For me the real revelation came when I spotted a “Convenience” Pancake mix in the village shop. As pancakes are so easy to make I was really confused as to how any company could even dream of selling a product like this. Even if it was made for catering market, making a pancake batter is really simple.
At the time I was willing to lay the blame upon the education system, as all young people should be taught basic cooking skills. While I personally think this should start in the home, and with most families it does, schools also have a role to play as well. As no matter what else we may think that education is for, it is used to develop workers and economic skills. Thus allowing all young people learn some basic cooking skills will help them become independent latter when the leave school and leave home, but it may even inspire some to go further and have a career in the catering industry.
Equally, when the banking system collapsed and people needed to save money, one of the easiest ways I thought I could help was by showing how folks could cook and eat well via some videos and by writing. Again it seemed that lack of knowledge and skills were at the heart of the matter. The more people I talked to about food and cooking the more this seemed to be confirmed.
I had always known that there are a significant part of the population that will stick to the same foods and meals all the time, but was it that some folks were just to lazy to cook as others and stereotyping would have us believe or was it that people were just clueless. As I wanted to watch a TV programme on what manufacturers put in children's food, I watched that yesterday. And in that programme there was a dietitian working out of a hospital with young mothers who related a incident where she gave a woman a potato and a peeler and the woman asked what she did next?
Now I was aware of the joke that some people do not even know how to boil an egg. I had always assumed that was a myth as I learnt that as a child by osmosis rather than ever really being taught it. Latter I learnt tricks to do it better, but I genuinely am shocked that some people can not deal with the basics of cooking and food preparation.
I even started looking at what people were buying in the supermarket. I even tried to talk to people that I knew about this and offered suggestions of cheaper and better alternatives that they could cook from scratch. But this did not always go down well. While I know that people do live busy lives, and time can be at a premium sometimes, often with a bit of planning though it is possible to have pasta sauce for example ready in the fridge or freezer ready.
Yet the part that I least understand about peoples attitude towards food, is that often it is the unemployed and those not working that cook the least. When I have been unemployed it was only by cooking from scratch that I was I able to make ends meet.
Therefore near the start of the credit crunch I started filming some of the things I was cooking with the aim of helping people to learn some simple ways of cooking great meals. I also sought out some advice so that I could make them as best I could and provide some good quality information. However, each organisation that I spoke to had there own agenda and it made me very confused and the information that each body wanted included would have made the videos boring.
While I posted the original preview a while ago, and I tried to make the video entertaining, I realised that I needed to do more work before I was ready to post these films. So I continued to film so that when I was ready and had the time, I could try and help the folks that want the help.
This delay helped me realise that there are some people out there who just don't want help, no matter that they need it. Therefore I will offer help and advice to those who want it. I genuinely hope that the videos will entertain as well as inform.
The reasons why I became a vegetarian and why I stopped have already been related here, but this happened when it was near impossible to find vegetarian recipes so I had to learn to adapt recipes to be vegetarian. Thus I learnt more about cooking and what worked and what did not than most people ever do. Therefore this skill has given me the skills to cook and cook well, that I want to pass on in these videos.
While I was a vegetarian for more than twenty years, there was a real cultural change to food in Britain. Even when I was a child, even the poor demanded good food, and food was far more than just fuel. As even the poor took pride in producing good meals especially on a limited budget. So while I was expanding my diet via discovering new ingredients and flavours, other people were limiting their diets. Equally at the same time there was a cultural adjustment where instead of sitting down to meals together, people started eating alone. Families would have several sittings, one for each member of the family. This actually makes cooking more difficult for the cook in the family, as she, and unfortunately it will normally be a woman, then has far more work to do. It is this aspect of the cultural change that has enabled the food industry to sell more of the expensive processed food to people.
But this is the aspect that really surprises me, particularly when children are involved. Even as a vegetarian I noticed this as there appeared many vegetarian forms of processed food too. While I looked at and tried some of these, reading the chemical list, sorry ingredients list told me that I really did not want to eat them. While convenience foods do have a place in the kitchen and the diet occasionally, to have the whole of my diet based upon this would make me very depressed.
I have a real love of good food, and I love sharing food too. My better half has become my number one taste tester. It is this love of food that I want to share, here is the original video
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