My experience was the same as yours, MrsPear.
I found it extremely useful and also learned some practical cookery that I'm still grateful for eg making bread, marmalade, all types of pastry - although the puff pastry lesson was the first and last time I made it. Still, it's nice to know I could.
And we were ahead of the times!
For the practical O level exam there were 4 scenarios divided randomly among the pupils (mine involved baking a loaf of bread among other things and I forgot the salt 
).
Another pupil had to choose a new recipe from a cookery book and chose "Cheese Curry". "Ugh!" we all thought, but, of course, paneer is a common ingredient now.
Then she used cheddar...
Given the choice, I would have rather done another language than home ec. but one of our groups of choices was: Home Economics/Needlework/Art/Woodwork. HE and Needlework were almost exclusively female choices, Woodwork exclusively male in my year and Art was more mixed.
We did have one boy in my HE class who was very good. He must have been quite motivated to put up with the teasing from some of the other boys and I often wonder if he became a chef or something.
Food Technology, as it became known, was still going when my daughters (now in their 20s) were at school.
I remember having to buy a jar of mixed herbs for their spaghetti bolognese and explaining that I'd usually select the herbs I wanted (eg oregano and basil) rather than put in a random selection.
I guess, though, that might have been to keep the expense down as parents still provided ingredients then.
My old teacher has become well known to DH due to situations where he eg carries a kettle of boiling water across the kitchen and I point out that "Mrs-Price-cookery* always said 'Take the mug to the kettle!'"
*It was a Welsh school.