Food 'experts' at it again.

[Workingman]

They keep banging on about food poverty and the high cost of fresh food, and so we get food banks and food vouchers as part of benefits, and more nutritional information on packets and tins. These things, they say, will solve the problems. Really?

What about coming right out and saying the truth: that fresh food is cheaper, a lot cheaper, than processed food, and that preparing it is not as time consuming as people think?

That would never do: would it? It puts the onus on people to take control of what they eat. Lots of people out there keep telling them that cookery should be brought back into the school curriculum, yet they have gone the other way.

I have a pet theory as to why many non-cooks don't cook, even though cookery programmes make up a large part of the TV schedules; and it comes down to many of the TV chefs and what and how they cook. They often prepare restaurant style meals using their professional chef's skills and techniques and only the finest of ingredients. We viewers often want that food, but cannot even attempt to reproduce it, so we buy the supermarket versions.

Basic cooking is not rocket science, but the TV chefs make it appear to many viewers to be so. I am sure that they frighten off more people than they inspire.

[saundra]

Unless kids are taught by mums dad's or grandparents
They have nobody to teach them basics
Must say both my son's love to cook
But my dil hates cooking
You only have to look at the ready meals in supermarkets to see why people don't bother
At home
Younger generations don't do Sunday dinners now either
Go to there mums

[moondancer]

I have a pet theory as to why many non-cooks don't cook, even though cookery programmes make up a large part of the TV schedules; and it comes down to many of the TV chefs and what and how they cook. They often prepare restaurant style meals using their professional chef's skills and techniques and only the finest of ingredients. We viewers often want that food, but cannot even attempt to reproduce it, so we buy the supermarket versions.

Don't agree.

It's basically because a lot of people are bone idle.

[Kaz]

There is that as well

[Workingman]

It's basically because a lot of people are bone idle.

Nah. That is too pat an answer, and all to easy.

How many watch James and Jamie and Nigella 'slaving away' in their best clothes at their prep islands, with every gizmo and gadget known to man, and then think 'I like that, but no way!'.

Unfortunately basic cooking is not 'entertaining' so we don't get to see it. If you can boil spuds you can cook just about every veg available. It you can fry a sausage you can do chicken, seared Seabass, salmon....... If you can do a basic roast chicken you can do beef and pork and lamb joints. If you can sauté onions you have the start to so many meals. Sadly it ain't exciting TV, so its down the super' to get the (expensive) processed version of the TV chef's meal.

[moondancer]

I love cooking.

I don't watch TV cooking programmes but try a new recipe nearly every day.

[Workingman]

You love cooking, but many have no idea. Imagine this, a TV chef....

"This is a Maris Piper, it is a potato and it is very versatile: and this is how you peel it; and this is how you cut it into four or six pieces; and this is how you put it in salted water to boil it; and this is how you know when it is cooked - if the knife slips out it is done. You are now ready to serve it, or you could mash it or roast it....."

It is never going to work on TV, but in schools it might. And the process is the same for many vegetables.

If you become familiar with boiling, frying, roasting and stewing the world is your oyster. The trouble is that many people do not know where to begin, even when they could be bothered.

Both of us can cook, and can try new recipes, but many haven't got the first clue: and that's the problem. We can also be well-fed but malnourished. That also needs to be addressed.

The experts are a waste of oxygen.

[KateLMead]

Quite frankly I am sick to death of a TV cooking programmes . They might inspire the lazy to cook but they irritate me beyond words. Really the only frozen veg I buy from supermarkets are honey parsnips (being too lazy to prepare my own). I love them..ice cream and Quorn as my daughter has an aversion to the smell of some meats.
,

[Weka]

I only learnt that The knife slips out when cooked last year.

We have night school here, it is held at the local secondary schools and they hold a variety of courses from yoga to cooking to small business accounting. They are fantastic! I keep looking for a basic cooking one though, but they are all fancy smacy or ethnic foods. I agree, the basics need reteaching to a new generation.

[Kaz]

We have evening classes too, but I agree - the basics need teaching!! Proper Domestic Science type cooking lessons, cooking from scratch, not this daft Food Tech they've been teaching recently