember doing bread making by hand, pigs in blankets, stews,spag bol,sheps pie, salads, biscuits and various cakes.

Now I am only 37, so either my teachers/school were very good or something drastic happened after I left school lol.

My son goes up to high school (same one actually lol) and I spoke to a neighbour whose DD is there already and is 13. She reckons they do make proper meals and stuff from scratch, in fact it has saved her making a tea on a few occasions. When we went for the open day they were makig home made pizzas (with home made bases and sauce), little buns and they had a chocolate fountain with chopped up fruit, marshmellows, and bits of homemade cake (not completely cooking with the fountain, but yummy anyway lol).

ali x

Floxxie

Actually whether or not the lessons taught at schools are adequate, are quite irrelevant if that child is not going to continue and build on what they have learnt. I went to a school where we were given cookery lessons. I have always cooked from scratch but my best friend at school wouldn't be seen dead doing it.Even today she considers fast food the way forward.

PasturesNew

At my school, cooking/needlework was done in the 3rd year... and I changed schools. At my 2nd school they were done in the first two years. So I missed it in both schools; at the 2nd school there was some cookery in the 3rd year - but you had to pay for the ingredients and so I had to just watch. In the 4th year I had to choose O level subjects - and I ran out of options/ideas so picked needlework, but was thrown out as I'd never done it before and it was an O level class.... I was then chucked into the group of wayward lads doing car maintenance... which was great as I was handy when I got my own car a few years later.

freakyogre

Floxxie wrote: »

Actually whether or not the lessons taught at schools are adequate, are quite irrelevant if that child is not going to continue and build on what they have learnt. I went to a school where we were given cookery lessons. I have always cooked from scratch but my best friend at school wouldn't be seen dead doing it.Even today she considers fast food the way forward.

I agee with this.

Cookery at my school consisted of pizzas (we did make the base) biscuits, cakes, bread and that's all I can remember. We did seem to make a lot of biscuits! I'm 24 so it wasn't that long ago.

I don't like ready meals and have had about 3 takeaways since leaving home around 20 months ago. I prefer cooking from scratch (or as best I can) - i'm not a great cook/chef but do like to experiment with recipes.

I could have quite easily gone down the ready meal route as live on my own, so sometimes would be easier, but i'm really not keen on them. Takeaways to me are a treat, so my next one will be when I think I deserve it

NickiM

Chilli - the smaller ones are the hottest
Food technology - I just did this at years 7-9, and I know at least for year 7, all I made was cookies!

rosieben

Floxxie wrote: »

Actually whether or not the lessons taught at schools are adequate, are quite irrelevant if that child is not going to continue and build on what they have learnt. I went to a school where we were given cookery lessons. I have always cooked from scratch but my best friend at school wouldn't be seen dead doing it.Even today she considers fast food the way forward.

very true, but it might have meant we didn't see the 'is the water boiling when it bubbles' kind of question that we've seen on the 'let's teach the people to cook' progs

freebiequennie

husband taped this for me as I was driving to babysit whilst it was on and when we had watched it thursday night he said to me would love to see if they could save us money when we had just had some sausages for dinner costing about 50p for 8 (96% pork - whoopsie), new potatoes - home grown (from a free kit just paid £4 postage), roasted peppers (half of each colour in 3 pack from aldi 49p) and some petit pois (abour 30p) so our meal totalled about £1!!!

Think the programme is a good idea as many people do still overspend and waste alot of money and food because they have got into the habit or because they dont know better.

We are good at buying reduced meat, using butchers and buying when on offer, we have a very varied diet, we do buy meat also at full price but when its something we really want as a treat such as organic outdoor bred pork belly joint for sunday lunch.

hopefully this programme will help some families see the light.

geordie_joe

Floxxie wrote: »

Actually whether or not the lessons taught at schools are adequate, are quite irrelevant if that child is not going to continue and build on what they have learnt.

Yes, but you have no way of knowing which ones will build on the cooking lesson and which ones will not.

"Some will not continue to cook when they leave school" is no excuse for inadequate cookery lesson.

blueberrypie

cw18 wrote: »

I rarely have fresh fruit in the house - but I do have loads of tinned (in juice).

We eat fresh fruit in such fits and starts that I end up binning more than half when I buy it - regardless of how little I buy unless I walk to the shops to buy one piece when I really fancy some. Over the years it's been the single food category that's generated the largest amount of waste from us :eek:

It's completely the opposite here - fresh fruit is the one thing I'm always running out of. It doesn't seem to matter how much I buy - and I buy a *lot* - within a couple of days, the kids have scoffed it.

I've never managed to get into the habit of eating it myself, but I'm really glad they did :-)