Link to Louise’s talk at my book launch for Cream Horns and Vol au vents. On this link
Discover how we met at Hurlingham School and went on to write many books together.
Louise runs The Food Teachers Centre which supports over 10,000 food teachers around the country.
Listen to Gilly Smith interviewing me on Cooking the Books Podcast.
My book I taught them to cook is a blistering expose of teaching teenagers in 1970s London how to cook fatty pastries and cakes.
But it was fun.
This YouTube video is Part 1 of planning to write Cream Horns and Vol au Vents
There’s a diary for 1973 to get the dates right.
A list of rude cooking words
Planning the characters and changing names
Planing 1974 with three day week and blackouts.
This photo is a group of my students. I am on the right wearing an all-brown outfit. High, suede leather boots, a brown mini skirt, roll neck jumper, belted at waist and a jaunty cap.
Read about those days in Cream Horns and Vol au vents.
Story on this link
Samuel Goldsmith Food writer, author and podcast host
Read Sam’s piece on his passion for food. How he became a food teacher then moved onto writing, podcasting and so much more.
And now he’s Chair of the Guild of Food Writers and runs a successful Good Food Podcast.
Thankyou Sam for contributing to my book Cream Horns and Vol au Vents
When the wheat, oats and barley were ready for harvesting in Northamptonshire fields, I’d pick some for my classes to taste as part of their food lessons.
Read about these stories in my latest book Cream Horns…
‘Before I return to London, I drive into the countryside and climb over gates into the fields ready for harvesting, carrying a pair of scissors.
Large bundles of wheat, barley and oats make excellent visual aids for my lessons, displayed on a nature table in my classroom.
London children often have no idea how some of our food is grown, and may never have tasted the seeds from the ears of wheat.’
In the 1950s, Britain produced 1 million chickens a year – today it is over a billion. Intensive farming in the late 1960s reduced the price of chicken.
In 1972, chicken was too expensive for me to cook at school and there was nothing in the textbooks or exams.
Read about my chicken lesson here. From I taught them to cook
Today chicken is the most popular meat around the world.
Photo by William Moreland on Unsplash
How I tried to teach my students to wash up in my lessons.
Do you ever dilute Fairy Liquid?
Story from Cream Horns…
Delia’s How to cheat at cooking helped stop me making mincepies for the school Carol Service 1973
Read about it on this link
Jenny Ridgwell 