Cost of school cooking

[WindsweptEgret]

Just spent £9.19 for ingredients for a dozen chocolate muffins. Out of these, eggs and milk are all I would usually buy, if I deduct 4 eggs and 2/3 pint milk, then that's £8.19 I wouldn't otherwise have had to spend this week. The sugar and sunflower oil will eventually get used too (sugar is only used for tea and coffee for visitors), but my point is that this is an additional cost on top of my £30 weekly shop and I will be left with ingredients I didn't need. How would single parents on benefits would be able to afford it?

AIBU to think that the school could at least buy some of the more expensive things that the children only need a small amount of, such as cocoa powder and baking powder, and ask parents to send in a small amount to cover the cost for the term?

Many Food teachers find it more of a pain to source and distribute the ingredients themselves though.

I'm happy to do it either way. None of my DCs have ever brought home anything so inedible that it went to waste and as someone who cooks from scratch and keeps a big storecupboard, I rarely have to buy many ingredients specially.

It’s more focused on techniques rather than nutrition (though they do have to learn about nutrients)

Last week I had to send in buttermilk & mozzarella. (Ds is doing bread at the moment).

They don't carry it around all day though. It's in the fridges until the collect it at home time.

"Flour is not a staple in everyone’s cupboard, not everyone bakes."

And not everyone uses flour just for baking - coating meat for casseroles, thickening sauces and gravy, Yorkshire puddings, dumplings, rolling out pastry (I hate making pastry and cheat by buying it pre-made)

"My daughters school take a payment for the things you only use a little of and then they provide"

DD's school used to do this ^^ as well. I expect they still do.

Sugar is what 85p? Oil about a quid. Choc chips about 85p. Flour is a quid or less... what have you spent £8 on?!
sunflower oil 1.10
cocoa powder (sold out of own brand) 2.75
baking powder 1.40
flour 0.45
choc chips 0.80
sugar 0.69
eggs (large free range)1.00
cake cases 0.50
milk 0.50

I think if mine made a fruit salad they would just chuck all of the fruit in. If specifically, on pain of death, instructed to just put in half an apple, they would probably eat the other half or just bring it home.

We do keep flour in, but only plain flour. Over the last few months I’ve had to send in

Self raising flour
Strong bread flour
Semolina
0 0 flour

The ingredients average £7-9 per week.

It was more that they had to take certain fruits so pineapple, kiwi, banana, grapes etc. They only needed a portion of each fruit. Would have been better to ask for a smaller variety but use it all.

There was also vanilla essence that I didn't buy as it would've been another £1.30.

When we were at school we would pair up with a friend for ingredients to halve the cost.

Howwudufeel just fucked up food really. A cheesy potato bake thing that the teacher made him put meat in even though I'd specifically said not to add meat because I'm a vegetarian. Apple crumble with a million sultanas instead of a crumble made just with lovely bramley apples. Those are just a couple of examples, I'm sure there are more. I did have a lovely salad brought home for me once though, to be fair.

But presumably all the flour will get used up at home Come? By the looks of things your kid should now be a dab hand at bread and pasta.

I'd agree that the costs can add up. DD is just doing Food Tech at the moment (and loving it tbh) so yes, there have been additional purchases - when she needs sweetcorn for example, I'd send a tin in when we'd normally have frozen - I'd say the most expensive item so far was the fruit salad tbh! They do make fairly large quantities of stuff though, the pasta salad was massive!

I agree, it's a good idea to pay a small termly charge that would maybe cover basics to be used in class such as flour and sugar. My secondary school had a big Tesco behind it and I remember our Home Ec. teacher giving me and a friend some money to go and buy flour! Would never happen now! one problem is that Food Tech. is one if the carousel subjects so the year 7 kids do it on rotation, along with Art, Drama etc. So far DS12 has made fruit salad and last week, scone based pizza - ingredients for the base plus any toppings they want. No homework set last week, so I'm guessing they won't be making anything in tomorrow's class.

It's stuff like pizza which is hard to make yeast free and gf and edible so we generally hope for the best. Two dc would be able to cook with normal ingredients at school if it was measured out at school, but we can't keep it in the house. I guess though the good thing about bringing their own food they can substitute for anything they don't like.

No, it won’t. I don’t like pasta for one thing. And he’s not in long enough in the evenings to do any cooking from scratch.

Ds takes in £5 per month to cover ingredients and things like paper cases/flan foil tin. If you can’t afford it the school will cover (parent needs to ask).

When dd was at a different school, we had to provide the ingredients themselves. Was much more expensive and also much more identifying of those struggling with costs.

I infinitely prefers ds1’s school’s approach - not because of the money personally, but because much less faff and also generally ‘kinder.’

I do have sympathy with people who are struggling financially. But there's an awful lot of whinging on this thread. I feel really sorry for the food teachers and for kids doing the cooking when the parents are being so negative.

I've had 4 kids do cooking in two different high schools and our experience has been overwhelmingly positive.

We are a cooking from scratch household though and embrace it fully.

I just adapted . Where a recipe said castor sugar . I use brown sugar so that went in.

Ds made something that needed celery . He went without otherwise it wouldn’t be eaten . I consider adapting recipe to your own taste as well.

Basic versions of chocolate powder and flour are your friends here.

maria yeah teaching kids to bake us criminal

I think it would be better all round if the children were taught how to make cheap/cost effective meals rather than muffins etc

The thing is the type and cost of ingredients is discriminating precisely against those children who really need the lessons.

There are lots of children from lower income families who eat poorly and rely on processed foods, sometimes from lack of education of their parents.

Teaching those children to make nutritious, low cost food (the way my grandparents did who passed that knowledge down to my mother) with what cuts of meat to look for, fruit and veg in season etc would be so much more useful than demanding we send in a huge tub of fresh cream and 3 lemons to make a lemon torte (the acid in the lemons r acts to set apparently)

TinklyLittleLaugh
I'm not negative in front of my child. He enjoys cooking, though usually doesn't like having to eat it afterwards, especially macaroni and cheese. We mostly cook from scratch, just not the same foods as they are cooking at school.

Schools just can't win here. My school used to do a termly charge. Roughly a third of the pupils paid very late and a third never paid at all. Which left the school to soak up the costs again and in the current climate no school can easily afford that. There is no easy solution, refusing to let a child take part in the class because their feckless parent couldn't be bothered to pay is unfair (and yes it was the feckless ones as anyone entitled to free school meals had the cost paid by the council) Asking for ingredients to be sent in was also unfair as the same feckless parents would send nothing in. Half the class never bothered to bring a dish in to take the food home with, and if they were given a dish to borrow, many never came back. For a time the school had those metal cartons that takeaway comes in fir kids to use but it cost far too much to buy as many as were needed.

So for everyone complaining - what is your solution?

As for moaning about it being chocolate muffins. Please. One cooking lesson was a nice treat, so what. It can't all be vegetable soup. At least the class might be motivated to make something they are eager to eat for once.

Flour is not just for baking though, I use it in sauces, I use it for when coating meats/fish with breadcrumbs, pancakes, etc etc. flour should be a staple to be honest. And like a pp has said not everything to do with school can be free unfortunately 🤷‍♀️