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!”
We are teaching ours. The older two may be regressing though. But I blame going way to college for that. Now they will need some retraining. But they can at least use the grill and microwave.
College is all about fast food, if they are living somewhere without a kitchen. However they have the knowledge Harold, and maybe they can do a meal at home for the family once in a while just to keep their hand in.. well done harold.. c
My 2 and 3-year-old nieces already patter around the kitchen when I’m in there! I can’t wait until they’re old enough to join in.
Even at that age they love to stand on a chair and ‘help’, it is so sweet isn’t it?. Soon they will be really getting into it! c
There can be no higher aspiration than to teach a child any useful life skill, and no life skill more necessary than understanding and providing sustenance! What a grand gift, my sweet. Cheers!
Very true kathryn, I hope you can hijack a few of your family kids when they visit. you have such a wonderful ‘take’ on food to pass on, plus the curry powder recipe!! ! c
I love this! My mother made it a point to make sure all 3 of us (my siblings and I) knew how to cook. And then my grandmother taught one of us all the recipes to pass on to everyone else and our children :). Love this post
Even netter having a mother and a grandmother teaching you. You must have some wonderful recipes to pass on. c
C, this is the most magnificent wish! I love it! Seriously weird how so many people can’t cook now days. This is our first year back home for Christmas after living on the island and it’s the first year all of the nephews and nieces won’t be here! Can you believe it – fear not, I have been in the kitchen with a couple of the older ones (not much) but will carry it through for years to come.
🙂 Mandy
I am sure you will Mandy, you have SO MUCH to pass on to the next generation. I am still working out HOW to ask the young mum down the road if I can borrow her kids to cook without sounding judgemental about her own ‘heat out of a box’ cooking.. c
I am with you 100% – the first meal I taught the kids to cook was scrambled eggs – from when they were big enough to hold a fork! and yes, knives and forks and tables and chairs and plates and thank you’s are important – and taking the plate to the kitchen afterwards and saying excuse me (and I could write a whole post) …. May your wish come true Celi xxx
Scrambled eggs is such a goodie. We all used to make piles of them to eat as kids. At any time of the day!! And saying thank you and please. My goodness .. such a basic thing to know and it makes SO much difference a Please and Smile! c
I teach my daughter how to cook and she loves it and I am happy to say her school has a cooking class and they cooked their first main meal a month ago. She researched the recipe and was really excited to make it and critisized my cooking a couple of weeks later when I made it at home 🙂
Excellent that they have cooking at school too. And how sweet that she is now telling you how to do it! Such confidence! Watch out they will have you down at the school doing demo’s soon!! c
Very impressive post touching on a subject close to my heart. Eating properly and knowing how to prepare food for yourself and others to enjoy is an important building block in civilising humanity.
Building block.. that is the phrase I was looking for, or cornerstone, yes, we will just build it back up one brick at a time.. c
“Smelling the scented steam”…lovely.
I am amazed at the number of foods a teenage friend of mine has not previously encountered – zucchini was one recently.
I read not so long ago that Chinese dissidents were teaching their children to cook so they could look after themselves if/when their parents were ‘disappeared’ or taken to gaol.
Don’t we live in a safe sweet little world, when we read about people teaching their kids to cook so that they can survive alone if their parents disappear, and we just want to teach them to cook so that they will be healthier and happier! c
What a wonderful way to use your talents to help others – a gift that will keep giving throughout their lives.
Exactly, it is such a logical thing to know, a sensible skill to seek. How to shop or grow and cook and eat. c
Wish I had a nickle for every woman in her mid-30’s who bought an expensive beef roast from me on Christmas Eve, and then said, “So, now, how do I cook this?” So sad…
I have to say, I was almost one of them. My mother didn’t teach me how to cook, I had to seek it out myself. My three kids were all taught the basics at home, though…won’t be too long before we can start on the next generation!
Keep teaching, and keep preaching! We’re all behind you on this one!
The next generation should be fun by the looks of things, and it is not hard to teach yourself how to cook, we get the basics from our families i think, then we branch out and learn what we LOVE to cook. God knows i have learnt an awful lot just since I started blogging!! c
Well said! First question is, how do I get my son to stop in long enough to bundle him into the car and drag him to the grocery store;) Just kidding, but seriously, I think he plans to marry someone who can cook! My daughter loves it so she’s often in there training… but I have a few friends my age, who could still stand to learn a thing or two. (I hear via my husband who is shocked at what his friends are served..) Praise for Slow Food!!
Oh i agree Smidge, i am so into slow cooking on the woodstove this winter! .. c
I so totally agree. While I’ve encouraged my son to be in the kitchen with me doing little things, I’ve been now seriously showing him to cook on his own; its an important part of bringing a child to their independence. Plus the girls will love him for that!!
you are so right spice, tell him.. my boys know how to cook and it is a WINNER with the girls!! c
Great advise and a wonderful offer to teach the kids down your road. I have been teaching friends kids onto make cheese but agree the basics of making a meal should be more important.
Making cheese is a great process though and gets them engaged in making good food! sounds like a great idea! c
I heartily agree.
Being from a large Italian-American/French Canadian family, learning how to cook is almost a requisite for membership.
If a boy can grow up learning ten basic dishes, he’ll never want for female companionship , so says my mother
I’ll stack my chicken scarapiello and tiramisu up against all opponents in the competition of lost culinary arts.
Recently we had a good time baking Christmas Cookies with the neighbor girls. See photo here:
http://vermontverse.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/gettin-ready-for-christmas/
Your mother is a very wise woman! c