Basic Cookery for Food Technology

Subject: Food Technology
Level: Secondary
Age Group: 11 - 14
Order Number: 4041

This material has been developed as a first practical cookery based resource for Food Technology. It is aimed at students new to secondary education aged 11 - 12.

The health of teenagers is a major concern. As a generation they are eating too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt and not enough fibre. With high levels of fat, sugar and salt in processed foods in addition to large numbers of additives, it makes great sense to teach children to cook and so enable them to be more in control of their own diets. Besides being healthier, home-cooked food is cheaper, tastier and can be cooked and varied to order. There is a current initiative to re-introduce the teaching of cooking to all pupils in all schools.

The resource consists of:

• A pupil folder giving targets for the course, easily understood national curriculum level descriptors so that children know what they have to do to improve, a weekly diary sheet and an evaluation of the course with room for pupil and teacher comments.
• Easy to follow, tried and tested recipe sheets with notes to prevent common mistakes or accidents and thus aid risk assessments. The recipes are all based on fruit and vegetables, using different cooking methods, equipment and skills giving choices to satisfy the design element of the national curriculum.
• A simplified design-and-make project which follows a product from initial idea to the supermarket shelf.
• Follow up worksheets based on the course targets and practical work covered.

This resource is easy to follow and valuable for teachers new to practical cookery teaching in addition to the more experiences ones, as it cuts down on the time spent on preparation.