CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
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The Fife Diet's Food Manifesto For Scotland begins the Soup Test. This simple idea means that no young person should leave primary school without being able to make a pot of soup.
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http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile//life-style/food-drink/pot-of-soup-revolution.17476043
That the bar is set so unbelievably low says all that needs to be said. I saw their stall last year in Crail:
I think that's a fabulous idea. I don't know what the current school curriculum is like - I studied south of the border for a start - I had 'cookery' classes in middle school (age 10 - 13/14) and came away with a mini handwritten recipe book which turned out to be invaluable when left to my own devices at university.
It is a good idea but I don't think that is a very low bar at all. I couldn't make soup at primary school, I didn't learn to do any cooking till I reached my teens which seems fair to me. Why should a primary child need to make soup? It ought to be a few years before they are fending for themselves, I hope.
" Swapping the prom dress for a pinny, "
Bad enough that high schools are foisting this ghastly American thing onto their pupils but primary?? That's just sick.
@Min: the P7 prom dress, limo and leaving party seem to be with us to stay. Parents spend £100s on dresses here.
Soup's just a bad place to start. Once H&S have ensured the knives are plastic you've removed the main skill - chopping - from it. Breadmaking would be better: a chance to talk about farming, ingredients, microbiology, industrialisation, geography and to teach a fun technique that requires skill, patience etc.
"@Min: the P7 prom dress, limo and leaving party seem to be with us to stay. Parents spend £100s on dresses here."
I weep for humanity.
Once H&S have ensured the knives are plastic you've removed the main skill - chopping - from it.
Well I didn't really like to mention it but yes, quite young children and knives don't seem like a good mix to me.
One of the most horrifying things I have ever seen was a woman (my friends aunt) proudly showing us how her son could make tea. He was 3 or 4, I don't remember which but very young. Watching him struggling to lift a kettle full of boiling water was quite stressful. Since I was only 12 or so myself at the time I wasn't really in a position to say anything.
Why should a primary child need to make soup? It ought to be a few years before they are fending for themselves, I hope.
@Min, for the same reasons that they ought to learn how to ride a bike. It's about teaching life skills, which hopefully improve as the children get older. My 7 year old son can bake biscuits and cakes, and does quite a good fried chicken in soy sauce...
Kids learn that food can be cooked easily at home, and does not require parents to make it for them always, or a trip to 'Mickey D's' or similar. Personally I'd much rather they learned to cook rather than be heating up microwave ready meals from supermarkets or relying on take aways when they grow up and leave home.
I know, I totally get it. I just don't think it is shocking that kids would otherwise leave primary without knowing how to make soup. Shocking that they leave secondary in such a condition, yes.
For many, 'making soup' means opening a can and heating in a saucepan; or buying a chilled 'gourmet' soup in a plastic pot and bunging it in the microwave; or emptying a sachet of cup-a-soup into a cup, and boiling the kettle.
Which is fine, but home made soup is so much better for you, and much, much, cheaper.
"Well I didn't really like to mention it but yes, quite young children and knives don't seem like a good mix to me"
It's all about risk, risk assessment, learning, trust etc.
I know at least one Edinburgh school where the nursery class has a workbench with tools including a hammer and saw.
A teacher at a different school told me today -
"Our P3 pupils make soup from vegetables grown in the Eco garden but yes food technology a gap generally"
We did cooking at school - called home economics - but they didn't teach us anything particularly useful. I was already baking at home regularly so just doing more at school was pointless, and I haven't made a Swiss roll since. They'd have been better teaching good plain cooking.
We made pasta salad, sausage supper and a rice dish I can't remember the name of off the top of my head and at secondary we made burgers from scratch.
I remember making foul tasting soup (which is going some as my usual recipe is a bit of stock, some broth mix and whatever vegetables are available at the time, and that normally works!).
Vaguely remember other things which weren't very appetising, which was strange as all the recipes at home seemed much less complicated and tasted better?!?
I remember making Instant Whip. There must have been other things but that is the only one that stuck in my mind. Mainly because it was so awful.
when we take away our young people (ugh !) they never sease to amaze with their culinary skills, one even modified the instructions cause he had no hot water for his pot spewdell ! Cold water , unbeleivable! On the other hand we have one who is so capable he has catered for the whole sqn with just a couple of gas stoves and various army mess tins ! Real food, real knifes !
schools are important, but if parents are of the "remove all packaging and heat for 2 mins at full power" brigade then the kids will do the same! Me , am having chicken casserol and pots ,for lunch today, tin foil and one large lorry shaped cooker ! Manifold cooking !
@splitshift <grin>
I love the fact that CCE is so varied - where else could we find cyclists exchanging recipes for manifold cooking!
Have a good lunch...
Robert
on call kaye today 'should schools have compulsory cooking lessons"
Yes. They should.
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