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.
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
99 responses to “Teach a Child How to Cook!”
I hope the neighbours will go for it! I’ve had the same stressful realizations, even in my generation, nobody cooks anymore. I mean really cooks – not opening a can of mixed veg and heating it up with ground beef! My 2 year old daughter knows how to prepare her own scrambled eggs with cheese, mind you I slice the cheese and help fish out eggshells from the mixing bowl, but she knows the steps. My son loves to help bake cookies, counting the cups or teaspoons of each ingredient, follows along with the recipe on scratch paper attached to the fridge with a magnet. Cooking does require practice and patients, especially with kids.
I hope your wish comes true, I’ll saddle up my horse to ride out at dawn with you 😉
You are already atop your horse! teaching your kids the first steps. Scrambled eggs is such a good place to start! c
I will continue on teaching them as long as they will have me. I started tinkering in the kitchen when my mom got too busy to really watch over the stove. I remember getting burned on the skillet, blisters and everything, but that didn’t slow me down 🙂
Tonight might be a good pasta night, my son loves to operate the pasta roller!
Thats the spirit!! c
I need to be a lot better about this – I like the idea of setting a goal – maybe if I write it on the calendar that will help me get it done! My kids like to help cooking, but I’ve never really had them plan/cook/serve the whole thing. well, that’s not true…Katie (age 9) makes “Meat Muffins” as she calls them – she takes two Pilsbury cresent rolles and forms a crust in a muffin tin and then she puts in diced Spam and cheese…I didn’t say they were healthy!!!! But she LOVES doing it. Maybe a healthier version would go over well, too!!??!!
I would love you to show Katie the teensy weensy pies we made the other day. it seems to me that she may be just the girl to invent some new fillings. You can buy her some ready made pastry. I use an old wine bottle as a rolling pin, make a big old salad and ,.. dinner! My kids all made one meal really well and when it was their turn to cook that is what we got.. no worries.. c
That’s a great idea! She’d love that…
What a fabulous post; too many children are needlessly obese due to poor eating…they need to know they can make good food ~ quick. I have often thought of teaching my neighbor tocook, so that she could in turn instill this knowledge to her 3 boys. You have – yet again – inspired me!
Jess
This is a great idea to help your neighbour out, Jess or if the boys are old enough, teach the boys how to make one meal each and they can do some cooking for their mum. c
A worthy crusade I think! From the comments it’s clear that many people are of the same mind, eager to pass on what is essentially a basic human skill. Equally important though is the ‘around the table’ thing. ‘Social Networking’ is gradually killing off the ability to converse with someone face to face. What better place to re-invent the skill than around a table with family or friends enjoying a freshly cooked meal! (I can feel MY horse chomping at the bit on that one!!!)
Christine
I completely agree christine. we have the best talks when we all sit around the table. Even when it is just John and I we always sit at the table to eat and in fact this is the best time of our day.. c
I tried, oh how I tried. Over the years, I’ve had the boys in the kitchen with me, making meatloaf, baking cakes, slicing veg. I tried getting them to make their favourite dinners, and they obligingly and indulgently complied. But have they ever cooked since? No. Sigh…
Actually, that’s not strictly true, my 19 year old will now make himself bacon and eggs (he prefers pancetta flat, actually, thank you very much..) and he can whip up a mean French toast. 🙂
That is fine, celia, because they know HOW, that is the important bit. And really who would want to cook with you in the house making fab food! When they are out on their own they will thank you for it and be able to feed themselves..! all good! c
My kids are wee, yet, but they are working their way up to cooking simple things all by themselves. Some days, I long for a kitchen with heavy baize doors on either end, complete with padlocks and “Do Not Enter” signs so I can just-please-finish-this-ONE-THING! But other days, I see them working hard at learning to slice things and spread things and think if they know how, they might learn how to love it. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if they grew up to love food? Onward!
with you at the helm i am sure they will grow up to make great feeds.. onward indeed! c
“I am really shocked at the number of people who cannot cook fresh food.”
Sing it, Sister! In my family, with our wonderful cooking tradition, there are those who think that adding some oregano to a jar of store-bought tomato sauce is cooking. I’m now working on the younger ones, trying to entice them to cook something — or join me when I’m at Zia’s for a lesson. Whether they do it because they’re interested or just to shut me up, the point is to get them to cook.
Even better getting them over to Zia’s to work together.. what a wonderful idea. I was taught by an old nun at Sacred Heart convent in Napier, and she growled at me once,” well if you throw enough mud some of it will stick”. She was talking about french, which was not sticking so she thought. but when i was in Paris years later, a little Had Stuck. So keep on, keeping on.. it is quietly sticking. c
C I’ve posted about this a few times as it’s very close to my heart. Knowing how to cook is so very important. What can be more important than being able to feed yourself? Let alone being able to use different ingredients, sticking to a budget and being resourceful.
I am slowly teaching my kids to cook. Even if the 3 year old is still at the smelling every ingredient and just stirring stage, it’s all part of the process and I truly hope down the track, cooking is really easy for them.
My kids will happily explain to others that packet cake mixes is for people who don’t know how to cook 😉
that is fantastic, esp about the pkt mixes! and isn’t that smelling stage a wondrous one! c
I have taught both my kids to cook and have cooked with many a Girl Scout in my kitchen. It is always amazing to me how many of these kids have never done it before! I agree Celi…grassroots movement. I have taught more than my fair share, but what’s a few more? 🙂 My GS troop was so proud of themselves when they learned to make Mango chicken and rice. My son, he is another story. I do have to take that 17 yr. old and re-teach him. He’s been taught but he seems to have forgotten. Must try again.
It is OK, he knows, and he will be able to hold his own when he leaves home i am sure.. just get him to cook his favourite for the family once a week.. so he keeps practising, tho he is 17, a walking hormone, and probably very tired right about now.. they need lots of sleep those teenagers!! I mean they actually really do..(smiles) c
Great post, I think children should learn early like me ;), I started choking simple dishes at a young age that’s why my daughter is my sous chef since she was 7
exactly and she will grow up to be able to feed herself and a flat full of friends! and if she can learn to cook like her daddy, then she is going to go FAR! c
Such a lovely post, written from the heart. My 2 1/2 yo son loves to “help” in the kitchen, we found him a plastic lettuce knife that is just sharp enough to cut cucumbers, cheese, tomatoes etc. and he loves doing “chop chop” like daddy, and if he can’t help he screams. I hope to get him and his little sister learning to love the food they grow and cook. I just need to get my wife onbaord, but she’s getting there!
Cheers
Marcus
you have it just right, and when you are preparing dinner and they are at the whiney time of day they are busy and also getting to nibble on raw veg as they go, so it is a perfect scenario.. c
You get my vote 100% – I learnt to cook roast lamb when I was 7 and I’ve never looked back. I’ve taught a few children how to cook and they all seemed to enjoy it, though I was taught by the Cub Scouts and I would never have learnt that if it had been down to my parents.
I also think that it’s very good to sit down to dinner with children on a daily basis, the grownups and children benefit. Cooking and eating together makes for a healthy society 😉
Excellent, very very true, cooking and eating makes for a healthy society. You are spot on Mad! c
I have no kids to teach within easy access, but I am with you on this one! Skills for life and for the tummy !
We are lucky, imagine NOT being able to cook! c
It horrifies me to think of the number of people who think a McDonald’s restaurant is a good choice for dinner. When the kids were in school the husband from one family worked away from home during the week – and the wife bought hamburgers and fries for her kids every night because it was cheap and easy! Television encourages everyone to choose the frozen dinner, the dinner in a can, the just add hamburger to the ingredients in this box! Gee, I could really rampage about this one! I am very happy to say both my children love to cook and are very adept at doing so.
The gift of cooking a meal is a gift that will down the generations, and I shudder to think of the take away meals mothers are bringing home to their kids., I worked TWO jobs as a single mum with a whole pile of children and was still able to put a good dinner on the table each night and lunch to take to school each day. I think takeaways may take less time but I still cannot see that it is cheaper! Yikes now you got me started! c
Best gift my mom gave me was teaching me to cook.
The more i read and observe, the more i realise that our Mums and Dads WERE giving us a gift and not one every child received.. thank cindy.. c