School cooking lessons

I’ve never had a cookery lesson in my life. My girls’ school thought it not academic enough. It’s never held me back from cooking everything.

My school insisted that the first year's lessons were spent making an apron - gingham with ric rac braid ! The next year's lessons were spent constructing potato pie - mash with grated cheese mixed in and a slice of tomato on top - very exotic, pink blancmange, which tasted like chalk, and the pinnacle of the year was bread making.

The day we made blancmange, the cookery teacher was coming round the class tasting at random. I waited in trepidation because I knew I had forgotten to add sugar. Miraculously, she didn't taste my effort.

D'S very low on the list at my academic school. In 2nd yr did needlework, a skirt and a top, both successful due possibly to natural talent and a mother that was a good needlewoman.

We did nutrition in Biology, and I seem to remember that we ate healthily in the 60s anyway. I still don't indulge in convenience foods.

I have always held the belief that if you can read then you can read a cookery book, and if you can read a cookery book then you can cook.

I remember making Steak and Kidney Pudding. Most of my class did not eat Beef so the teacher brought them of off them she had a large chest freezer full of puddings. I don't know about mine but I can't remember eating it

Our Domestic Science classes in the mid 60s included basic instruction in nutrition and healthy eating. Then we went on to make fairy cakes, butterfly cakes, scones, cheese straws, puff pastry sausage rolls, christmas cakes and shepherds pie amongst other things. I very carefully transported these efforts home each week only for my Mum to put them straight in the bin! She was definitely not going to taste any food I had 'played about with' as she put it. Maybe that's why I have never had much interest in cooking! We also learned how to iron a shirt, press trousers, make a bed, lay a table for a dinner party, fold napkins, spring clean properly, clean an oven, and remove all sorts of stains. I quite enjoyed DS classes and got good marks in the exam, but it didn't turn me into a domestic goddess!

I went to secondary school at 11 ..like most kids of our generation. By that age I could cook a Sunday lunch for 8 people,and make scones ,pies,tarts, rice pud from scratch and anything an ordinary family would eat those days. It was all nonesense to me and so very boring . The one thing I do remember from domestic science lesson was how to lay a table for ‘tea’. And the fact that the teaspoon had to lay in the same direction as the handle on the cup. If I ever use a cup and saucer now...I still remember that and still do it! Incredible nonesense .

The only domestic science I remember from the 1960's in my all girls school was "how to lay a tray" (??) and having to sew an apron. Useless.

Yes I remember cookery . We learnt all the basics, all types of pastry, a Victoria sponge, a chocolate cake, mousse both sweet and savoury and a number of other useful things like how to fillet a fish , bone a leg of lamb etc.

Some of the things like the lamb was then cooked in the school kitchen and served for school dinners.

I enjoyed it and have used all the skills ( except how to make soused herrings) throughout my life.

I was horrified when my daughters ‘cookery ‘ classes relied on ready made pastry and tinned filling so I taught them all the basics . It’s lovely as they’re now teaching their kids and there is no reliance on ready meals.

Yes we had DS and did plenty of cooking. One of the highlights was planning a 3 course meal in small groups and cooking it. Made scones, cakes, roasted a chicken, made pastry etc. This was all done at a Secondary Modern School deep in the Norfolk countryside from the age of 14.

Also my mother was an excellent cook and taught and evolved us at home in the cooking. If this was done these days we wouldn't have so much of a problem of overweight people and the use of fast food.

I remember being taught the correct way to wash a hair brush in my domestic science class! D S was the only subject I actually enjoyed in school, I can still remember how delicious my sausage rolls in puff pastry turned out.

Perhaps this explains my love of Gregs sausage rolls whenever I am back in Edinburgh.

I did DS at my Comprehensive School in the late 60s, I remember making the apron. We had a mix of gas & electric cookers, I used to dread being given a gas one still can't bake in a gas oven as we had electric at home & before that a Rayburn poor man's AGA . I had a lovely DS Teacher, Mrs Holgate, a local farmer's wife, can't remember what we made though but I could bake as my DM taught me & everything at home was cooked from scratch.

The other DS Teacher was Susan Brooks who later appeared on Good Morning with Richard & Judy, she was lovely but only taught me once or twice. I didn't go on to O Level as it clashed with my other choices but I am a passable cook well I've never poisoned anybody .

The Christmas cake I made at school was impressive enough to be shown to the headmistress but I’ve been useless at cooking ever since. I never got my O level maths but have worked in finance for many years. I once got 15% for needlework! I’m no domestic goddess!!

I work in a primary school and helped arrange an after school cookery club which was very over subscribed. Loads of children wanted to take part. The aim was healthy food. Sadly it died a death after one term because it was almost impossible to incorporate so many vegan, vegetarian, no fish, gluten intolerant, nut allergy, dairy allergy, soya allergy, food colouring allergy, bean allergy and Ha'lal only food. Such a shame.......

PS: However, when I was at school I made an amazing apple pie which I proudly took home and was devoured. Still make them

Cookery lessons when I was at secondary school came under the heading of Domestic Science. Not much cooking was done, but we were taught how to scrub wooden table tops and wooden draining boards using Vim or Ajax (remember those?) and going the way of the grain. We were also taught how to clean a fridge, a stove top and an oven, how to wash, starch and iron things and how to serve coffee using one jug or hot water and one jug of hot milk. No wonder I was useless and clueless when I first got married to Husband No. 1 who expected me to take over where his dear old mum had left off in the food department!

Beef cobbler is one I remember. And a Christmas chocolate log. Both were quite nice. But guess not healthy. Can picture the teacher. My kids’ DS education involved theory of health, but very little cooking. They’ve managed to become rather good cooks, despite that.

Back in the 60s I had cookery lessons right through my grammar school, and passed my GCE. It gave me such a good grounding for cooking, and all these years later I love cooking, trying new recipes, and preparing different food. I think it is so sad that young people don’t get this opportunity now.

I’m not a good or enthusiastic cook, and I must have done DS for three or four years, but can only remember making a few things, I don’t think it was the teachers fault, I just didn’t have any natural aptitude.

I remember one year coming last in the DS exam, which considerably lowered my class position, I just didn’t seem to get it.

I was in secondary school by 1965, a brand newly built comprehensive school with state of the art (for then) kitchens. Our first cookery lesson was Coconut Pyramids. The ingredients were syrup, desiccated coconut, food colouring and glace cherries for the top...no cooking involved. Next was a Russian fish pie...made from cod and chopped hard boiled egg. For pudding....we made junkets which I can, hand on heart say I have never eaten again in the last fifty years!

I remember having to create a meal for an invalid, and how to present it on a tray to look appetising! What a thorough waste of time!

I made soused herrings (revolting!) one memorable DS lesson and somebody dared me to drink a glass of malt vinegar which I duly did. Was sick as a dog and I’ve never touched it since. I then managed to spill vinegar from around herrings in the footwell of SF’s car when he picked me up. Could still smell it weeks later. Nobody ate the soused herrings either.

Oh just remembered! Twins in the same cooker class simultaneously fainted when we had to gut the herrings.