This is my uniform as a 1970s cookery teacher with matching pink rubber gloves.
The post on this link became my most popular website click. But I don’t think it was to read about about food teaching.
Are pink overalls and rubber gloves a fantasy?
Author: Jenny Ridgwell
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Louise Davies Food Teachers Centre
Read Louise’s post about her work with the Food Teachers Centre which supports food teachers in their work.
IMPORTANT STUFF!
Gov report suggests food lessons should be called Food and Nutrition. That’s 5 name changes since I started teaching!
Read Louise’s post on this link
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What is cookery called now?
Government report 5/11/25 says – We recommend renaming ‘Cooking and Nutrition’ as ‘Food and Nutrition’
In 1970s my subject changed names 5 times!
Story from I taught them to cook is on this link.
Curriculum and Assessment Review says that students should have a grounding in practical cooking skills. They should also understand food hygiene and sustainability.
The focus should be on cooking healthy, nutritious meals.
Download the report on this link – go to p70
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Which countries study Home Ec?
Food teaching has so many titles around the world, it’s hard to know where it is taught. It’s called home economics, home and consumer studies, food and health, food & nutrition, consumer studies, and food technology as part of Design & technology.
ChatGPT says ‘It’s reasonable to estimate that at least 100 countries teach some form of home economics/domestic science (or equivalent) at some level.
In Sweden the subject is known as Home and Consumer Studies
Finland has a long history of home economics/household economics education
Austria offers Nutrition and Household
In Japan, the subject Home Economics appears in school curricula.
In India many education boards offer Home Science
In Indonesia, home economics is described as Family Training and Welfare
Canada does not always have a clearly labelled Home Economics subject
Other countries teach some food studies – Iceland, Denmark,
Singapore – Food & Consumer Education / Nutrition & Food Science
New Zealand – Home Economics
Mauritius – Home Economics
Ghana – Home Economics
Tanzania – Home Economics
Namibia – Home Economics
USA – Home Economics
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Cream horns and vol au vents – new cover
Cover created by David Smith, a great artist who has illustrated so many of my books.
Amazon has Kindle, paperback and hardback on this link
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Gilly Smith on Food
For my book, Gilly Smith has written a passionate piece on the importance of food education. She gives examples of educators and their valuable work.
Read about it on this link
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Corned beef story
Anyone ever lost one of these?
Boys were especially good at breaking the keys on their tins.
You can read the story on this link.
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Boys don’t do cooking
Boys were able to take cookery lessons from the 70s.
Read my story of why so many came to my classes.
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Instant starch
For their out of date 1970s Housecraft exam they must starch and iron a tray cloth
We used starch powder for this pointless task.
Read all about it here
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For mash get Smash
Instant potato lesson to teach about convenience food.
How I persuaded them to use UPF!
Read about the lesson from 1974 it on this link
Another story from Cream horns and vol au vents coming soon.
Jenny Ridgwell 