To expect to at least be able to eat what dd2 has cooked, seeing as it cost me £10 for the stuff ??

[TheOriginalNutcracker]

ARGH bloody cooking lessons.

Dd2 was doing chicken tikka. So, £10 of ingrediants later and off to school she trots.

She's just come home and said that they couldn't get the lid to fit on her tupperware container and so the teacher is just going to chuck it. The lid does bloody fit, it's just stiff and surely the teacher had something else that dd could have used if not.

£10 down the drain, just like that.

[ArtfulAardvark]

Oh I had to laugh when I saw this thread so far this term DS has made

Flapjacks - we never saw them as they were dropped on the floor

Pasta sauce - I drove way out of my way to get "bacon Lardons" as its not something we can get in the village then we had to cook the bacon at home (after it sitting in his bag all day) as they "didnt have time". He was told off as the recipe said "maybe garlic" and I supplied "garlic oil" which apparently wasnt good enough. It had NO HERBS IN IT (UGH) so we added basil and oregano!

Muffins - the vague recipe said chocolate chips and "a fruit" DS only eats pineapple and orange so I chopped up fresh pineapple. They tasted nice but most of them went in the bin as they werent cooked enough and were like chocolate pineapple sludgy pancakes. DS said they "looked great" when they came out of the oven...well d'oh im sure they did but they werent cooked enough (is teaching them how to know that that not the point of the lesson?)

Despite baking successfully at least twice a week I have been informed my scales are "out" by a couple of grams.

Oh and he's regularly helped me in the kitchen, he enjoys cooking, so not a complete beginner!

I am aghast at the thought of tomato soup in a curry, paste is OK as who the hell wants to be mixing up spices every time you make a curry.

[ArtfulAardvark]

"I saved the tiny jam jars you get with cream teas to use for things like oil"

oh that sounds like a good reason to go to cafe rouge, they give you tiny pots of jam and honey!

[Calabria]

I remember Mum sending me to school (1970s) with the ingredients for a chicken casserole minus the chicken. We had no income at the time as Dad was retraining and we were living on savings and a loan from my grandfather. We just didn't have the money to buy extra meat. The teacher wasn't happy.

Then when I'd made the chickenless casserole I turned round to see one of my class mates tipping the veggies into her casserole dish. She'd got confused (dippy mare) and thought it was hers. So I went home with nothing. Mum was furious, she was relying on the cooked vegetables for supper.

[AnitaManeater]

YANBU I got fed up with my DS's creations being thrown in the bin by the food tech teacher (he apparently put too much cheese on a pizza so it was binned) so I rang the school and said he would not be participating in the practical sessions. We are in an IVA and cannot budget for that amount of waste

[phantomnamechanger]

Can I just say, my DDs food tech teacher is fantastic - even though I have never met her. I am impressed by the range of things they make, and the range of homworks they are set on things like food airmiles, nutritional value, adapting a recipe for a lactose intolerant/vegan/diabetic etc.

i am appalled by all this waste and expensive meals that wont/cant be eaten, because they are not stored correctly or cooked thoroughly enough.

DD is in Y8 and so far this yr has made PIZZA (including the base), SCONES, CHEESECAKE, VICTORIA SANDWICH, OWN CHOICE OF FRUIT RECIPE (for which she did a crumble) and tomorrow its OWN CHOICE OF MEAL WITH CARB PLUS PROTEIN (SHES DOING A CHEESE AND VEG QUICHE, which is our dinner sorted)

ALL OF THE THINGS SHE HAS DONE IN y7/8 HAVE BEEN EDIBLE and nice
The ingredients are stored in fridges before use, and they are put in fridges once cooled to be collected at home time (if relevant)

They are also fantastic about looking after her - she is coeliac and very sensitive to even the slightest trace of wheat - so all the equipment in her work station is dishwasher washed before her using it, just in case some lazy blighter has not washed up carefully. I get all the recipes at the start of term, and can make the necessary adaptations and provide alternative recipe/method as necessary.
On one day a previous class had been making bread, they got DD to work in a separate side room with her very own cover supervisor because there was not time to do a thorough clean of worksurfaces. the teacher even changed her chefs tunic before coming out to speak to DD
My only gripe is she has food tech on the same day she needs her art folder and PE bag, plus her clarinet lesson, so she can barely carry it all!

[ravenAK]

My favourite lesson at school was Fluffy Egg.

Whisk egg white, dollop onto toast, drop yolk in middle & grill to make a sort of tasteless meringue with scorched but runny yolk in the centre.

The following week, Valentine Egg.

Cut heart shape from bread with cutter, fry, drop egg into heart shaped hole to fry.

I don't like eggs.

[mamamibbo]

we made toast and a brew
baked potato (in microwave)
tuna and mushroom soup pasta bake
bread that was raw in the middle
pizza base that i still make
pineapple upside down cake

best bit of home ec was the teacher going into the store room for 'a drink of water' and getting merrier and merrier, she was ace if you had her in the afternoon, she was sacked in the end tho

[ZebraOwl]

Oh no what a pity & a waste - can completely understand not feeling able to challenge her teacher about chucking it away & don't think you'd be unreasonable to contact the teacher in question to point out it was a massive waste of good food & your money & ask if they could consider having a contingency plan for if someone's container breaks/turns out to be too small/has a really stiff lid (etc blah).

I had to do Home Economics once a fortnight Y7-9 & it was miserable. I learned nothing useful; I wasn't allowed to adapt recipes to meet my dietary needs; and it was an additional faff to sort out all the ingredients etc. I was already doing some of the cooking for my family by the time I started secondary school & would have welcomed the chance to learn how to make suitable simple meals. Instead I got random bits of food hygiene advice & most of my time went on "projects" that involved making cakes & biscuits - yummy, but I'd been doing that since I was a tiny & Proper Cooking would've been far more useful! At GCSE Level things did improve: the focus was on Making Actual Meals & doing so from scratch (in fairness they'd more time than the 1h45 Y7-9 got per lesson). They also used to cook for the staff on a semi-regular basis, along with the BTEC catering & hospitality students: the school had a little "restaurant" where the brave teaching staff took turns at being guinea pigs being customers. My sister did the GCSE course (& in fact got a part-time job off the back of doing it) & got a lot out of it (as did those who could eat what she'd made!) but what she'd done in Y7-9 had been no help in preparing her for it!

[joanbyers]

Making curry with curry paste is slatternly.

Why can't they buy all the raw ingredients (cumin seeds, coriander seeds, coconut milk, curry leaves, cinnamon sticks, onion, chili, garlic, etc.) en masse and do it properly?

Curry paste my arse.

[Greensleeves]

I think the teacher should give you your fucking money back! How dare she bin £10 worth of food you paid for and your dd cooked?!?!

Am a teacher, btw. So not teacher-bashing, just appalled.

[nokidshere]

Well first of all I would check that that is really what happened to the curry ;)

My son's food tech lessons have been good so far. A nice mixture of foods, reasonably edible, with lots of different choices for different palates. The recipes always say they can be adapted to suit which means we just use what I have in if its a pasta/curry type dish.

However, after many years of working with young people I would never eat food that has been prepared in a classroom hahaha

[Morloth]

When I was in high school our food prep class was the two periods before lunch. We would cook it and then eat it at lunch time.

Also they just had a charge for ingredients that week - if you couldn't eat it, you didn't have to pay and could just bring your lunch and help out other people doing the cooking.

Made sense.

[bigTillyMint]

Well, I'm beginning to feel pretty lucky - the DC have only ever had to take in a few "extra's" - like nuts to put in brownies - as their school provides all the ingredients. And the containers to bring them home in.

Only I never got to taste anything DD made as she scoffed it all for (extra) lunch. DS is better, though he has to trust DD to bring his creations home when he has a match the same night as food tech!

My first cookery lessons were cheese on toast and blancmange IIRC!

[TellMeLater]

Am surprised by the waste of food but the was a poor decision made on the spur of the moment by one individual but what the hell is with the shit ingredients for a curry. Canned Tomato Soup - they are kidding? Not surprised kids leave school incapable of cooking when they are encouraged to use processed food at school. Bloody food tech - who's stupid idea was that, bring back cooking!

[lostconfusedwhatnext]

The teachers are saying they only have an hour to make a dish, but actually, irl an hour is AGES. If they are going to take more than an hour they are learning the wrong things. When they leave school they aren't going to make that dish again if it takes more than an hour, including all the fiddly measuring they did the night before at home (and can't remember, because doing it that way psychologically removes it from the business of cooking and makes it too abstract to remember)

They should do a theory lesson one week on a broad subject like "pasta" or "casserole" or "risotto" or "cake". With lots of alternatives. then homework should be planning a recipe for that thing and sourcing ingredients (leaving it open for the parents to corral the recipe towards ingredients they already have, and the family can eat etc). Then they get an hour to cook the risotto or cake or whatever, which they will be able to to do if it is sensible techniques and they have planned it themselves, ie, understand it and why they have those ingredients in front of them and what it is for. then they will end up with a repertoire of recipes they can remember and use in real life, because they were involved in devising them and have made them "out of their heads" instead of out of books

All this sounds basic, which is fine, but for those aspiring to higher levels they should do the above but with a patter "to camera", so they are developing their schtick at the same time, this will make it more challenging and can count towards a media studies module

[theroseofwait]

The teachers are saying they only have an hour to make a dish, but actually, irl an hour is AGES.

Yep - if the kids are never late from their last lesson, don't have to hang up coats, wash hands, put aprons on, know exactly what they're doing and don't need me to repeat instructions several times, have weighed out ingredients at home as requested, work like a grown up would and wash and clean up properly without having to be nagged lots and lots. Sure, it's AGES. . . .

[DumSpiroSpero]

I would no sooner make something like cheese and potato pie than fly to the moon!

That was the first thing I made in Home Economics!

TBH I would be going in to complain - the cost of ingredients is ridiculous in the first place, let alone the teacher chucking the end result in the bin. If the container had been that problematic, surely they could have put it in the fridge and she could have taken another one in the next day? I know it's meat but properly stored for 24 hours it's not going to cause any issues (although I suppose red tape probably dictates otherwise).

So do all high schools generally do some sort of cookery until they get to GCSE stage and can opt out then?

That'll be fun - my DH is a chef and I can imagine him 'having a Gordon' (as it is known in our house when he's riled by something food related) on a weekly basis if that's the case.

Although having said that, one of his favourite meals is sausage plait, which I also learned to make in Home Ec over 20 years ago!

[fuzzpig]

YANBU. I'd be gutted, I don't have £10 to throw in the bin! :(

[outtolunchagain]

My ds3 is very lucky and does food tech at primary ,his cycle has just finished ,he is in year 6, this term he made ,scones,lemon curd (from scratch and delicious)minestrone soup (lots of beans and pasta)bread rolls and vegetable stir fry .The only disaster was a very strange mixed egg and potato salad !

his Food tech teacher is fantastic and is determined that they should learn to cook not just colour in a poster.Reading these stories no wonder children get to 18 without knowing how to budget or feed themselves

[SugarplumMary]

I had to do Home Economics once a fortnight Y7-9 & it was miserable. I learned nothing useful;

I didn't either - we never ate the food - there were no fridges for students to use and the lessons were in the morning. Plus the ingredient list was very expensive and we weren't cooking every day recipies that you bang out every night to feed a family.

I walked away with the idea that cooking was difficult.

I learnt to cook pasta and stir fries with my Dad before leaving home and as an adult I could read recipies - so it was a case of finding a good source for them - and then adapting them.

[theroseofwait]

That was the first thing I made in Home Economics!

But 20 years ago, surely?! We have moved on rather. . . . I am liking the idea of lemon curd, I may have to give that a go before Christmas. I'm going to make Nigella's beetroot and ginger chutney with a Y9 GCSE class next week, and I've just offered to dem Stollen as a buffet centrepiece with a Y10 I team teach so they can do it for their controlled assessment if they wish.

First thing on Monday I will be showing Year 9 how to take the breasts out of the brace of pheasant and brace of duck that my colleague in resistant materials will have shot over the weekend, and doing something with them, probably pan frying with shallots and garlic, so they can try game.

Cheese and bloody potato pies. . . . . .

[bumpybecky]

dd1 is doing catering gcse and her teacher is fantastic :) she made chocolate éclairs yesterday and they were fabulous :)

I'd be furious at £10 worth of ingredients being thrown away like that. I'd definitely be complaining to the school.

[outtolunchagain]

We have made the lemon curd at home once we had eaten the jar from school. It was so easy I don't think I will buy it again .

I am loving the idea of the pheasant and shallots, we have a village primary near here where the Food Tech teacher is determined they should all be able to fillet a fish and roast a chicken before they go to Senior school

[Mrsjay]

I don't know why schools don't charge per term for cookery ingredients and supply everything. They could buy st

dd school does this It is fine although some of the creations are a bit depending on what block they are on whether it is edible or not

[BoneyBackJefferson]

lostconfusedwhatnext
"The teachers are saying they only have an hour to make a dish, but actually, irl an hour is AGES."

That just means that you don't have a clue