Junior Jamies

Safety in the kitchen is very important. It is important for adults and for children. When you think about it, you have blades, high temperatures, boiling water, heated surfaces, sharp points, naked flames, etc. etc. That means that everyone should take reasonable precautions in order to ensure that major accidents are avoided and minor accidents are kept to a minimum. But this all has to be put into perspective. I have cut my fingers with a knife and I have burnt my hands on the oven shelves but I have not been scarred for life and if I was overly concerned about my previous mishaps then I would not be able to cook at all now. When I was six and I fell off the roundabout in the park I was encouraged to get on and try again, not to abandon it for good.

I have taught in schools and I understand the importance of risk assessment but we must all be prepared to take a few risks in order to develop and improve and enjoy ourselves.

Children should not be left alone in the kitchen. But with support and supervision there is no reason why they cannot help to make any recipe. I believe it is better for them to witness and assist in the preparation of normal everyday meals rather than to make an endless stream of chocolate crispie cakes.

One of my earliest and proudest memories is of helping my Mum to make pasties. She chopped the onions while I had a fine attempt at mixing the fat and flour for the pastry. I positioned the fillings and she crimped the edges. When the pasties were served to all at dinnertime I was proud of them. I had cooked. I saw people tuck in and enjoy. My Mum will insist that she was not a great cook. What she means by this is that she did not create new dishes each day from exotic ingredients purchased fresh from the market. What she did do, and did brilliantly, was to feed a family a set of tasty and nutritious meals and it is exactly this skill which we need to encourage in our children. If we are ever to avoid being a nation of obese, fast-food-ready-meal junkies we need to trust children, under our instruction and our watchful eyes, to use knives and grills and kettles.

See Junior Jamies my new feature on The Secret Vegetarian