Kippen Primary School received money by way of a grant from the Scottish Government ‘Food for Thought’ initiative in order to improve and extend food education within the school. One of our teachers, Mrs Stirling, has been very busy applying for and spending the grant, and now the school is much better equipped to do cooking tasks with the kids and any community members who would like to pass on their knowledge.
We purchased several induction hobs and a range of utensils, so that all the children can enjoy cooking in school. The pupils always enjoy having the opportunity to prepare food and as cooking is a necessary life skill, you’re never too young to start mixing and chopping! In order to qualify for the ‘Food for Thought’ grant the school needed to show that we would be thinking about food in many ways, so the idea of a cook book was born!
We then asked the children, their families and some of the businesses and community groups in Kippen if they would like to submit a recipe. We now have 50 contributions and the book is starting to take shape. One of our parents Polly Douglas who is also a nutritional therapist has helped to put the cook book together. She says that in her private practice she sees many people with illnesses, who would like to change the way they are eating to help them feel better, but they have never learned to cook, and so struggle to make some basic changes. Polly believes that ‘we are what we eat’ and that good health starts with a healthy diet, however if all you know how to cook is a ready meal, or processed foods, you will be missing out on vital vitamins and minerals, and not getting the healthy balanced diet that is recommended.
Traditionally we learned to cook from our Mums and Grandmothers, but this seems to have been lost, and there is now at least one generation of people who have very poor cooking skills, and some are even scared of trying to cook. By putting the cooking back into schools, and showing children that cooking isn’t something to be scared of, but something to enjoy and have fun with, we hope that the next generation of Kippen Kids will be much more confident to try new foods and experiment in the kitchen.
Polly has added a few handy Top Tips pages and comments on to the recipes, just so you know why the food on your plate is good for you. Hopefully these will help you to make healthier choices most of the time. As well as the cooking activities Kippen Primary School also encourages children to grow their own vegetable and there have been a number of food related trips and activities over the past year. The school has a ‘grounds group’ who help in the gardens, and this year will be enjoying the new green house. We hope that we will have an open day later in the year so that you can come and enjoy the gardens and see what we have been growing, and hopefully eat some of our produce, ‘Field to Fork’!
A huge thank you to all of the children, parents and community members who have contributed to the cook book. It has been really interesting to see the types of recipes submitted and it›s lovely that you have chosen to share these with the wider community. We hope that you will be inspired to cook from scratch and try some foods you haven›t had before as we have a number of international flavours in the book too. The cook book will be on sale at the Street Fayre this year, so you will be able to enjoy the recipes too.
Polly Douglas
The Wee Vine 