To find food tech irrationally irritating?

[JustBeingJobless]

Ds is yr 7 and has just started food tech. I’m now in possession of a shopping list for ingredients for this week, which will cost me over a fiver, and will create a meal that he won’t even entertain due to containing onions which he can’t stand! Not to mention the raw ingredients festering in the bottom of his school bag all day before they even get to the lesson. Grrr..... just seems like a total waste of money, and, as they’re using a bloody jar of Dolmio (a small jar, which I know they don’t sell at Aldi, so means a special trip to the co-op), not really teaching them how to make a sauce anyway. I know it’s a “life skill”, but I begrudge paying an extra £5 on my shopping bill every week (only normally spend £50ish for an entire week as on a tight budget) when the chances are it’ll end up in the bin anyway!

It drives me mad too. dS2 did muffins today, they are edible, but most of the stuff they cook goes in the bin.

What drives me mad is 1 clove of garlic, 15 ml of oil etc. Why not just get the kids to give £5 per term or something and have the teacher buy stuff like that...

Ah yes, the 15ml of oil!

I read your £5 for one meal and raise you £12 for one Bakewell tart. (We had to buy the tin to make it in!)

DS1s friend was useless at remembering him ingredients, so I started sending in double, which worked quite well. (DS1 used to tell me at 8:8:30pm he needed things for the morning, luckily we live near a big Sainsbury's that is open till 10pm, his friend lives in the middle of nowhere so his parents couldn't pop out)

So I did the same for DD, in case a friend needed ingredients. Only her teacher wouldn't let them give the ingredients to the child who didn't have theirs. So that child had to sit doing nothing and then got a detention.

I wouldn't have minded too much, except from what DD has told me that child has a very difficult home life. The chances of a child living the life he does bringing in cooking ingredients is probably about zero.

And peppermint essence to make peppermint creams.

1. I don't own peppermint essence and if I buy some for the sake of 2 drops will never use it again.

1. Who want to eat peppermint creams?

1. Knowing how to make peppermint creams is not a life skill. Unlike fruit crumble.

How the fuck do you transport 15ml

Ooh in the 80s I was things like pineapple upside down thingie and sandwiches. Useless.

Ds school at school open day demonstrated pizza type muffins etc. Equally useless.

It used to drive me mad when my 3 sons did food tech in the 1990's. Everything they " made" had already been covered in infants and juniors. Eg we made bread from scratch at harvest time, melted chocolate in science, mixed and tossed batter on shrove tuesday, cut and sliced fruit at snacktime for fruit salad etc.
Im so old I did " cookery" in the 1960's. I learned so much and still use skills, methods, recipes I was taught then.

Cooking is an essential skill and while I do wonder how less well off families manage to send in the ingredients, I am glad we are able to afford it.

My mum and DH both taught cookery and so it doesn't both me that shortcuts are made. I get that there are limitations in time etc.

The only issue I have with my yr 7 DS is that he always forgets to bring the food home! There are currently a number of bacon and egg muffins at his school awaiting his collection since Monday. I hope they are in a fridge!

Albuspercival I think most of us lay people don't see a difference between home ec/cookery/food tech but I appreciate there is a difference in the content. I agree with your description of home ec would be much better.

"Sadly the lessons are not long enough to teach/show and cook anything properly, they have to be careful of food poisoning also!!!" Perfectly possible to cook spag Bol, Cauli cheese, stew, fresh soup, bake small cakes from scratch in less than an hour. Bread and casseroles true but there's LOADS else they could learn.

Those of us old enough to remember doing this at school managed it! No food poisoning either.

Ahhh peppermint creams! Every Christmas we made peppermint creams and Florentines.

"How the fuck do you transport 15ml" back in the day I used (clean) 35ml camera film tubes 😂

A jar of Dolmio sauce would give me the rage as a school lesson ingredient.

Would happily use it myself!

The thing is, Bolognese is easy to make from scratch so definitely shouldn’t need a sauce! The only time I’d think a sauce was acceptable in food tech would be as a compare and contrast exercise so looking at the different cost, nutritional value, added chemicals, cooking time, taste etc between homemade and jar versions. And tbh I wouldn’t expect that analysis in year 7!

If he would eat it without onions then definitely let him “forget” to bring his onion.

How ridiculous. It takes 15/20 minutes to make Bolognese from scratch. Tinned chopped tomatoes and passata will speed things up.

Thing is, in my experience - 10 minutes start of lesson for briefing - 30 minutes cooking - 15 mins tidying up - end of lesson!

I recall 'exotic fruit salad week' in year 8. As I have twins I obviously had to provide 2 lots of stuff and spent a king's ransom on fresh fruit for them both to use (an apple & banana wouldn't do, it was fresh pineapple, mango etc etc)

It was created first lesson then, instead of being stored in a fridge, was decanted into Tupperware boxes and returned to the children to put in their lockers for the rest of the (hot) day.

By the time it came home it was just fizzy brown fermented sludge that went straight in the bin. £10 down the drain.

I think one of my happiest days was the end of year 9 when I realised I'd never have to provide ingredients for cooking ever again after about 8 consecutive years of it with an older DD too).

Dolmio

Seriously

Yes we’re conveniently forgetting the onion :)

The following week, according to google classroom, they’re making bread and butter! Need to send in flour, yeast, salt, sugar, double cream and containers to transport products home in. At least I have most of that already. Can imagine the butter being a proper bloody mess by the time it’s been kicked around in his bag on the bus

Who ever needed to learn how to make butter from double cream??? Is that even a thing?

Yep remember the fruit salad . Also remember the argument I had with the food tech teacher when she made them make risotto , but wouldn’t let them taste it , so ended up with this bland pap . Turned out she would never let them taste anything , ever . How on earth can anyone tell if something is ok or not if you can’t taste it ? I get the no double dipping fears , but really ? No wonder we’re turning out generations of people who have no inclination to cook , and none at all to learn .

I am shocked at the jar sauce. However I think cooking skills are super important and sadly many kids are not taught at home.

Honestly I am delighted to see kids being thought to make bread and butter.

Oh God YADNBU. My DC's school used to get us to chop everything at home the night before, and partly cook everything. It was bloody ridiculous. Admittedly, some things were edible, but I hated every minute of buying stuff that would only fester in the back of the cupboard afterwards

As a teacher myself ( primary) , cooking and basic sewing skills were the subjects I found needed supplementing on a large scale at home!
Going back to the 60's , I can remember one particular academic year when on a Monday I need my satchel, violin, hockey stick and games clothing/hockey boots and my wicker cookery basket. Great fun carrying that on the school bus!

Hate food tech! I can't wait until he takes his options and never has to do it again! It's Manchester Tart here this week, that's really going to teach him a skill for life.

I have to say I’m extremely happy that he does PE on different days! That’s another bug bear of mine - PE on two consecutive days. Ok when they’re not doing much, but when he comes home with a bag full of sopping wet, muddy clothes which need to be washed, dried and back in his bag for 7.30 the next morning, I curse whoever put the timetables together!

I used to be a food tech teacher. I had no say over what was taught. But some of the recipes were gross!

Just send your child with ingredients they will eat.

I would never eat anything from our home ec lessons. We had to use cold water and watered down to nothing washing up liquid for the dishes. Everything was slightly greasy and smelled a bit foosty. The cutting boards were stored under the desk in a vertical slot. There was always grit from the playing field in the slots, therefore people’s feet were touching the boards 🤮🤢. At least give us hot water and proper washing up liquid ffs!

Ha! storynanny I had a wicker basket too. It had to have an elasticated gingham cover made in the same material our summer dresses were made from. I am so ancient that our mothers (of course) were expected to make both the covers and the summer uniform! We would never have used jar sauce to cook with in Domestic Science.

RE money, It seems like maybe a better way to do things would be to ask parents for a contribution at the start of the year and bulk buy ingredients for the kids to cook with.

My kids' school did this. Then expected all ingredients to be brought in, right down to a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of milk. I've no idea what the start-of-term contribution was meant to cover, so I stopped paying it.

I also got fed up with the amount of Tupperware I had to buy so that things like a tablespoon of milk could be taken to school. I've never been able to use Tupperward more than once: I end up with a cupboard containing 30 tubs and 30 lids, none of which fit any of the tubs.