I recently saw an article stating that 1/3 of British adults don't know how to cook a turkey Christmas dinner. This I find quite hard to believe when we are inundated with cookery programmes on television and can freely browse internet sites with every possible description of dishes and recipes available. (Lets hope there were no chefs questioned either!)
Is there an underlying issue with children not being given the skills to cook from home? I know that kids cooking has been removed from the school syllabus over the years. But these are life skills that our children need to take them into the future. I must admit my youngest loves cooking with me and he is quite adept at making lots of things. All my children have baked at home - nothing fancy but they know how to make cakes, pasta dishes, pastry and pizza. I think a lot of people struggle with timings. My daughter decided to cook a Christmas dinner for her and 8 others at uni the other day. Now she is quite an able person and has grown in independence over the last few months. However, on Sunday as I was rushing out to pick up the youngest from an activity I get a call asking what timings should I base my cooking on? And I think that's where most people fall down. They can cook dishes that require basic skills but the situation where you need to create a finished dish for a specific time can create some worries. Another problem is you have to have all the components ready at the same time to serve up a delicious meal to all your waiting guests.
This is when I go back to my home economics school days - we had to list our timings and plans for the whole meal from start to finish. That way you didn't forget the potatoes needed 20 minutes boiling whilst you were creating the dessert and so on. Perhaps people struggle with planning the meal to a specific time and so if they create a planner and work back from the time guests will dine it's possible that they will gain control of cooking Christmas dinner or Christmas lunch. Back to my daughter I rattled off times for turkey, potatoes, roasties etc then we worked from the time to serve up to the time for all the bits and bobs. She hastily scribbled it down and I got a text later saying it had all gone well. So if my daughter can prepare a meal for 9 people on this premise I think anyone should be able to adapt it to their Christmas dinner.
And for those people who feel they are well in control of that turkey dinner there is even an iphone or ipad app to help those who wish for something a little more exotic to create. The app is advertised as having 60 inspiring recipes such as roasted venison or Chocolate and Drambuie truffles.
Yummy as those sound I think we will stick to traditional turkey dinner in our house this year something that I can handle quite easily after the present opening and before the TV afternoon sit down. I also don't have an ipad or iphone and so may be a little stuck with only an app! I can conjure up quite a funny image of lots of stressed out cooks with iphones glued to their hands wishing that they'd stuck to turkey,too. My personal best tip for having a stress free Christmas dinner ? With in laws and outlaws being invited to dine I've found the best policy is red wine - not for the gravy but for me! Happy eating!
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