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.

Doesn't it just, BBJ! Even in a classroom subject an hour also includes kids getting to your lesson (can be ten minutes if they've come from PE or a far-flung corner of the school site), getting coats off and kit out (don't get me started on this), as well as packing up. That's long enough when the kit is planners and pencil cases so I shudder to think about how long it takes when the packing away involves washing up etc. I'd say if they get 40 minutes out of a hour actual cooking time they'd count it as a job well done!

dd2 made this carrot and orange soup last week now you are only supposed to have ahint of orange but god it tasted like orange broth and dd inisted that was the recipe ,

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

God, I wish all primary schools were like this. If you knew how many children I've had to teach to wash up, to tell the difference between a dishcloth and a tea towel and to know whether something is clean or not, before I can even get on to the cooking part, you'd be horrifed.

The top prize went to a Y7 girl who tried to put a bowl smeared in chocolate mixture back and when I asked if she thought it was clean, shrugged her shoulders and said 'I don't know.' At which point I'm afraid I flipped and sent her out of my classroom.

That's the level of skill we're dealing with now.

therose, I admire your attempts to broaden palates, but have to take issue with saying you have tried reciepes and the best contain arkward ingredients like golden syrup, or expensive ones like fresh chopped corriander. It might be the best reciepe for someone at home in their own well stocked kitchen but it simply is not the best one for a cook who has to transport their ingredients and may be on a budget.

It is so sad that we have to teach this subject at school at all. Children should learn such basic things from their parents.

We were really lucky to have a great home ec teacher - I still use her lentil soup recipe 25 years later. We always took the stuff home - one week it was cauliflower cheese and we ate it all on the bus home Recipes were always done in pairs so we could take it in turns to bring the ingredients, and they had big pots of mixed herbs etc from the canteen kitchen. Maybe the budgeting was done differently then? Oh and our double lessons were an hour and ten mintes, which probably made a big difference by the sound of it!

cakebar

The best recipe for you may not be the best for another parent.
A food tech teacher tries to take in to account:-
vegetarians
vegans
allergies
religious backgrounds
so that all pupils can take part in the lessons.

To try and take in to account what parents stock at home would be the first step to madness.

Christ, is this what passes as 'food tech' in some schools?

Yes, DD has to take ingredients in, but it is usually sensible portions (except the lasagne, but she cooked that last lesson and it fed the whole family).

She had to make the tomato sauce from scratch, including prepping the tomatoes. She had to make the Béchamel sauce from scratch. This was the start of Y10 Catering GCSE.

In Y9 she made profiteroles from scratch, a whipped sponge, a creamed sponge, stir fry including researching a sauce too (she made sweet and sour sauce from scratch). Other dishes included shortcrust pastry, Cornish pasties, a chicken and bacon pie, an apple and blackberry pie, and others that I can't remember.

I do think, though, that you need to provide adequate equipment for your DD to bring the stuff home in if you want it brought home.

For all you know, your DD might not have said anything to the teacher until the rest of the class were filing out. If the teacher then dismissively told her to throw it away, then that is surely because it is your and your DD's job to ensure your DD has adequate equipment for her lessons, not the teacher's. You wouldn't expect your DD to turn up to a Maths lesson without a pencil, rubber and ruler, would you?!

Just hope that your DD doesn't do Catering GCSE - the ingredients get far more expensive at that point! Two course meals in a double lesson...

Since when has golden syrup been an unusual store cupboard item?!

Or coriander? A bunch is less than £1 in any supermarket. The only one I've ever had an issue finding was fresh oregano, and that's because only Waitrose stock it. And I buy it in bulk and chop and freeze it anyway!

MrsJay - my DD made that carrot and orange soup, it only had a hint of orange and it was bloody DIVINE. It was the nicest soup I have ever eaten. Are you sure your DD followed the recipe properly?

Carrot & ginger is one of my faves.

The point was, trying to take a tablespoon full of syrup to school.

I don´t have golden syrup in.

Well, yeah, that as well.

Aaaah! Future tip for taking those irritating tablespoons of Golden syrup, honey or treacle into school. Coat whichever pot you are using in vegetable oil. The syrupy stuff then pours straight out. Do it on the measuring spoon too.

And that was a tip from my Home Ec class way back when!

I bought some tiny Tesco's own lock & lock pots from Tesco when DD started Y7, as I had remembered how annoying huge pots for tiny bits of ingredients were.

I also occasionally use baby food pots. I got a pack of 3 when DS3 was little, they are a perfect size for small amounts of ingredients.

The vast majority of kids ( or more accurately parents) have the good sense not to try and mix ingredients into the usual school bag complete with homework and send them packed separately. When I do this a few kids bring the syrup in a food bag so we squeeze it out and bin the bag, but most bring a squeezy bottle of syrup and measure it out as they are making. As ingredients are dropped off first thing in the morning and picked up after school the extra bag doesn't cause any extra hassle. Even if it's been bought as an extra most people will use the syrup up over pancakes or make flapjack or crispy buns.

Coriander is the only herb that I ask for that is not routinely in people's gardens round here, and it's hardly expensive.

Another problem is that ingredients dropped of to the Food Tech room in the morning get 'lost' (i.e. stolen). So lots of kids are walking round with bags of milk, butter and pieces of raw chicken in their bags for hours. Then the tupperware (small tubs, big tub, you name it) often goes missing during the 'clearing up' part of the lesson. That's why the teacher lobs a lot of food in the bin, I think - because that's where all the containers probably already are.

As said by a teacher upthread, think 25 [teenage] pupils per class, for just 50 minutes. I think much of my mild frustration is that the asked-for precise preparations are completely out of kilter with the shambles that is the lesson.

I think this thread does show would Food Tech leassons should be like, bwt!

Proper guidance with preparations (make it part of the assessment / lesson marking)
Realistic, very affordable ingredients
Basic, useful recipes
Some communal selling / sharing of difficult or one-off ingredients
Somewhere safe to store food at the start of the school day
Not too many pupils in the lesson
An appropriate lesson length
Good safety, hygeine and discipline in the lesson, including during clearing up
Food cooked to be packed properly in containers to be brough home

From the posts above, this should be the case, but very often isn't.

LineRunner

I think this thread does show would Food Tech leassons should be like,
you missed out IMO.
Proper guidance with preparations (make it part of the assessment / lesson marking)
Already there
Realistic, very affordable ingredients
Already there, (but only when common sense is used)
Basic, useful recipes
Until parents complain that the pupils don't do anythin exciting
Some communal selling / sharing of difficult or one-off ingredients
It doesn't work
Somewhere safe to store food at the start of the school day
Mainly done, but until parents and school loose the "its only cooking" attitude and pupils take food straight to the room first thing in the morning it won't happen in every school.
Not too many pupils in the lesson
how do you suggest this is done?
An appropriate lesson length
yeah right like thats going to happen
Good safety, hygeine and discipline in the lesson, including during clearing up
A crass generalisation that assumes that lessons are undisciplined and uncontrollable
Food cooked to be packed properly in containers to be brough home
most are, but when parents don't send containers in, or unsuitable containers in and when children forget to take the food home etc.

Wow, are you my son's Food Tech teacher?

I haven't taught food tech for about 4 years so I wouldn't have thought so.