I'm a bit miffed about this Food Tech ingredients list

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

Not feeling brave enough for AIBU, and I'm sure the teacher has her reasons, but this is what DS needs to take to school next week. He's 14/Y9, do not into GCSE course yet, and food tech isn't one on his options. Also, he has food tech after lunch, and has to carry his cooking around for the rest of the day, as the fridges are full of heat the morning lessons have made. OK for scones, but for chicken?

Here is the offending ingredients list:

Thai Green Curry - 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, 80g sugar snap peas, 2 small chicken breasts, 30ml Thai green curry paste. 200ml coconut milk, ½ lime, small bunch coriander.

My concerns - there's about £8 worth of stuff there, many of which (curry paste, coconut milk, coriander) come in bigger packs than required. That doesn't seem to be considerate of the CoL crisis - it's a big standard academy comp in a not-particularly affluent area.

Also - no veggie alternative ingredients offered - so half our household wouldn't eat the results anyway.

DS is not matey enough with anyone in his FFT class to suggest sharing ingredients. Expensive ingredients!

I'm delighted that the school is teaching the kids to make something other than scones and pizza, but there are so many cheaper curries to mark in an hour! They could start by making the curry paste! Or school providing (and charging for) the ingredients the kids won't need need "all" of.

(DS's previous school/DD's school charge for all FFT and RMT ingredients and materials at the start of the year, abs supply everything. I appreciate limited kitchen space doesn't always make this possible).

Phew. Gravy. Brown sauce is what’s in an HP Sauce bottle, and I would rather maintain its mystique.

Can you send frozen quorn pieces instead of chicken? Cheaper and will
Slowly defrost all morning

I trained as a 'Domestic Science' teacher . I loved the job. I taught in a girls school and all students were very enthusiastic. Then School Leaving Age was raised to 16, then I moved to a mixed school where 'Design' was THE subject and art, woodwork, HE, textiles , metalwork and pottery were taught on a modular basis, so immediately the content of each subject was severely diluted. Then lo and behold along came the National Curriculum, with nationally recognised levels of achievement. Certain subjects fitted within the Design and Technology framework well, but there was a problem with HE. It didn't quite fit within D/T but there was only a small amount of space left within the curriculum and certain members of 'the Upper houses of Parliament' wanted RE to be in....so HE was in fact fitted into the D/T framework, but it was now transformed into Food Technology. As such it was more concerned with the food industry (recipe standardisation, replication, portion control, Nutritional value per 100g and so on. All very interesting but not really what the average y9 student wants to know. Gradually though the wheel has turned again and just before I retired so years ago I had persuaded the Head to offer HE for GCSE instead of Food Tech.
What a lot of wasted time.

This used to irritate me a little but more due to the portion sizes they were making. Why couldn't they plan a meal for a family of four, for example. So at least the food would feed the family on the day they made it. One portion of the food was neither use nor ornament in our house as our son would never eat what he'd made on his own anyway.

This post made me laugh. I went to school in the 90s and I’d casually wander downstairs at about 9pm at night and say ‘Mum I’m making moussaka in Home Economics first thing. I need the ingredients.’ She’d go mad. This was the days before supermarkets were open for 24 hours. We regularly frantically stopped by the little mini market asking for wholemeal flour, fairy cake cases and yeast about 8am on the way to school.

I don’t think you could get those ingredients for under a tenner personally. The chicken alone would be a fiver.

I'm surprised you didn't have to pay for ingredients TBH. Schools just don't have the budget to provide ingredients for food tech.

I took O level and A level Home Economics, and my mum used to complain about the expense, especially for A level when we had 8 dish assignments to do. However, we did eat very well out of it.

@IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads I'm surprised that there is no veggie option suggested. Would some quorn "chicken" pieces do? I'm also surprised that the school doesn't buy a few jars of curry paste and charge for the small amounts used. Tesco sell the Island brand of coconut milk which is much cheaper than other more well known brands BTW.

I see your point .My DM was always put out by having to buy extra food .I vividly remember my DS doing a veggie meal which we had to buy lots of things for.The point is often young people do not cook very much.Hence Takeouts which are expensive and not healthy. If its only once in a couple of weeks I dont see the problem .Obv should not be expected of premium pupils,but it is a good thing in general.(Not sure of Non chilled Chicken though!)

Surely ALL vegetarians know how to adapt a recipe to suit?

I remember doing cauliflower cheese-oh goodness more than 40yrs ago!

Forgot to tell mum & took in defrosted cauliflower pieces instead of a whole one.

Was told off because the whole aesthetics was ruined apparently!

Ridiculous.

For cheese sauce now I melt butter, bung in flour & milk, whisk, whisk, whisk & then add cheese.

Easy & always works!

@RosesAndHellebores I was baffled by "brown sauce" too.
But to answer your follow up question - no I don't ever make gravy cos it's horrible stuff 🤣

I would find a roast too dry without gravy, even with lovely moist meat I still want a nice savoury gravy.

@ginlovingqueen I don't eat much meat but used to make a lasagna using Quorn or soya mince. Unfortunately both seem to disagree with me now. I don't really know what to use as an alternative so not "all vegetarians know how to adapt a recipe".

@RampantIvy I don't eat roasts either (or cook them) 🤣

@potatowhale what is the actual benefit of getting them to design food though when half of them probably can’t boil an egg properly?

Thai vegetable curry isn't mysterious or unusual though

@ginlovingqueen yes but I would need someone to teach me how to adapt a curry if I was learning cooking in a cooking class. Curries aren't something we eat in my house but I might be interested in trying one. However if the recipe starts with "chicken" I would be "Err....ok. What will work as an alternative?".

@Needmorelego - this is a delicious veggie lasagne recipe - worth a go:

www.maryberry.co.uk/recipes/veg/veggie-lasagne-with-mushrooms-and-tomato-1

I agree. I think it was couscous that i have over 3dc bought 3 packets that were out of date by the time the next one needed to use it. Waste of money and food.

Only thing I think you may not be able to use out of the ingredients and have some left over is Thai green curry paste. But think it in the positive way. Your dc may want to make it again. Even if not, you can use them quite easily, if you open your minds. Spread it on the meat before you cook. You can easily make salad etc with ethnic twist.
Cooking is really easy once you know what to use. And it will make your life, especially the kids life better. Be positive. And those paste etc is meant to make it easier. So what if you need to buy something that is relatively cheap, just experiment with it. Or if you have access to internet, as I imagine you do since you are on MN, just look up.
If you are really struggling that you struggle to provide for food tech ingredients for your dc, it's a different story. But just because you think it's pointless, it really isn't. It can make the life of children so much better, to expose them to something that they couldn't at home.

@CorsicaDreaming ooh thanks 🙂

@RampantIvy

I'm surprised you didn't have to pay for ingredients TBH. Schools just don't have the budget to provide ingredients for food tech

I wonder if it's a Scottish thing.

I never laid as a child and I don't now as a parent. And I haven't heard of paying for this before.

If it's in the curriculum it's provided.

Any other Scots pay for this sort of thing at school?

Those ingredients are quite expensive. However, in your position I would substitute the chicken with tofu or Quorn (cheaper and you can all eat it), and try to share with a friend for some of the other ingredients such as curry paste, lime, coconut and coriander. That should cut down the cost quite a bit. At least they are learning to cook a proper meal, which is an important life skill.

It's pretty usual to have curry paste in your cupboard as a staple. A bit of that in a little pot would be fine.

Fair enough about the chicken. Just give your kid more vegetables to take and make it a veggie Thai curry.

I now want Thai curry, so for that YABU.

We are by no means struggling financially compared to some, but I would still consider that an excessive amount for ingredients for school. I appreciate that it’s good to teach young people a variety of skills. But we spend roughly £60 on groceries for a family of 5 living at home… that would be a fairly substantial addition (and/or portion) of that budget and would miff me a bit too. It also shows very little consideration for families who may struggle to come up with that money.

One of the reasons I love my dcs school is that you make a contribution at the start of the year and this covers the ingredients needed for food tech. No last minute ingredient lists and they usually just get to bring home a portion (mine normally eat it in class/lunch)