My headteacher said I’d never get a job if I studied food at school. How wrong she was!
It’s led to a busy life teaching, training and writing about food.
I Taught Them to Cook is a memoir of the 1970s when everything was changing – our food choices and fashion. Food teaching at the time had out-of-date textbooks and stupid things like laying a tray for an invalid for their practical cookery exams. My students and I puzzled through and I was determined to change things. And it happened!
Reviews
Prue Leith ‘Congratulations. An accurate, and sometimes very funny, account of the trials of a young food teacher in the 70’s. A light hearted testament to the importance of food, education, and a sizzling expose of the blindness of the powers that be.’
Orlando Murrin President of The Guild of Food Writers ‘This is a charming book, and I love its wry, nostalgic tone. Underneath that, there is a message – that food teaching really matters, and it’s sad that the education system doesn’t seem to agree.’
Lesley Garner Journalist and author
You don’t have to be interested in food or education to enjoy Jenny Ridgwell’s page-turning account of teaching a disruptive and unwilling class of teenagers how to cook food in the 1970s. You will absorb a lot of social food history and fascinating period detail – Angel Delight? Stuffed lamb’s hearts? How to set out a tempting tray for an invalid?
by Lesley Garner
Jenny Ridgwell 