I have just spent a couple of hours updating the recipes on our recipe page to make them all available in an easy to read text/photo version as well as the symbolised/photo version I originally posted. Why? Because I want them to be accessible for anybody who wants to use them, I want them to be useful for parents/teachers/activity leaders/carers and because I firmly believe in the value of cookery sessions.
Are Cookery Lessons Fun for Everyone?
I have taught for over 20 years, mostly in special schools, and during that time my experience has been that the majority of students enjoy cookery. Not everybody, of course, but most young people. However, cookery lessons can bring anxieties for some young people which staff need to be aware of and sensitive to. Some young people with learning disabilities have anxieties related to textures or getting ‘dirty’ – perhaps these can be resolved by the young person wearing gloves, or working in a pair with a partner who will take on the things they challenging. For others tasting or eating the prepared food may cause anxiety – in this situation staff should remove the expectation that they do this. Eating is an important aspect of maintaining health and we want to reduce young peoples anxieties about food.
Why Have Cookery Lessons?
Cookery lessons are great learning opportunities and they can be made as easy or complicated as you like depending on the young people in your group. Here are just some reasons to do cookery sessions:
🧑🍳 In a school or college they might take place in a kitchen setting – a nice change from the classroom space (which can be quite motivating in itself) and a chance to learn how to be safe in the kitchen environment.
🧑🍳 To learn about how to prepare food – not just making a meal or a cake but how to peel vegetables, what bits of a pepper to eat and what not etc.
🧑🍳 To learn about hygiene – wash your hands, wash up in warm water, wipe the work surface and so on.
🧑🍳 So much maths – temperatures, weighing, numbers of ingredients e.g. 2 eggs, shapes (triangular samosas, round cake tins), reading the quantities on the recipe, cooking times, adjusting the recipe for a different number of servings, costing the ingredients, sequencing the steps, use-by dates.
🧑🍳 So much English – reading the recipe, following instructions, learning cooking related vocabulary e.g. stir, chop, grate, dice, blend, mix.
🧑🍳 Practicing fine motor skills – cutting, grating, using scissors, peeling and so on.
🧑🍳 Sharing equipment, waiting, taking turns and working together.
🧑🍳 The opportunity to try new and different foods that are not part of the young person’s regular diet. Sometimes a young person will try new things at school/in a cookery session that they wouldn’t touch at home – sometimes it’s the other way round.
There are a wide range of recipes available on the internet to use (including on our recipes page 😀) Food a fact of life is a great website to check out for recipes and all sorts of cookery and food related resources.
My Pet Hate!
Decanting. Sometimes people put dry goods into plastic containers to keep them stored for longer, I do it myself at home. But it is my pet hate from the cookery lesson point of view because:
🫙 Young people don’t get to know what the actual packaging looks like – important if you want to buy flour, sugar, cereals etc in a shop.
🫙 They don’t get to learn how to hold a bag and weigh from a bag – very different from a plastic container – or how to close up the bag again to keep it airtight.
🫙 It takes away the opportunity to learn about and practice checking the use-by dates.
It may be that dry goods are put into a plastic container so they can be labelled with symbols or larger text, but could that be printed out and stuck somewhere on the bag instead?
As you can probably tell I’m a big fan of cookery sessions 😀. If you fancy cooking something with your group, family, or someone you support there are both savoury and sweet recipes on our recipes page that you might like to try.
