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?

"Poor people can't cook" might be more true than we'd like to think. I don't think it's demonising or accusing, but as you pointed out, Owl, if you're poor you may not: be able to afford proper ingredients, have the backup holy grail of a storecupboard that Jaime Oliver advises, have proper cooking facilities, have money on the electric / gas meter, have the equipment (i.e. pots and pans), have proper storage (fridge / freezers).

If you are poor, and you don't have those, you literally cannot cook, no matter how much home ec you took at school (as a side note, we did home ec in the 2000s. I don't think it's completely dead yet).

I'm not that bothered by her statement, I'm more interested in what they're going to do about the issue (probably nothing but I live in hope...)

Owllady - exactly and shops that actually sell veg that you can walk to or afford public transport to. Not everyone can jump in the car to convenient, cheap supermarkets or has a local lovely fruit and veg stall on their doorstep.

The Baroness' comments reminded me of the microplay currently showing on the Guardian website (staring Katherine Parkinson)...

You can't teach children how to cook properly in 1 lesson a week, no matter how much willingness there is. Maybe there should be some kind of off-timetable fortnight every year (towards the end of the academic year would be good) where young people are given intensive tuition in cooking and financial management from years 7 to 11. These could actually be combined to a certain extent (budgeting for meals etc). TBH after exams there is rarely any strong focus on learning after exams anyway, and the chance to do something practical would be massive fillip. In terms of facilities (since most schools lack proper kitchens in any shape, maybe a GBBO style marquee can be put up in the grounds? Of course this would actually cost money, but this cheese-paring attitude to public services, most acutely education, is going to end up costing even more in the long term.

I knew tons of people in leafy Surrey who couldn't cook, and made no effort to learn. TBH I don't know how anyone has the money to live only on ready meals or tinned food or takeaway, but these people do exist.

Cooking isn't witchcraft, and necessity should theoretically drive all but the most challenged into doing it to save money. So the question remains of why some people do not. The point about the price of electricity is a very relevant one IMO, especially when we're talking about people on expensive key meters.

she's right ime
maybe due to lower income mums being forced out to work? dunno that's a musing at best
everyone cooks less though and this is impacting those with least cash most

Many people on here have made the point that some of the poorest people have very limited kitchen facilities, no access to a cooker or maybe no electricity in the meter to work the cooker.

So what is especially worrying in these cases is that even the food bank may be of no use to them. I buy stuff for our local food bank every week and on the list of suggested items there are usually tinned veg, soups, sauces and meat also pasta and rice. But someone with no access to cooking facilities is going to be stuck with most of these things.

I have tended to put in cereals and long life milk lately because of this.

Also, I vaguely remember a while back there was a thread on here on a similar subject but I think linked more to obesity and poorer people eating crappy takeaways. One poster made the point that in her area some people found the food bank of no use because the stuff required cooking and they didn't know how.

The truth is that cooking skills are in decline worldwide across all social classes. And for obvious reasons the higher cost of ready meals and pre-prepared ingredients has the worst impact on the people with the least money to spend. It seems pretty clear to me that's what she meant.

People go on about how they wish politicians were less scripted, more natural and not so reliant on spin but then the moment someone says anything that can be misinterpreted it's whipped up into a giant froth. And we wonder why politicians hide behind scripted answers and spin doctors.

How is that lasagne disgusting?

I'm a fully paid up member of the organic chicken and blueberries brigade, but the ingredients are pretty much 99% the same as what I'd put in my lasagne:

Tomato, Cooked Egg Pasta, Beef (16%), Water, Tomato Purée, Milk, Onion, Mature Cheddar Cheese (Milk), Cornflour, Wheat Flour, Single Cream (Milk), Carrot, Celery, Salt, Beef Stock, Butter (Milk), Garlic Purée, Oregano, Basil, Black Pepper, White Pepper

I'd end up with a higher beef content, prob slosh some wine in and a few other things for taste. But basically, it's exactly the same ingredients list, even if the actual items would vary a bit in terms of quality.

And if it was that or my children going hungry because I couldn't afford the meter to cook anything else I'd sure as hell give it to them.

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 be upper class to be coddled.

I'm from working class origins and I was coddled. What I didn't know! But it was because of my parents' tough upbringing that they sheltered me. They didn't want me to go through the things they had in the '20s and '30s.

There are some things I wish I'd have known, but on the whole I think I've made it and think they did a reasonable job.

I'd certainly wouldn't make them do a Dancing On Ice skate-off for parenting.

But if they were still around, I might make them do the Pony Club gymkhana obstacle course that they signed me up for and I enjoyed. Just so we could all fit in

There was a brilliant thread on here last year or the year before about being on a budget and cooking from scratch vs ready meals. After a lot of debate, I felt the general info from the thread was that if you have to get a certain amount of calories in your family for the least amount of money then ready meals are cheapest.

One of the (many) things that made me think on that thread was someone pointing out that a parent worried about their children getting enough to eat is likely to give them something they know they will eat. So although pasta and chopped tomatoes, or lentil ragout, may be cheap to cook from scratch, if your children point blank refuse it then you have wasted the money for the ingredients and you still have hungry children.

I think cooking skills are declining, and not just cooking . Basic life skills such as budgeting, mending things, etc. Because up to now most of us have been able to chuck things in our trolley and eat whatever we want. On the other side ,British cooking has become a celebrity pastime. As entertaining as people like Jamie Oliver and Nigella are there has to be some kind of balance - how to make a meal out of a few eggs, using leftovers, making pastry, etc- cooking doesn't have to be complicated or cheffy.

A group of us at Church are involved with collection of food for our local Food Bank. A member of their team came to our Ladies' Group to give us a very interesting and enlightening talk about their work. It was actually heartbreaking. And one of the things which struck us was that the people they help don't have money for cooking things for a long time in an oven, say, or using a hotplate for too long. They can't afford to pay for the gas/electricity. So quickly-cooked food is more useful to them. They had visited the homes of some of the recipients, and none of them buy ready meals or burgers, or meat for cooking in say a casserole. Many of them were eating just pasta, or some cheap biscuits, heating up a tin of stew or soup on one gas ring and so on. We were nearly in tears. It's absolutely disgraceful that in this day and age people are forced to suffer like this, through no fault of their own. Many many were plunged into food poverty because their Benefits were delayed, and other reasons beyond their control. Parents were actually going without in order to give their children something to eat. I get incandescent with anger when people who should know better make public pronouncements about 'The Poor' when they clearly know zilch about the reality. Cooking just is not an option. You 'reheat' if you have little fuel, you can't 'cook'. We're determined to go on collecting for this Food Bank, although many of us are on pensions.

WTF is this? I'm 50. I did Housecraft at my grammar school when I was 11-14. That involved nutrition, cooking, budgeting for food - though not for fuel and - hygiene.

We also did needlework.

Looking back, I think the food aspects were invaluable. Needlework, not so much.

fatlazymummy You've made me feel proud. I darned a black cardigan today. I had to mend it because it's so warm to wear.

I wanted a plastic bag without holes to enclose a bottle of shampoo when putting it into a suitcase so looked at my stock of polyenvelopes that junkmail comes in and of course found what I was looking for.

My meal tonight is one salmon fishcake I have to admit that I bought it and a vegetable bake consisting of one sliced courgette, four quartered tomatoes, two sliced onions and one stripped yellow pepper. All cut up and put into a baking tin, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and there are two days' worth of veg for me.

to you, fatlazymummy

That is very sad spiders but it doesn't change the fact that there are some people who are spending more than necessary on processed foods and takeaways because of a basic inability to shop for and cook homemade foods. It's not an 'either' 'or' situation and the baroness used the words 'some' families who use food banks not 'all'.

I think it's unfair to turn debates like this into an 'you either have compassion for really poor disadvantaged people or you don't' when that really isn't the case.

Why are people bothered about what she says anyway?

I know people from all walks of life who are/aren't able to cook from scratch and budget accordingly.

Tonight we are having breaded fish that I bought with mash and veggies. We all have/had are in various stages of cold and flu.
Its good that we live in an age when it is so easy to prepare a meal. As soon as we are all better some healthier well prepared, from scratch cooking will resume.
We are a low income btw and would be considered poor, I don't use pre packed food unless I can help it.
Isn't it everything in moderation.

All of us women in the group did the same type of lessons as young girls. I did Cookery etc. at school (in the fifties) But things like vegetables, meat and fruit cost the earth nowadays. I know that from my own supermarket shopping. Even cooking apples are very expensive (we have a tree) and eggs (neighbour has chickens) This would take a huge chunk out of the pathetic Benefits amount given. Just after the War, we were all very short of money. But cheap food was available (very cheap cuts of meat, lots of home-made pastry stuff for pies etc) and we always had the fuel to cook with. Things are far harder now for anyone on a miniscule budget. In fact, they're nigh on impossible. Some of the Food Bank recipients were suicidal and despairing. They have a corner in their depot with two chairs and someone to listen. It's that bad.

Fallingovercliffs I and others have described many times why food poverty isn't just about not being unable or unwilling to boil an egg.

But you have missed the point. I don't l know whether you don't understand the point we are making or because you are deliberately obtuse.

And I'd just like to draw people back to my main point:

Baroness Jenkin is an utter cunt.

Hatespiders - you said it all. Many people are using pre-payment meters for gas and electricity in order to avoid massive bills each quarter that they are unable to pay (and thus run the risk of being cut off). This method of paying for utilities is higher (don't know how much because I don't have the figures) so, unless they can top up, then they can't use those utilities.

Cheap cuts of meat need long, slow cooking.

As others have mentioned, unless you have a store cupboard or stock cubes, salt, pepper, herbs, spices etc then you have to buy everything from scratch and increases the price of your cheap meal.

We all know that veg, home cooked meals are good for you, but some people (young children, teenagers eg) do not always like this food. What do you do then? Let them starve? Or go a buy a packet of beefburgers and bag of chips instead because you can't afford to cook two meals and you don't have the energy to argue because life is shit. And, because life is shit and you have nothing else to look forward to (no holidays, no nights out eg) you treat yourself and your family to Sky TV so the kids can at least watch some films. And then you treat yourself to a bottle of wine now and again so you can forget how crap everything is just for an evening.

In the meantime, our elected representatives are claiming for £40 breakfasts whilst complaining that poor people dare to have the odd treat themselves.

And then our unelected peers in the Lords refuse to cut costs by merging their socialising budget with the commons just in case they get poorer quality champagne.

What a rude post limited. Do you always speak to people like that?

And where have I said or implied that food poverty isn't just about not being able to boil an egg.
I have stressed that it is a complex issue and that Baroness Jenkins also stressed it was 'part' of the reason for 'some' families.

All the families of us women had an allotment. My family grew nearly everything, including potatoes and carrots for the whole winter, stored in a clamp. I remember dozens of hens everywhere, for eggs and of course chicken meat. People shot rabbits. There was always firewood for the solid fuel stove. Women baked their own bread. I used to, for many years. Flour was cheap, bought by the stone. A pie could have any old leftovers stuck in it and be delicious. There was always gallons of soup and a stockpot on the boil. But this is all totally irrelevant to today's town-dwelling younger folk. It's ancient history. I think Baroness Jenkin should adjust her ideas to the present day.

What a rude post limited. Do you always speak to people like that?

Not always, Fallingovercliffs but sometimes I can't resist.

I did that for Baroness Jenkins in my first post and gave my reasons.

If you want to ally yourself with her views, then feel free and take the consequences.

My circle of friends pre dc made from school/university/working were all stereotypically middle class, and the majority can cook pretty well and eat a wide variety of different food from different countries.

Once I had my dc, I met a wider variety of women from baby groups/school, many of whom are single mums and/or on benefits. I will be honest and say I was shocked by what many of them eat and how little they cook. For example, I might give my kids oven chips and chicken nuggets occasionally when I am short of time but for many of those families, they lived off beige, freezer food. I also found they hadnt tried certain foods I see as everyday foods...like that good old middle class staple of humous! A pot of that costs less than a pound in my local supermarket so it is not just a case of money...though I will confess I am not sure why it is the way it is, just that I have observed a difference.

Was that the one where you called her a fuckwit?

And yes, I think she stated rather clumsily that in some cases the need to use foodbanks can be partly explained by lack of cooking skills.

Nowhere has anyone on this thread stated or implied that all, or even most, people who use foodbanks or struggle to eat could have their problems solved by learning to cook.

Rather a simplistic interpretation of a four page debate.

I'm posting this from my work so can't link but as anyone watching the sky news paper review last night will know, one of the papers that ran this story had baroness whatserface standing with a big pot of crap porridge while in the background there was a fridge labelled 'caterer's fridge'...

I'm with limited. She's a fuckwit.