Kids cooking at school AARGH!

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

salome wrote: »

I'm 50, and my school, though rubbish on the accademic status, was excellent in the practical side of lessons, and HE was taken very seriously, as was needlework. Infact, the most feared teachers, other than maths teachers, were the HE ones, and needlework ones.

We had a very rigid cooking routine, which, at the time put me off of cooking, but now, I'm glad to have had those lessons, because I can still remember them (how to make puff, and flaky pastry, though I don't do this now a days) I came more into my own with cooking when I married, and had children, and now, I'm eternally grateful for those lessons.

We would spend a whole term on a certain aspect of ccoking. ie pastry, bread, cake etc. We spent a whole term on menu planning. Every lesson, we started off writing a time plan. ie 9 o clock, take out utensils (lol) I used to find that pathetic, but we were not allowed to start cooking until the plan had been written, and all utensils were on the table infront of us.

In our first cooking year, we had to cook meals for the teachers, and my very first term was spent leaning how to boil, scramble, fry and poach eggs.

When we did pastry, we had to take our crumbed mixture to the teacher to see, before we added the water, and cake mixture had to be checked before put in tins or cases.

Needlework was a horror house as well lol. One teacher I had, would rip your stitches out if they weren't straight, and that included tacking as well.

Your'e in the same era as me then,I'm 53.I used to love my domestic science lessons.We covered everthing even laundry,spring cleaning,first aid and looking after the sick.We even had a flat attached to the unit that girls would take turn in, you had to take down and launder curtains,change bedding,do ironing ect.
I just think it realy odd that the teachers nowadays don't start with basics such as pastry making,prefering to buy ready made instead.It's hardly teaching them to cook is it.

salome

We didn't have a flat, but we did cover all the housekeeping aspects, and a couple of us, for a term, after our cookery lesson had to do the cookery classes washing, all the tea towels etc. At the end of the summer term, all the tins, and baking trays were turned out of the cupboards, and everything was thoroughly cleaned.

mum2many

Salome and Mrs Tittlemouse I think it should be like this now for boys and girls. It will certainly prove useful in later life even if not appreciated whilst in school.

vivw_2

salome wrote: »

We didn't have a flat, but we did cover all the housekeeping aspects, and a couple of us, for a term, after our cookery lesson had to do the cookery classes washing, all the tea towels etc. At the end of the summer term, all the tins, and baking trays were turned out of the cupboards, and everything was thoroughly cleaned.

That could never happen now as you'd get all the parents complaining that the kids aren't there to clean!!

sparrer

Some of these stories make me wince, but I remember back in the 50's when we had DS lessons (fondly? known as dommie sci) our teacher taught us to make bread...lessons always covered at least one afternoon when it was something which took a while to make. She said never have a bought loaf in your house and you'll always be a good cook - she was later spotted in the local grocery shop with a wrapped loaf lurking in her shopping bag :rolleyes:

Many years later my younger DD brought home the ingredient list for lemon meringue pie. Two of the items were a ready-made pastry case, and a packet of Greens lemon meringue mix:eek:. That was bad enough, but Miss Head-in-the-clouds wasn't much for listening so she whisked the two packs together and put them in the pastry case. She didn't get any points for effort, but surprisingly it was pretty good! :rotfl:

jennet1

our home ec was hopeless, homemade lemonade and packaging a cereal bar are all I can remember... didnt take it for GCSE as I learnt at home mostly self taught from the millions ao cookbooks my parents had. I have vivid memories as a 13 year old having to prepere dinner for the whole family during school hols, my Mum leaving a note to " do something interesting with mince!!"

Olliebeak

My sister and I went to two different senior schools.

Sis did Dom Sc but I didn't. Consequently by the time we had both left school, my cooking was the family joke but sis had become a whizz in the kitchen and still is today.

Lesson No.1 for sister was to take a clean hanky into school to be washed, dried and ironed! While they were drying (on the heating pipes I think), they needed to write out the list of 'what to bring' for the following week.

That consisted of an apple, an orange, a banana and a pear and a small amount of sugar. The result was one home-made fruit salad in light syrup! They'd had to peel and prepare all the fruit properly (removing the pips etc), shown how to remove the pith from an orange and how to keep the fruit from going brown by sprinkling with lemon juice. Then make the light-syrup by dissolving the sugar in some water and reducing before allowing to cool and being poured over the fruit salad.

We all got a spoonful of the fruit salad with sister getting an extra one for making it!

Lots of other goodies followed - fairy cakes, pancakes, cottage pie, 'proper whisked' sponge cake - though I do remember many an early morning scramble to get ingredients together.

Her 'O' level exam consisted of planning, cooking and serving a three-course menu for a meal for two, which had to be served onto a correctly set table. By the time she took the exam, she had been working as a waitress at a very high-class local restaurant at weekends for about a year - bit of a doddle for her really .

Desperate_Housewife_2-2

wow! so many replies to this thread and it all makes interesting reading. I reckon us OSers should all come forward as cookery teachers! I feel so much better knowing that I'm not alone in feeling bemused by the whole thing.

Mariel

Olliebeak that's exactly what I had to do although I'd forgotten until I read your post. To be fair I think I was let down on the written exam more than the practical - I was never any good at writing things down.

salome

Those good old days eh ???!!!! When my daughter did food tech. at school, I was horrified by what they called cookery lessons. She took her GCSE in it, and got a D. She's a head chef now in a busy local hotel lol.

I can remember making fruit salad. Having to peel the grapes lol. Don't do that now. I tell my lot all the vitamins are in the skins :-) I do the same with carrots as well. I remember washing a hankie, and doing the list for the following week as well. Then a couple of weeks after that, we were promoted to washing and ironing a tea towel :-) And bread term, well. Put me off of making bread for years. My brother's a master baker, and he was doing his apprenticeship when we had a bread term, when I took my poor looking bread rolls home, he laughed, and said they'd make good doorstops, or better still cricket balls :-( Very dissalusioning, even if it was true, lol. I did go on to enjoy making bread, especially when fast acting yeast came on the shelves :-) Made a lot of difference to the results of my bread :-) Now of course, I use my bread maker, and when my baker bro visits, I make him a loaf, and he loves it :-)