Poor People Can't Cook!!!!

[HeeHiles]

Baroness Jenkin

AIBU to be getting fucking sick of this demonising of poor people? I'm not rich, wouldn't put myself in a poor bracket, but I can cook.......Is it OK for me to say 'Rich can't Cook'-with their maids and servants, blimey! Can the rich dress themselves???

Plebs, Stupid cab drivers, white van man, it's all getting a bit ridiculous now isn't it?.......or is this just the Media stirring things up before an election?

One of the keys to white sauces is hot when mixing and then simmering for the main portion of cooking and then heating again before service. It is fiddly. Why would you put yourself through that unless it came naturally, or you were particularly interested?

My mum was a child during ww2 and was an amazing cook. She could make anything from scratch.

I think people began to lose skills when we began to get fridge freezers, ready made foods freely available etc. We had to do home economics at school and DH is amazed that I know how to cook allsorts from scratch, wire things up, use a sewing machine, work our APR etc.

Fallingovercliffs I know how to boil an egg, grill a pork chop and many thrifty ways with a baked potato. So when I turn on my TV, for which I am forced to pay the BBC licence fee, I don't want to see that.

I want to see Saturday Kitchen or Masterchef. And I would expect most people on Baroness Jenkin's side of the House to agree that I should get what I pay for, especially from the hated BBC.

The chefs who say, add a splosh of this, a dab of that, a sprinkle of this, are correct. It does alter the taste. I put French mustard and creme fraiche in a while sauce the other day. It does make it taste curious. But, the truth is, if you faff around tipping this or that in, curiosity happens anyway.

As long as you keep tasting it, it doesn't really matter what, within reason, you put in. And, you can balance bitterness or acid, with sugar, if you've gone too far.

Fallingovercliffs I agree with you that we probably should have proper cooking lessons at school for boys and girls.

But I can't see how it can be done.

I think my Housecraft lessons were invaluable - though as a girl, I chafed at them at the time.

However, times have changed since I was 11. I came from a rich area. I was probably in the middle income bracket in my state school class. However, looking back, there must have been a few girls whose families struggled with providing the ingredients, especially for something that might be inedible - not just bad cooking but storage.

I used to have Housecraft on Wednesday mornings. I would carry my shepherds pie or vegetable soup fermenting away in a bowl unrefrigerated in my string bag until home time.

How do you deal with that?

I take your point Limited. I wonder would a compromise be that the lessons be divided into theory re budgeting, techniques etc and then the teacher give a demonstration involving the children helping her and asking questions as she goes along. With the food then shared out and eaten in the classroom? I'm not sure how much benefit kids get from cooking something once in a classroom anyhow. I think it's more the theory behind food buying, storing, and budgeting and nutritional content that they need.

That lasagne looks and sounds disgusting.I would not feed it to my family but I think I could certainly cook a delicious alternative as cheaply. Imo people use ready meals because they are either too lazy to cook a proper meal or don't care what rubbish they feed their families

I do that too Dora, but for people trying to learn how to cook it's probably useful to say 'about a teaspoon' or whatever and to explain how olive oil or tabasco or a handful of basil will alter the flavour.

I'm always reminded of .

I think there is a point to be made about teaching life skills.

We did cookery at school too. Went to visit my old school recently. They don't do cookery any more.

Perhaps these programmes sell cookery as something arty and high maintenance and expensive. Weird, polarising ingredients. So they could be putting people off. It is an art but it's also a science and once you master it you can virtually do it with your eyes shut.

Like swimming/cycling, anyone can do it.

This (people not eating healthy cheap food) s a colossal issue. Huge. Summing it up by calling people lazy makes you sound a bit thick.

When I've got a spare half hour I might start to break it down for some of you 'eat cheap porridge' brigade however I think it would be a futile exercise. Trying to get through to those who are so immersed in their cosy little bubble, to get them to imagine what life is like for some people, usually is futile .

Home economics was taken off the curriculum in the late 1980s because it didn't prepare you for a job.

Have any of you listened to that clip heehills posted? It's heart breaking

Poor people know how to cook, don't be so bloody patronising. Catering college is full to rafters with working class kids. The problem of poverty and lack of income for ordinary people, not just those of benefits is real. Hunger is real.

Why is it so much more convenient to blame the victim?

We're aware it's a colossal issue lovely and no one on here is in a 'cosy little bubble'. However, that's an easy (and lazy) accusation often thrown at people who voice concern about the fact that cooking seems to be a dying skill.

Owl did anyone say that hunger isn't real, or that all poor people can't cook? Or than all non poor people can cook.

No, they didn't.

a lot of people can't cook.

thats the message. better off people can get around this by spending more, but if you are less well off, then the ability to cook well is a lot more essential.

to the people talking ab out cookery programmes? i can cook, and have been described as a fantastic cook, but those programmes scare me with their weird ingredients and long winded methods of doing things.

I left school in the early 90s and we did home economics and they still do it at my son's upper school now

Because the poor must be demonised in order to take the focus off the people who are really responsible for the sorry mess this country is in.

Anecdata I know, but when I was in halls at uni, whenever the fire alarm went off in the middle of the night, it was always due to a coddled upper class idiot who'd tried to boil milk in the kettle or make toast in the grill while leaving the grill door shut. It was always the people who'd had these things done for them rather than having to work out how to do it themselves.

You don't have to spend much money to buy some potatoes to bake and some tins of beans but you do need
Money to buy them
An oven
A pot and hob
Electricity in the meter
People who are turning up desperate at food banks obviously are missing one or more than one, of the above
It's depressing

Yes, but the baroness was making her comments in relation to food banks rally. Of course, there's people across all levels of society who can't cook and I don't think anyone feels that's ideal. Maybe in the old days when the upper and upper middle classes knew they would always have a cook or housekeeper to do if for them. Nowadays, for most people, it's a necessary life skill but one that doesn't seem to be given the same attention as other life skills. I suspect there's far more 18 year olds who can drive a car than cook a few basic and nutritious meals.

Why focus on cereal though? Cereal is hardly a luxury item

Baroness Jenkin was only repeating what The Guardian reported last year.

Strange how when The Guardian reports it, people say oh how awful, and the government should do more to teach cooking, but when a Tory minister reports it they are demonising the poor.

Its the way it came across though. For goodness sake, don't these people have a PR department?

As usual, the message gets lost in the delivery.

It was just an example she gave Owl and a good one in my opinion. Most cereals are sugar laden and expensive for what they are. Porridge is a cheaper and much more nutritious alternative as well as being very filling, easy to make and can be cooked on a hob or in a microwave.

It reported about Mullen chinaware? :o