Today I ran a course in my home where six children, aged from 5-8, came to learn how to cook their own seasonal lunch. We started by making fresh egg pasta, kneading the dough by hand, then chilling it, whilst we made the fillings for the stuffed ravioli and mezzalune (crescent shapes).
We roasted butternut squash with sage and mixed it with mascarpone cheese and nutmeg. We marinated gurnard fillets and fresh bream with oregano, Italian parsley, lemon zest, wine and fennel seeds. We roasted game birds with orchard fruits, juniper berries, grapes, bay leaves and Madeira.
We rolled out the pasta and made tagliatelle to serve with the fish. We made a sauce of butter, sage and nutmeg to serve with the stuffed crescent pasta, and we also made sourdough crostini with garlic, oil and rosemary to serve with olive tapenade.
The children made an autumnal fruit salad which they dressed with an apple juice, honey, cinnamon and mint sauce. We also made two types of jams from hedgerow fruits and we tied lovely ribbons round the jars. The children wrote “To Mum, lots of love from me!” and presented them to their mothers at the end.
In between slicing, mixing, stirring, kneading, rolling and cutting, the children also helped to wipe, clean, tidy and lay the table. Pouring juice and water, helping to serve one another and offering one another seconds, it was truly amazing to see such young children become so excited about food and its sharing.
They told me about their likes and dislikes in the school canteen (Likes: fish fingers, roast potatoes and mini burgers in baps. Dislikes: soggy peas, rice pudding and gristly stews).
I heard them chat about how they help their mothers bake and make Sunday lunch, but also admitted they loved to eat crisps in front of the television, eat sweets while playing and drink Coca Cola as a treat. But then don’t we all?
What struck me as very important is that, because cookery is nowhere to be seen on the National Curriculum, other than for a small minority of private schools where it is offered as an “extra-curricular option”, it is increasingly important for all of us to step into the breach.
If you have a baking, preserving, cooking or even foraging skill, then why not pass it on? You do not have to set up an all-singing-all-dancing cookery school, you could just give one day a month as an opportunity for the children in your village, street or community to come to watch you as you work. If you don’t have a kitchen big enough for everyone to participate in, you could just give a demonstration. All you need are a few stools, pens and papers and a good heart.
From small acts, big revolutions grow. The £2.5 billion ready meal market that exists in the United Kingdom (alongside the £90 million cookery book market!) does not need to grow any larger. The future is in our hands. Mahatma Gandhi said “Be the change you want to see in the world”. Take a small hand and show it the simplicity and joy of making good food. You may not retire a millionaire from the back of it, but it will almost certainly be the most worthwhile legacy you leave behind.
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