Teach a Child How to Cook!

Here is my Birthday Wish and my Christmas wish.  In fact my Everything Wish.

Teach a child how to cook.

One child, one meal.

This Christmas it is possible that you may have some children to spend time with. Maybe you are even growing some children yourself!  Maybe you are related to a few.  You might have a couple living upstairs.   Get permission from his mama or her papa and give that child cooking lessons.  Because the lack of knowledge of basic cooking skills in many homes now is making me want to launch a crusade. But I won’t. Crusades can be destructive and I don’t have a horse.  Instead lets start a grass roots movement. Lets quietly teach our kids how to cook real food.

Teach him to cook one meal from start to finish. Not a cake, or cookies. Teach him how to make a real dinner.  Just the main course. With a protein taking up a small corner of the plate and vegetables  and a tiny carbohydrate taking up the rest.  Practise that meal.  The first meal I learnt to cook by myself was bangers and mash. Sausages, mashed potatoes and frozen peas.  Simple.  NO, I had to practise. Timing was the hardest bit.

Make a plan.  Draw up a shopping list. Show her how to shop for good food and freshness, teach him how to read labels and look for used-by dates. Then bring it into the kitchen and turn it into dinner.

There are many children growing up who do not know how to wash potatoes, cut up the brocolli,  glaze the carrots, make a simple stew or curry and serve it all hot. There are even many grown-ups who do not know how to make a real hearty pie, or a pizza base or gravy or  boiled eggs or scalloped potatoes.  Or how to cook rice.  Or boil an egg.  Make a quick nutritious soup. It is terrifying to me. Less and less information is trickling down.

I believe the right to cook is as paramount as the right to eat.  In fact you would think they would go together. I am really shocked at the number of people who cannot cook fresh food. This is a universal problem. They buy frozen food and heat it up, eat it in front of the tele on a paper plate and call it dinner. Food in a  sanitised wrapper is just not right! We are all losing an essential ingredient of our cultures. Food. The kitchen. Cooking together. Talking.

But you and I know how to cook and we should share this knowledge. Start with one simple course.  Made from scratch. Teach him how to make a sauce for a simple Pasta.  An omellette.  Chilli.   Help her make Fried Rice. Or Tortillas.  Nachos.  Or teach him how to make a big tasty salad and an oil and vinegar dressing.   Or a basic curry.  Roast chicken stuffed with lemons served with roast potatoes and peas.  Spaghetti.  Stay simple. But make a  meal.  Then practice that one meal.

And serve it. Teach him about warm plates, and draining potatoes of their boiling water.   Carving the meat.  Tasting.  Butter in the peas.  Keeping everything hot.  Setting a  table.  Knives and forks. Plating.  Eating with your eyes. Smelling the scented steam. Teach her about the timing of getting it all on the table simultaneously  – Hot.

Teach them about waiting for the cook to sit down before starting to eat.  And saying, God Bless the Cook and Thank you, before all tucking in.  Teach them about eating together each night and talking. Talking!  Teach them how to eat with a knife and a fork. Please teach them how to eat with a knife and fork!

Teach a Child How to Cook. 

Keep good food alive!  A busy kitchen is such a lovely happy place to be.

This is my wish. This is my challenge to myself.  I have a couple of kids in mind. They live down the road in a country house and both parents are working very hard to support them. So I shall offer to have the kids one day after school a week, during the winter, and we will cook and eat.  After we have worked in the barn, the barn is my carrot, they love being in the barn.  They love Daisy.

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