To think that this is excessive for a Food Tech ingredients list

[ModreB]

DS3 has food tech and was given a long list of specific ingredients to bring. Went to a big supermarket on the way home, got the list and the total came to nearly £9 . I wasn't buying branded products either, but supermarket own brands.

I am in the lucky position that I can afford this, albeit through gritted teeth but AIBU to think that some families would really struggle to pay this amount of money for 1 recipe, to make 1 portion to cook for 1 lesson, and that the sodding school and teacher should at least have some consideration for this!

What happened to teaching how to make affordable food as well

I've posted about this before.

I once spent £12 buying everything to make a bakewell tart...partly because I also had to buy the tin.

I was also in a position to be able to afford to buy it, but can imagine it must be a real struggle for some families.

Totally agree. Teach then to make a bloody good spag boll.

Healthy and cheap.

I don't understand why the school cannot buy the ingredients in bulk and then just get a contribution to cover costs from the parents. It would make much more sense than everyone ending up with whole jars and tubes of things they need two teaspoons of.

Ridiculous. YANBU.

I am dreading this - £9 a week or fortnight would make a big dent in our food budget.

I can see the argument that it can get the DC more involved in buying the ingredients (although how likely that is, when plenty of families use online shopping etc, is another matter...) but surely it would be better generally for the ingredients to be bought in bulk by the school/teacher and an annual contribution made by the parents instead. It is daft when each child has to provide a jar of spices of which only a tiny amount is used.

We had the same last week - although it was Ds's fault as he chose pineapple, mango and passionfruit to go in his fruit salad! As he had already done the prep in the lesson and it was written on a tablet of stone (apparently) I had to buy the ingredients.

It depends. My daughter has done food tech gcse and i didn't find it that bad but i'm a cook from scratch person so normally have a lot of ingredients in the cupboard. What was your ds3 making?

I've posted about this frigging nonsense before, too. 'One teaspoon of maple syrup'. 'One vanilla pod'. 'One inter-galactic spore of Ood fungus'. Just .... off.

I had a long discussion with the Food Tech teacher about this - she told me nothing was kept in the Food Tech room in case of - wait for it - ALLERGIES!! Aaaargh! H&S gone mad I think.

Or even a compromise could be made. School keeps/provides ingredients like oil, spices, flour etc, and DCs bring in fresh ingredients (this would work for my DSDs whose food tech lessons are actually quite good - they are encouraged to vary the basic recipe) so for example if they were all making scones then the basic ingredients would be provided and shared, but somebody might bring in raisins, another person brings in cheese etc. Or if they were teaching a basic soup recipe then DCs could choose what veg to bring etc, but they wouldn't need to each spend money on stock cubes or whatever.

fuzzpig DS says that half the class regularly turn up with absolutely nothing in the way of ingredients, and they are asked to sit and 'write something'.

The allergy thing is a bit bizarre. DSD1 has coeliac, but still does cooking with everyone else. Just uses GF flour or whatever. But her classmates would still be cooking with regular, gluteny ingredients - she just has to be extra careful about not sharing spoons etc.

How would not storing ingredients in the kitchen help with that?

What age of children are you talking about here as DD is Yr 8 and her food tech seems ridiculously basic TBH?

They have made things like pasta salad, couscous salad, pizza, savoury scones, mini carrot cakes etc.

I don't think we've had to go out and buy anything but they do give them a choice of what to bring in which must help a lot of people out especially when your DC presents you with a list the night before!! eg. for the savoury scones they had to choose 2 or 3 items from a suggested list to add to them so you could go basic (cheese and onion) or more exotic (olives, feta and sun-dried tomato) or any combination you fancied.

My dd1 payed £6 at the start of the year, covers all ingredients for all of s-1. Goes up if you choose standard grate HE.

jacks he is making a pizza. A bleeding pizza.

I cook a lot from scratch, but he needed stuff that some I already have, but not in the format that they want. So, I have a packet of yeast that I use, and is already open, but he needed 1 sachet. A jar of tomato pizza topper. Would tomato puree do - no it had to be pizza topper. Ready grated cheese, as they wouldn't have time to grate it in class, not grated at home and put in a bag (this was specified in the ingredients list, as apparently it might go "off" and needed to be sealed up ). Ready sliced onions, ditto no time to slice them in class, needed to be in a sealed bag etc.

You get the picture.

Norbert he is Y8 as well.

I'm getting the picture that they're not teaching anything about food prep! Sounds more like an exercise in making the teacher's life easier to me (or stupidly short classes).

ModreB - That's ludicrous about the ready grated/ready sliced pre-packed ingredients.

Withe the pizza for example DD's school would expect them to take a whole onion and a certain weight of cheese. They would then chop and grate during the lesson.

No wonder you find all these ready prepared ingredients in supermarkets....the next generation don't know how to use a grater!

Yes same here - DS's fruit salad lesson was all about slicing (apparently we are NOT allowed to call it 'chopping' ) so they had to take in the whole fruit. Which is why we ended up with about a gallon of fruit salad!

The thing is, DS3 actually likes cooking at home, grates, chops, slices perfectly happily.

Apparently last year one of the pupils sustained a "grater related injury" which is one of the reasons, as well at time, that they ask for the pre-prepared ingredients. And the fact that ingredients prepared at home might not be "to the required standard"

I'd be complaining about the ready grated and stuff like the yeast and pizza topper. My dd's school encourages them to think for themselves and plan their own dish, they even have to find their own recipe. If they choose to use ready made bases then that's fine too. What your school is doing is unreasonable and i don't blame you for being annoyed at all.

Our first year seven practical is fruit salad.

It teaches chopping/slicing. Many children don't have the slightest clue how to handle a knife safely.

It also teaches them about managing their time - again, many have never had to 'make' something in less than an hour.

And finally, most importantly () it introduces them to washing up. Most, if not all of the class, have never done this at age 11.

We let them pick the fruits though, and actively promote cheaper fruits and Aldi super six if suitable.

Grater related injury.

DS1 gets to choose what he needs, so the stupid ingredients lists are always mostly his fault.

The school don't complain if you grate your own cheese and slice your own onion yourself though. That would be madness. Utter madness.

Weird reading this. Our school provides all the ingredients. Not sure about special ones for allergies but they do adapt recipes, I know. Such an odd system......