Getting children cooking should make them interested in where their food comes from and might even encourage them to eat it, writes Hugo Arnold
For many children, the food they eat is hugely distanced from its source. Milk comes from a carton, bread from a packet and eggs from a box. The role of cows, flour and yeast, and chickens is oddly blurred in this modern life of ours. The River Cottage Family Cookbook, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Fizz Carr, is a reminder that the food we eat comes from somewhere the other side of the supermarket. It is a book to be enjoyed by adults intent on producing the kind of food children are not only keen to eat, but want and can help prepare.
The recipes are wide-ranging, from Bolognese sauce (a proper two-hour version) to peppermint creams and baked apples. But this is not just a list of recipes; it is a text-rich book packed with information on the "whys" of cooking: "a mixture of art, science, history and geography (the most interesting and fun bits, we think, of all these subjects)", say the authors.
Chapter headings are to the point - flour, milk, eggs, for example - and each section is littered with examples of how versatile and wonderful these so-called basic ingredients are. What do we mean by flour? How many types are there? What can we use flour for? Children, in my experience, are fascinated by food and eager to help. We may start with cookies, because they are easy, but children can be every bit as enthusiastic about roasting a chicken, making a bowl of pasta or gutting - yes, gutting - a fish.
Children have exploring minds and these authors have written an exceptional book that plays to these strengths in an open and frank way. Sure, you have to watch out for children in the kitchen, be careful with knives and hot pans and so on, but there is so much they can and want to do; all the mixing and sifting, stirring and rolling, for example.
The book is designed as a series of building blocks. Work your way through it with your children - which is likely to take a long time - and you will have developed real skill and ability. As the authors say at one point: "We hope that if you use this book often, you'll soon be experimenting, changing ingredients and thinking about food and flavour, rather than just blindly following recipes."
There is a lovely feel to this book: lots of interesting facts, photographs showing children chopping and stirring, dealing with the oven and making things, along with occasional boxes explaining the relevance of ingredients. Why make bread, for example, when it is so cheap to buy?
Four paragraphs later, all is revealed: the satisfaction of making it, control over the ingredients, the taste of your own loaf, hot from the oven and covered in butter, and the ability, once you have mastered the technique, of varying what goes into it, such as rasins, garlic or olives.
Throughout these pages, the sheer enthusiasm of the authors and the fun that the children are so obviously having shine through. For any non-cooks with children out there, welcome to a fascinating world.
The River Cottage Family Cookbook is published by Hodder & Stoughton, £20
OTHER CHILD-FRIENDLY COOKBOOKS
Family Food: A New Approach to Cooking, by Heston Blumenthal (Penguin Cookery Library, £12.99)
Eat Up: Food for Children of All Ages, by Mark Hix (Fourth Estate, £12.99)