What would you like your child to learn to cook?

[pinkrocker]

I teach food technology and textiles and I love my job!
I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts here.
Which foods would you like your child to learn to cook? Are there any particular skills you think they should know up to age 13?
Which sewing skills would you like them to learn?
I've asked my classes and they've so far said they'd like to bake cakes and make cushions
I'm thinking of updating my planning so your feedback would be great.

YYY to baking ratios.

Much as others have said really-

• Basic, easily adaptable meals
• Budgeting and portion size / meal planning
• Practical food - DS made spring rolls which in my time as an enthusiastic cook, I've never actually stirred my arse to make. The two million ways you can use mince would have been far more practical
• Not expecting parents to fork out for stuff that they don't or never will use
• Not making the kids who can cook well fanny about learning how to peel carrots (I acknowledge that's a really difficult one for teachers)
• I also think it would be nice if you did a term of say Indian food, a term of British food etc

As for sewing, my teacher eventually despaired and sent me to woodwork so I feel my input wouldn't be hugely helpful

Confidence preparing and cooking with chicken so it is well cooked, e.g chicken with veg in sauce with pasta, chicken stir fry etc. 30 min dinners that are well balanced, but primarily confidence cooking and preparing including walking up and following a recipe!
Knowing what to do in a kitchen emergency too.
Sewing on buttons, cross stitch, machine work.
Great that you are so enthusiastic and asking, thank you!

And I would say, after seeing and experiencing so many random and horrible 'veg mixes'. It's entirely possible to incorporate 5-10 different portions of fruit and vegetables in your diet without going mad. Just eat good food, think about the best way to combine things, read recipes.

Don't make a lunatic veg-e-taria.

I've also just remembered, when I was a scout leader one of the most favourite activities was Ready Steady Cook. I would buy a random selection of stuff and the teams had to answer questions to determine how many items they could pick blind.
Some of the results will live forever in my memory, but it was an excellent way to encourage creativity and confidence in the kitchen.

I am recalling some lovely memories of Home Ec in Dublin in the late 70s - we made Irish soda bread, baked fish fillet with a breadcrumb topping down the middle, lamb stew, apple crumble, and a few more dishes. I had cooking last class on Wednesday, which was a half day. The boys would be congregated outside the kitchen classroom to beg for food when we emerged. The following year's intake of boys were allowed to do Home Ec .

Food:

• chopping (takes practice)
• an entire roast with trimmings
• stir fry - including advice like only adding ingredients when oil is hot, adding garlic later so doesn’t burn
• brunch: pancakes, waffles, frittata
• home made pesto/tomato sauce/proper carbonara
• shepherds pie
• a curry from scratch
• baking - chocolate cake, brownies, pavlova (emphasising bowl must be totally oil free and how to check peaks are sufficiently stiff)
• everything todo with eggs. Omelette, soft boiled, hard boiled, how you plunge them in cold water - everything!

The crucial thing is the TIPS not just the recipe-following. Eg waiting until oven is hot - explaining the science. Why sharp knives are safer than blunt ones, how to sharpen. Why it’s crucial to beat the butter and sugar for longer than you think before adding the rest.

I am going to help my children through the essentials of the Good Housekeeping book!

I also want to teach them how to pimp up instant noodles - sesame oil, finely chopping spring onions and coriander, poached egg, suitable veg like watercress, smoked fish or leftover shredded chicken etc.

Sewing:

• the correct technique for replacing buttons eg matchstick
• best way to see name labels
• hemming
• sewing machine basics (tension, stitch size, using it to make a basic bag/cushion). Could they progress to a simple elasticated skirt?

Oh and how to steam vegetables in a hob steamer and check if they are cooked. Then they don’t really need to know how many minutes! Just the basics of cutting everything to same size, estimating time and sticking a fork in to check texture and preferred levels of done-ness! Ta da - vegetable sides for ever!

I teach teenagers.

Can you get them to research where foods come from?

I once had a conversation where a teenager said, "Uhg, who'd eat a bird?"

So I asked if she ate chicken, which she did, but didn't know it was a bird.

I've also had teenagers who didn't know soya milk and dairy milk were different things and that one came from a cow.

Also that mash and chips are both made from potatoes and do not always come frozen or in a packet.

I hated this at school, RC girls school so we had increasing amounts of 'Domestic Science' and 'Needlework' until in 3rd year (now year 9) we had a 1/2 day of DS and a 1/2 day of needlework. How much time do you have OP

I spent a term tacking a dress and then unpicking it.

One thing we did was make a skirt, which could be made in uniform colours and worn as uniform, so the parent had to pay for the material and thread but you ended up with something useful.

Assuming you have boys as well as girls they boys might not be keen on a skirt and I know trousers are more difficult.

Depending on the level of deprivation your school is in, another thing my old school did was that you could 'sell' your food to a teacher, so either you brought in the ingredients and then sold the shepherd's pie or Christmas cake to a teacher, or a teacher would bring in the ingredients, you cooked it and then handed the finished product back.

Looking back now I'm not sure the teachers actually ate the food or it was just a way of subsidising the poorer kids.

We did an awful lot of mince dishes and there was an emphasis on doing things from scratch, so using tinned food in with fresh to make something edible and economic I sometimes cook chicken with condensed mushroom soup and creme fraiche.

Could you do a 'mystery box' challenge? Obviously not week 1 of year 7. But for older kids so they learn to look in the fridge and cupboards and make something.

Sorry second to last paragraph, what I mean was if we made eg cottage pie we had to bring in mince, flour, stock cube, potatoes (unpeeled), onion butter.

Where as you could use frozen onion, or a tin of mince and onion or a packet of smash.

It may have been suggested but ‘clean up as you go’
I’d love it if they were taught to factor in a bit of time for this so that the kitchen doesn’t take ages to sort afterwards! DP I’m looking at you, let’s not pass this to the next generation!

Have a "pantry" and a price on each item
Tell the class "ok, you're at university, it's the autumn term and you have to make your evening meal. You have £1.70 maximum. Think about nutritional balance, think about cost. Plan your meal." Then the next week cook it. You can present it Like a masterchef challenge but it's also working on budgeting and balancing a dish.

I think shopping smartly and meal planning is important. Taking advantage of supermarket offers to make your money go further. Knowing they don't have to buy brand names and supermarket own is often just as good.

Basics of kitchen hygiene, keeping knives sharp, cleaning down and tidying as you go along, basic sauces and how you can use them for multiple things, batch cooking and how to freeze safely.

I think the PP idea of starting with a (theoretical?) roast and then going through ways of how to cook the different possible leftovers.
A veg of the week, and different ways it can be cooked.
White sauce and a tomato sauce would be useful for so many things.
Knife skills, including for fruit.
Sweet and savoury pastries.
Store cupboard meals and puddings

Sewing wise, buttons, relaxing stitches in a seam by hand and machine, mending holes, name tapes. How to iron a shirt properly?

You sound like a great teacher 👍

I'd spend 1 term on basic sewing.

• joining on / off
• re-fixing buttons
• sewing on badges
• turning up hems (trousers, dresses)
• name tapes / coat loops
• sewing up small tears

So many people on MN can't do this kind of stuff. Maybe also some basic knitting / crochet? If every child did a square you could make a blanket and auction it or something.

Cooking. I know this is harder as you only get 1hr max probably.

• Timing. How to do 3 things at once by planning ahead.

@SpaceDinosaur that’s a great suggestion! I’m going to do that with my daughter at home.

Thank you @DaisyDaisydoo
And thank you all for commenting.
I've got years 5-9 and I work one day a week. Basically over the year I teach all the children over a rotation, but as I have mixed classes and ages it's tricky to plan, so that next year I need a whole new scheme. I don't want them re-learning anything but safety and health and hygiene every year!

My child has been helping out in the kitchen, shopping and planning meals since early childhood. I'm quite confident with her skills in these areas but I think learning to knit or crochet would be worthwhile.

I work with young adults and many seem to be clueless about basic life skills. I think they need to know the following:-

How to wash up properly.

How to store food properly and safely.

How to read and follow instructions on ready prepared meals.

How to follow a recipe.

I would suggest teaching the use of frying, grilling, boiling and roasting.

Meals could be french toast and grilled bacon, scrambled egg on toast with fried mushrooms, cheese on toast with baked beans.
I think roast chicken breasts with mash/roast potatoes, boiled veg and gravy. Cakes and biscuits and perhaps pancakes. Rice and pasta dishes would be good too.

I know these are simple and fairly plain but many of the young adults I work with have limited diets and are not open to trying anything new.

How to make and use beeswax wraps, as a tie-in to reducing food waste.

Food hygiene - ties into wastage too as too many people don’t understand the difference between sell by, use by And best before

Knife skills - I’ve worked with teens a lot in a voluntary capacity, too many are not allowed to use knives at home and therefore aren’t taught safe, efficient knife skills

Basics that can be applied to a multitude of dishes that USED to be taught as standard:

Roux sauce (ideally the 5 french sauces but a basic roux better than nothing)

Pomodoro or marinara sauce a basic tomato sauce

Sofrito

Chocolate sauce

Gravy from scratch

Vinaigrette

Pastry basics - even just the easy ones, shortcrust, flaky and puff.

Sponge cake basics

Bread making basics

Batter making basics - can be used for pancakes, Yorkies but many other dishes use batter

Prepping skills - also ties into wastage, the hatchet job I’ve seen teens do on a pepper are quite something! If prepped properly you get the most use out of a food.

Correct storage of part used items and leftovers and ways to use them up.

Nutrients in each food and what they do for our bodies.

And yes please completely from scratch.

My home ec classes were great, my dds food tech were a joke! Far too focused on marketing and using too many convenience products especially ready made sauces which were expensive and I didn’t have in as a regular thing as I have always as a lone parent been on a tight budget and make sauces from scratch which tend to be healthier and taste better too!

I often joke on here I can’t sew to save my life but I can really I can do the basics. But there are very skilled seamstresses in the family so high standards!

But I agree with several pps the basics:

Sew on a button
Sew on a badge
Mend a tear
Darn a hole
Repair a small whole in knitwear
Hem skirts and trousers
Replace a zip

Can I add to all the great suggestions -

How to read clothing washing labels and the basics of washing / drying different types of clothes

A lot of cooking suggestions...

How about looking at diff diet styles?
Vegetarian, vegan, active person v inactive person, cooking for a diabetic, low fat / sugar meals? I
Also, nobody suggested cooking with pulses - they are doo cheap and versatile with a great nutritional value.

Our cookery programme (Swedish state secondary, 1970s) was actually brilliant. It was taught on the assumption that everybody, male and female, would need to be able to cook economic and nutritious meals. So we were taught knife skills, peeling and cooking vegetables, preparing fish, browning and sautéing ingredients, making gravy and sauces from scratch. We were taught to bake both bread and cakes, but in a country where shop-bought bread is very expensive that was a perfectly reasonable thing to learn.
While the food was cooking we sat down and discussed the economics and nutrition of it.

Food safety was part of it too iirc.

I think some basics like different ways to cook eggs would be really useful, because teaching them to follow a recipe is one thing but how to boil an egg etc you are just sort of expected to know, its not a recipe. I think it's harder learning that sort of thing if you aren't shown as there aren't really instructions/recipes. It's also a great way to make a quick, healthy, filling and cheap meal

The problem is that they wouldn't be taking something home with them, so would parents begrudge the eggs? Could they have it for lunch that day? Could you buy a pack of eggs and demonstrate instead of them doing it themselves?

Boiled, poached, scrambled, fried, omelette