Autumn 2009 - Ten years old and counting

Celebrating 10 years of teaching youngsters in Slough how to cook and learn more about food, the Summer School Cook Project has gone from strength to strength.

Not many people would give up two weeks of their precious summer time to take a class for beginners, but for the last 10 summers Steve Scuffell, Craft Guild vice president and head chef at London’s Crown Moran Hotel, has gone back to school to help youngsters get a better understanding about food and, equally important, how to cook it.

Along with Pip Collings, public health dietician at Berkshire East PCT, talents are combined – Collings on the nutrition side and Scuffell on the cooking side – and training is given to a group of students, some of which may never have cooked before or know anything about professional kitchens.

At Thames Valley University (TVU) in Slough the Summer School Cook Project again kicked off and kitchen doors were opened to local teenagers, offering them two kinds of courses – one for basic skills, the other an advanced course for those thinking about having a career in catering or wanting to be more efficient in the kitchen. Among the subjects covered are nutrition, knife skills, butchery and fishmongery.

Next year there is a question mark over where the project will be based as TVU’s Slough site is closing. But in true Dickens’ Micawber style, Scuffell is confident the project will carry on.

But how did it all come about? Collings says that with childhood obesity on the increase, kids need good cooking skills and healthy eating education more than ever.

“We have raised a generation who lack basic cooking skills and this has serious consequences for the future health of our youngsters. It is also having a considerable impact on the catering trade. It makes sense for dieticians and chefs to work together to introduce young people to the pleasure and practical advantages of cooking.”

In addition to these projects, the duo also delivers six weekly sessions at Slough & Eton School working with year 10 food technology students. This project was piloted last year and is back by popular demand.

Scuffell says: “I’m delighted to offer students this opportunity to experience life in the catering industry at first hand. I would also like to take this opportunity to personally thank Bunzl Lockhart for donating 12 sets of knives for our projects. This allows the students to work with top quality products when they are with us.”

Bunzl Lockhart says it values its support for the project: “We work extensively within the education sector and where possible we endeavour to help initiatives such as this that support young people’s dreams to become successful chefs.”

At the end of the two weeks, an awards presentation dinner for the students’ friends and families is held at Slough & Eton School where each student receives a certificate from the Craft Guild of Chefs, which is presented by the Mayor of Slough, and copies of the recipes they have cooked.

The dinner is cooked by the advanced course students, who are split into three teams of three to take on the starters, mains and desserts.

This year the menu comprised a selection of homemade bread with olive oil and balsamic dips, roasted vegetable and chickpea terrine with spiced apple chutney and herb toast, steamed salmon fillet with lemon and coriander dressing or curried potato and vegetable cakes with sweet chilli dressing – both served on a bed of Jersey Royal potatoes, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes and broad beans. For dessert there was Greek yogurt and honey panna cotta with a wild berry compote and honeycomb dust.

In October the more capable students are invited to the Crown Moran Hotel for a day’s work experience, where they prepare dinner for hotel guests and a proportion of the proceeds are donated to the British Heart Foundation.

Seventeen year old Areesa Javed, who is in her last year at school and currently doing A levels, hopes to be there. Rather than becoming a chef, she hopes to go to university to study to become a urologist [ear doctor] but she has involved herself with the project for the last three years.

When she first heard about it from friends she wanted to have a go. “Cooking has been one of my hobbies; something I really enjoy. I loved the first year doing the basics. Last year I went on to do the advanced course, and this year I got into the advanced course again.”

She says you get to do so much more in the advanced course. “The first day we made bread rolls and noodle soup; the second day was starters – nice simple dishes such as tomato and mushroom tart and frittatas. But the next two days were tougher. It got harder having to fillet fish and get two good fillets out of it,” she explains.

“But the way chef shows you how to do it, you can do it. Steve Scuffell was brilliant. The kinds of dishes he shows are simple. I am going to university and I’m learning something you can take everywhere.”

She says the course accommodates everybody. She eats halal food and was provided with halal ingredients for her dishes so that she could take them home afterwards.

“I would do it again if I got the chance, and I would
recommend it to others. My brother did it as well this year and he did even better than me.”

• For further information contact Pip Collings on 07799 646675 or email pip.collings@berkshire.nhs.uk

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