Modern-day mini chefs

Throughout this blog I've spoken about childhood memories regarding food, or how food related to children in the past. I think in modern society, children are becoming more and more involved in food, and increasingly encouraged to cook and be creative with food. This view is mainly from evidence in the media, such as a surge in young people's cooking shows, and the expansion of the internet providing a vast range of websites focused on children's cooking.

'Junior Ready Steady Cook' 

A special edition rather than a full series, 'Junior Ready Steady Cook' shows children with a passion for food, creating a meal from a small collection of ingredients purchased within a fixed budget. The show positively encourages children to spend less, and shows that full meals can be made from limited ingredients if they are imaginative and creative.
          

 'Junior Masterchef'

A much more extensive and competitive competition, 'Junior Masterchef' shows "Young hopefuls battle it out to become the best cook in the country" (as described by the BBC). The series demonstrates the discipline required in the adult world of cheffing, and shows the pressure involved in a career of professional cooking.
I've been unable to find video footage from a U.K version, but here is the promo for the Australian series.

 

The children show as much passion and flare as their adult counterparts, and they prove that a talent within cooking doesn't have to come with age. As one of the young contestants states, "People say that you have to be big to do good things but, you don't have to", and they certainly prove it!

Websites dedicated to making cooking fun

I have referenced some other blogs within this one which focus on cooking or eating with children, but there is a vast array of websites available which provide child friendly recipes, ideas for keeping cooking fun, and stores that sell cooking accessories and tools aimed at a child audience.

 http://littlechef-bigchef.co.uk/     'Littlechef-bigchef' sells cooking wear, equipment, and fun cooking ideas. The website aims to bring parents and children together to make cooking fun from an early age.

http://kidscooking-parties.co.uk/    'Kids cooking parties' provides parties with a cooking theme for children, they run a nursery cooking club, and suggest parents hold after school cooking parties for their children. Interestingly, they vow to use only vegetarian ingredients. It seems a brilliant idea to bring children together socially through cooking and make it fun, and also to show children that vegetarian cooking and food is just as good as meat.

Food as a social component

There are many ways as a child that we turn to food in a social environment. I have already addressed children's birthday parties, but I thought an entry on the little food related activities we don't always tend to associate as a food experience.

Pocket Money:

For most of us, as soon as we were given our weekly riches that were pocket money, a trip to the newsagents to purchase magazines and sweets ensued. I personally remember spending all of my pocket money on chocolate and pick & mix. As many different varieties and flavours that I could cram into a bag which wouldn't exceed my budget. Crisps and chocolate bars that I was allowed because it was MY money to spend. I had earned that money fair and square, and by no means was I going to spend this opportunity on anything healthy.

Sleepovers:

The sleepover: an important event in any young girl's social calendar. The regular gathering of children at one of their homes, watching a film they'd seen a hundred times, swooning over the leading role, all in pyjamas. And not forgetting...the midnight feast. As a child when my friends and I went to a sleepover,  we would all take a secret stash of food that we could eat once we had been left unattended at bedtime. The excitement of the secrecy made it all the more enjoyable. Couldn't find a picture that showed us eating, but here is a suitably embarrassing photo of one of my sleepovers anyway.

Trips to the cinema/theatre:

I remember being thoroughly excited at the prospect of a trip to see a film or a play as a child. First of all, it was an outing usually in the evening, which made one feel most grown up. Then there was, of course, the anticipation of seeing a film we'd wanted to see for ages, or going to see a pantomime at Christmas. But lastly, I couldn't wait for the standard treats that went hand in hand with a trip like this. Popcorn, chocolates, ice cream, hot dogs, generally all of the foods I would never be allowed to eat on a normal day.

And finally.... a good old fashioned food fight!

Whether being awfully naughty and starting a food fight at school, or at a friends party, it was the least dangerous object to throw at each other, but also the most messy. Here is a video of an organized food fight at a child's 7th birthday party- a slight waste of food, but what fun.

Learning to cook..

We all remember countless occasions where we watched our parents cook, and were told how to create meals (but never really took in the information and just hovered until the food was ready), but it's the early experiences of children cooking themselves that helps to establish if they enjoy the creation or just the consumption.


I remember using my big Dorling Kindersley 'Kid's First Cook Book' often as a child, the whole book was so colourful and it made the recipes so much fun. Have managed to find it in the loft, and here are some of my favourite recipes:

The first ever meal I created and cooked all by myself is a dish that infamously became known as my '10 Hour Stew'. My Dad gave me some chicken and a few vegetables and allowed me to cook them on my own, but for some reason, it never really cooked. I seemed to be in the kitchen for a whole night. Despite this beginners setback, I realised I enjoyed the process of cooking and the end result (when it finally arrived) of seeing my family enjoy the fruits of my labour. For the purpose of this blog, I decided to attempt to re-create my 10 Hour Stew (which is actually really a casserole from my faint memory of ingredients), and see if I could fathom where my 10 year old self went wrong..

Ingredients:

-2 Chicken thighs
-1 large red onion
-2 carrots
-1 red pepper
-Stock cube
-Tinned chopped tomatoes
-Lots of random herbs and spices with no real correlation or measurement.

Season the chicken legs with herbs (I only had corriander and thyme at hand, but they seemed to work) and fry until both sides are golden. Set the chicken aside and fry the vegetables until soft. Now add both together in a stewing pot along with chopped tomatoes, a stock cube, salt and pepper. Simmer for 60 minutes, or until the chicken looks cooked through. It can be baked in the oven but I wanted to keep an eye on it on the hob!

Well the casserole turned out to be very tasty, and easy to make. It's quite a simple recipe but the flavours of the vegtables and the juices/seasoning from the chicken create a lovely taste, and it was perfect for a rainy afternoon dinner. The boyfriend enjoyed it very much -much more than my dad did! I realized that my downfall as a child must've been not frying the vegetables and chicken first. I must've literally put it in a pot and left it to stew. Well, practice makes perfect...


When I was a child the internet wasn't really accessible in my house, and was not nearly as endless and evolved as it is now, so recipe and idea hunting was out of the question. However, there are now thousands of websites devoted to making cooking fun for children.

http://www.kids-cooking-activities.com/ was created by a mother who discovered her children loved to cook from scratch, and shares her ideas for making cooking fun for children. She provides 10 reasons why children cooking is imperative, and here are just a few which I really agreed with:  

Here are 10 reasons why you should do cooking activities with your children.

1. Learning to cook helps kids to learn about nutrition and healthy eating. They are growing up with fast food and junk food at their fingertips, which is part of the reason why child obesity is on the rise! Teaching kids to cook will help instill skills to last them a lifetime.


2. Boost their self esteem. If your child needs a boost of self confidence, (and who doesn't!) cooking in the kitchen will do just that. They are accomplishing a task, learning something important and contributing to the family.


3. Create family time and bonding. Take time to cook with your kids and they will have memories that they, in turn, can pass on to their families. It may take a longer time to get the meal or snack done but the moments with your children will be priceless. (Just remember to have patience. Don't worry about flour on the floor or spilled milk).


4. Kids will be more apt to eat what they make. Perhaps, it is the enthusiasm of creating something themselves, but they will be more likely to eat whatever they had a hand in making.


5. Kids learn real lessons in science, language, math and creativity. Cooking will help reinforce all these subjects! Visit What do Kids Learn While Cooking page for more information.

Food in children's literature

The importance of literature to children seems to be sadly deteriorating due to new types of entertainment such as the internet, games consoles and television. It's probably safe to say that the average modern day child would not choose to read a book over the other endless forms of media based entertainment they have at their fingertips. There are some interesting blogs available which focus on young children and their development.

Trevor Cairney's blog 'Literacy, Families and Learning' provides personal tips to parents and teachers on early developments. This post focuses on the importance of early reading: 

http://trevorcairney.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/early%20reading

In my opinion, my generation was the last that really valued literature as a day to day pass time over other forms of entertainment. Social networking and Playstation were available when I was young, but not to the scale at which they dominate children's lives today.

Now, back to the matter in hand. One of the ingredients (excuse the pun.) I enjoyed stumbling across most within my children's books was, of course, FOOD. So many of my beloved reads as a child featured weird and wonderful foods, and scenes of children devouring food together, that just made me want to be inside that book even more.

A few favourites...

Paddington Bear and his 'elevenses'. And the fact that he carried marmalade in his suitcase, just in case, which made me love him even more.




(Of course) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Just the whole book.

 

Turkish Delight in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Never has a food, that made me feel so tempted within literature, turned out to taste so utterly foul.

Bruce Bogtrotter devouring the enormous chocolate cake in Matilda. It was a triumphant and decadent scene in both the book and the film adaptation,  and both equally made me salivate for gooey, spongey, scrumptious chocolate cake.

 The food described so imaginatively within these books made me want to taste it more than anybody else could. Immersing myself in the worlds these books created made me feel immersed in the descriptions of taste, texture and vibrant colour. My love of Paddington Bear (and the teddy I had helped a bit) helped the decision that I would only eat marmalade on my toast for about three years. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory just made me want to create wonderful concoctions. And Turkish Delight just made me feel sick.

All I remember before the age of 11 was sitting under my bunk bed reading endless Roald Dahl, or hiding under my covers after bedtime with a torch so I could find out what happened in the next chapter of the latest Jacqueline Wilson book. As children's enjoyment of simple entertainment like this seems to be dying out, I thought this entry a fine opportunity to celebrate the classic and timeless children's books- and here are a handful to maybe jog somebodies childhood literary memory. 

  

So many of these books evoked imagination and discovery inside the children that read them, and made the worlds within them seem places which must to be discovered. Many children's books did this with food. The descriptions and the images made children want to smell, taste, touch and create.

School Dinners

 When most of us look back to our childhood, our times at school are some of the most memorable. School is where we first properly experience friendship, academia, social divides.....and canteen food. 'School dinners' seem to have developed an infamous reputation for many generations, whether that be for the quality of the food itself or the regimented manor in which we had to consume it. As we began primary school at an age where most children had become very particular about their likes and dislikes, the food offered in school dinners was completely unacceptable. I personally remember sitting on a cold seat, eating luke-warm 'spotted dick', and being shouted at by the head dinner lady "Less talking, more EATING!". A very scary experience indeed. But I suppose it was never as scary as poor Oliver's experience..

  However some have fond memories of school dinners. In this article from the Guardian, Javaria Akbar recalls her memories of canteen food, and why the Asian flavours in her home diet made her crave the creamy stodge of school dinners:

"I know it's unfashionable to stick up for school meals but as a British Asian growing up in a household where kebabs and curry were the norm and shepherd's pie and rice pudding were alien entities, I have very fond memories of my school dinners. Everything we ate at home was jazzed up Pakistani-style - even omelettes had dried chilli, coriander seeds and turmeric in them. It was eating at school that taught us about traditional English food; the good and the bad. It was exciting to have buttery mash and a pie for lunch instead of a fiery dopiaza, and fun to eat jelly and ice cream for dessert instead of sipping milky cardamom-infused tea. School meals were the definition of exotic. I didn't want a schapati and lentils; I wanted lancashire hotpot. It may not have been sensitively prepared by artisan chefs, but it had gravy in it."

Despite bad experiences with the food served at primary school, I remember learning a lot about food during my time there and being encouraged to learn about food and share tastes with other students. 

When I was in year four, our whole school created our own cookery book. We all drew a picture of our favourite meal, and all of the teachers added recipes which we created illustrations for. We were all given a bound and laminated copy to keep, and I still refer to it every so often for a cooking idea, and it's enjoyable to see all of our ideas of what our favourite meal was ('chocolate biscuits' being the most questionable!).

Conflicting influences: Vegetarianism vs Carnivorism

Growing up, I had a vegetarian mother and a father who wouldn't eat a meal if it didn't involve some sort of meaty component. I don't ever remember being particularly encouraged to sway in either one direction, but these influences during my childhood enabled me to learn how to cook from both perspectives. I do believe the contrasting diets I witnessed helped shape my adult appreciation for a wide variety of foods which fall under both categories. 

My parents divorced when I was a baby, so this meant that whilst I shared my childhood between two separate worlds, I also had two separate diets. This division seems to clearly define my food memories into two classes. Despite thoroughly enjoying meat, for some reason my favourite and most memorable childhood meal was one of my mother's vegetarian creations. I'm not sure if it was because I was a mummy's girl or just because the food she cooked was so darn yummy.

Favourite meal: Spaghetti with 'Mummy's Special Sauce' (Not just any sauce, oh no.)
 

 
My mother actually quite comically named the sauce this herself. Ideas of grandure, or perhaps just an attempt to excite me into eating it? Spagehetti is pretty simple, whereas obviously the recipe for the sauce was much more complex and secret.

OR SO I THOUGHT. As it happens, the title and secrecy of 'Mummy's Special Sauce' was another childhood myth, probably up there with the tooth fairy or Santa.
When my mum wrote down the ingredients for me as a teenager so I could cook it again, it turned out to just be bolognese sauce with Quorn mince instead of beef.
However this simple recipe has always been my staple, because it's still edible if only a few of the main ingredients are available- which has come in very handy at university!


One of the most dominating issues in the vegetarianism debate is that of raising a child as a vegetarian, and the child's right to choice. I was never raised as strictly anything, yet I have been given a large appreciation towards vegetarian cooking and I believe all children should experience meet free meals. Here is a very cute video by a young chef demonstrating how to make a healthy macaroni and cheese:

Early Food Memories.. 

It is said that the early encounters we have with food through our senses of taste, smell and touch influence the way we view those same foods as an adult. One bad experience with a type of food, or a mixture of flavours, (even if we do not consciously remember it) can trigger a rejection of the food when offered to us later in life.

 This article from BBC News, 'Food memories influence tastes', publishes a survey which discovered that almost half of its participants did not remember ever trying food which gave them a negative food memory. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7987868.stm


Interestingly, food or flavour memories can be entirely psychological, and connected to something similar which you were fed even as young as a baby. I don't really know of many foods that trigger bad memories for me, but I can remember the good stuff. 

 Most of my memories of food, from the earliest I can remember, are food I experienced at childhood parties. Children's birthday parties, especially those thrown for our own birthday as a child, seem to be the first experience we have as a child of the act of food being provided for our peers' benefit, rather than just our own. And who can forget the pies-ta resistance of a child's birthday party....THE PARTY BAG. 

Personalized with our name, and containing sweets, toys and a mandatory slice of birthday cake wrapped in tissue, a party bag is a small present which we can receive even if it isn't our birthday. All with the added bonus, a factor which is of great importance to an average child, of the element of competition eliminated- with each bag being equally filled. Children can share in the excitement of opening these bags of treats, and they enable the party atmosphere to continue even after the party has finished.

Traditional party bag contents:
Balloons

Birthday cake
Bubbles
Sweets
Toy

The first birthday party of mine I can remember is my fourth birthday. I remember helping my parents to choose the food we laid out, but the part that they remember the most is catching me sneakily sampling the food before my guests had even arrived- which is why they took this picture below....

The lack of self-control I have always had when it comes to food, and the impatient appetite I still display as an adult, began here...

'Its my party and I'll cry eat if I want to'

As a child I also remember being obsessed with cakes which were made from cereal (Rice Crispies chocolate cakes, Shredded Wheat nests, Corn Flake chocolate nests, etc..), after making them at school one Easter. I don't really remember ever making any myself at home,but I would regularly force my mum to make some for me. And I'd watch. With the Easter holidays approaching (and just for an excuse to make some yummy treats) I'm making some good old fashioned Corn Flake chocolate nests. They're so easy to make, and as an adult I've convinced myself they are also healthy because they include a low-sugar breakfast cereal. 

 

These cakes literally take minutes to make, just two large bars of melted chocolate and a spoonful of butter, mixed with corn flakes and refrigerated. Simple and completely yummy... although they didn't last long in the fridge!