Domestic science atrocity.

[WingBingo]

DS12 cooked food for the first time at school today

This is what the teacher thought was a good idea for them to cook. It really is the end of a loaf, covered in tomato sauce and sprinkled with grated cheese.

I do wonder what was going through their mind when they decided this was a good idea.

Yum.

Hahaha, that's a classic!

My first cooking lesson in primary school, aged 6, was a stuffed baked apple!

He burnt the toast though…🤷🏻‍♀️

However, I would still eat it. Never like to see a crust go to waste 🍞

My first cooking lesson, 1 packet angel delight, I think the creamy stuff on top was instant whip, topped with coloured sugar strands.
Bloody lovely 70's pudding.

Fair point @WhiskTaker

Had I applied some critical thinking here, it would have made some sense.

The only get an hour so that’s a lot to do with 30 odd pupils.

He’s been asked to bring in a carrot, celery and a pepper next week. Knife skills I would imagine.

My 70s cookery classes were called domestic science. First actual lesson involving food was stuffed tomatoes and I remember we also made a pressure cooked beef stew. Never made either of those things since. Putting sauce and cheese on a piece of bread is extremely pathetic.

Well I'm old so my first lesson at school was scones, which I'd been baking at home for years. When I did my O Level we had to do a three course meal and I made French onion soup, lamb cutlets with spring vegetables and a fruit savarin.

That would make sense if schools were teaching kids to cut up fruit at 4 years old, at the same time they're learning the letters. No one assesses an average 12 year old to check if they can count to 10. That would be seriously worrying, to have a society where lots of 12 years old can't count. But for some reason people are not alarmed that 12 years old may not know how to make toast. That's depressing.

The first thing we ever cooked in food technology as it was then, was a vegetable rice pilaf. Simple healthy, nutritious

I think we were lucky with both of our two. Ds started off with two learning how to prepare fruit and veg lessons. lesson 1 was the ubiquitous fruit salad and lesson 2 was vegetabe soup.

Dd was even better. One of the first meals she learnt to make was sticky barbecue chicken. A meal she continued to make for herself (with the addition of spinach and rice) for years to come.

My kid made something similar in Year 1 in primary! Maybe the teacher helped with the oven though then.

But that's the reason for having classes in secondary school. There's an awareness that some children might not learn basic cooking skills at home. There's an awareness that some of their parents might not have the financial resources or time or knowledge themselves to teach them. Hence the classes. I guess you could start the lessons at 4 but TBH time is limited and if it's a choice between a child learning to count at 4 years old and learning to make toast at 12, or a child learning to make toast at 4 and only learning to count at 12 I'd take the former. So because children start learning formally how to cook at 11/12 the lessons start with the basics. Just like if children start formally learning to read at 4 the lessons start with the basics.

If people's children are already cooking at an adult level at 12 then that's great for them. But I don't see why you would rue the fact they aren't cooking complicated menus in their very first lesson. Apparently they are already doing this at home so what value would that add?

I think we have to agree to disagree. I think it's concerning that some children haven't learned the basics by 12, because their parents probably never learnt either. Also, the classes don't start with the basics and progress to the complicated, do they? Are kids capable of baking cakes and making roasts by the end? Or planning a weekly menu? Or do they finish the course still unable to feed themselves properly?

Our class (mid 70s) was split in half. One half did cookery while the other half did needlework, for a term each, turn about.

The other half of the class had the winter term and would make Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies loads of hot meals. My half was the summer term and we made fruit salad. Cheese salad. I think we made a jam tart once and that was as close as we got to cooking.

Good job my mum hated cooking so much that I learned self-defensive cookery at an early age at home.

We had just toast for our very first lesson - aged 13!!

Teacher’s like “fuck it! End of the school year innit” 😂

I don't know the OPs child's curriculum. But making sponge cakes is actually quite easy. It's follow the instructions, weigh the ingredients, mix in the right order, cook for the right amount of time. There is no reason actually you couldn't follow a lesson on making cheese on toast with a lesson in making a cake. The principles are the same. You are just building on them (and need to be more precise because cake).

Roasts are way harder, because they involve timings and lots of different elements and (usually) clever use of oven space. I doubt also that a home ed class would have the time since even a 2 hour lesson would be a struggle when you factor in actual oven time. But learning to to do roasts is something people can do when they go to university or set up home with a partner and it's a lot easier when you already have the basics to hand (there are some really good recipe books which will take you step by step how to cook a roast. So long as you can follow a recipe). It's confidence, and knowing how to time things and clean up as you go and use common sense and check that food tastes OK and keeping an eye to stop it burning. All of which can be most effectively taught by starting doing those skills with "simple" meals

Meal planning and budgeting is a whole separate skill and can absolutely be taught via things like cheese on toast. Actually knowing how to cook simple, cheap meals is more important when starting out in the world as young adults because usually resources are constrained. If you only know how to cook one thing it's more useful if that thing is cheese and tomato on toast than salmon wellington.

The first time my dh cooked a roast for us all, I left detailed, precise instructions of what went where and when he needed to start cooking everything.

I can't remember the last time I cooked a roast, he always does them now.

The trick to learning to cook is following the instructions, a good recipe will work 99.9% of the time if followed properly. It's amazing how many badly written recipes are out there though, they make assumptions that ghe reader knows why certain steps are needed so omit them bake off style.

That’s appalling. No wonder the younger generation resort to garbage processed food if they haven’t been taught to cook either at school or at home. They don't need lessons in food marketing. I hope things improve!

For contrast we did tea and toast aged about six in Brownies. By 12 I was cooking steak, veg and a simple sauce. In DS ( upper third) we learned to do all the different types of pastry, savoury flans, victoria sponge, cakes, crumbles, biscuits etc. All without a food processor. It has all stayed with me and I love to cook still. We also had to draw a cross section of the plumbing of a sink, for some reason!

Early to mid 1970’s.

Blimey, the first thing we made in Home Economics back in 1978 was Macaroni Cheese with a Roux sauce from scratch.

In my first Home Ec lesson back in the 80s, we had the choice of fruit salad or coleslaw. Somebody put carrot in their fruit salad.

Ditto and ditto.

I don't suppose you remember the recipe for the chocolate and banana crumble? That is something I would like to try ....

Dh once had a chocolate and banana Cornish pasty, @LadyAddle - he still reminisces wistfully about it. One day, maybe, I’ll buy some puff pastry and make it again for him. I suspect he would like the thought of a chocolate and banana crumble too.

A man after my own heart! I've got some puff pastry in the fridge, you've given me ideas.

Can't remember what we made first when I was at school but I do remember a very memorable lesson making pastry, mine was so dry the teacher chucked it in a bowl and stuck the whole lot under the tap saying "never do this with pastry, class" 😂 It came out grey!

To be fair I never did get the hang of it and always buy ready-rolled!