As a retired chef/restaurateur I now find that cooking is a total joy.
I look forward to that time in the day when the jumper comes off, the sleeves are rolled up and the apron is put on for the cooking of the dinner.
There cannot be any activity which is so sensual, stimulating, creative and wins you as many friends as being able to cook .
For 35 years of my life I cooked professionally and yet what did I do on my holidays? That’s right, cook some more.
I think that all of my children have a fairly good appreciation of good food, some of them can even cook.
I sometimes think that if I did nothing else at least I did achieve that.
Without some knowledge of food and cooking I don’t believe we can ever eat well.
I find it shocking to read that in many modern apartments and houses the only thing that distinguishes a kitchen from the other rooms in the house is the presence of a sink and a microwave.

We have lost the tradition of cooking and no-one is teaching our children how to cook.

When I was little I was always in the kitchen, I can remember so clearly the way everything was cooked, the fat being spooned over the fried eggs to whiten the yolk, the cakes being mercilessly prodded with knitting needles to see if they were cooked in the middle, the roast potatoes being turned in the oven to insure an even browning.
We were lucky in that we had a vegetable garden and kept hens.
As the youngest, and the one most likely to be hanging around the kitchen, I would often be the one sent up the garden for a few spuds, or some horseradish for the beef, or, in the summer some apples for a tart.
In that way I had a natural appreciation of the goodness and freshness of the food we ate, I could taste the amazing sweetness of the new potato when it was only out of the ground an hour before being put in the pot.
I could see eggs being poached which were so fresh that the whites remained oval in the cooking. I tasted raspberries which were still warm from the sun on their canes.
It is no wonder really that I became a chef.
Children who live in houses where food is never cooked have to rely on other sources to give them that stimulation.
Their taste buds are formed by such loving mentors as Mr McDonald and Mr Tayto, or worse.
It is in these mentors interests to form the taste buds in a way to insure return of sales, rather like the way a heroin supplier gives out free samples to keep continuation of sales on track.

Our children are becoming more and more obese, as soon as we decide on another initiative to help, to control school lunches for example, the cynical multi nationals spring in with their own loaded “solutions” as dairy lunchables or cheese strings.
The Italian Slow Food organisation have discovered that the only way to re-educate children is to bring them back to the source of food.
Children who “can’t stand” tomatoes will devour one which they have seen growing on a vine.
This was my privilege while I was growing up.
It would be more or less impossible to do that in every home today.
We no longer have the gardens.
It could possibly be achieved in schools but only if we had a truly enlightened minister in command.
In the meantime one thing we can do is to allow our children back into the kitchen.
Get them cooking.
Often the best way to start is with foods which prepared off the stove and then finished on the heat.
My eldest daughter could make bread before she was 7.
It was as easy as making mud pies and many times more rewarding.
I seem to remember that to stop me annoying them in the kitchen at home I was taught how to make biscuits, I became a dab hand after a while.

Food you cook yourself always has more value than ready made purchases.
Take the time, even one day a week to teach them (or even yourself) how to cook.
It is a wonderful gift to have.