How I used a Scrapbook to plan Cream Horns and Vol au Vents
What was it like teaching cookery to teenagers in East London in the 1970s?
My book, Cream Horns & Vol-au-Vents, looks back at my experiences as a young teacher, trying to teach teenagers how to cook in a very different world.
Those were the days when cookery lessons could involve making cream horns, vol-au-vents and other elaborate dishes that had remarkably little to do with the practical business of feeding yourself.
Looking back, I sometimes wonder quite what we thought we were preparing our pupils for!
But teaching was never just about the recipes. It was about the young people, the classroom, the challenges and the funny, frustrating and unforgettable moments along the way.
Cream Horns & Vol-au-Vents is my account of teaching cookery in East London during the 1970s, and of an approach to food education that now seems a world away.
It’s a story about teaching, teenagers and changing times — with plenty of cooking along the way.
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.’
One day I will never ever make rough puff, flaky and puff pastry again. It will be struck off by the exam boards when they realise it is a high fat waste of my student’s time. We might show videos about it as a piece of history. A nonsense done by daft cookery teachers in the 1970s and silly fun shown on old TV game shows.
Cream horn tins bought in charity shop as piping bags.
One day a factory will make it and we can buy it in supermarkets ready made if we really want to cook with it. The cream horn tins will be thrown away. My students won’t know the meaning of mille feuille.
Eccles cakes, sausage rolls and jam puffs will be bought in cake shops unless a future government puts a ban on them or labels them with big red sticker to show they are very high in fat.
No more pastry made from lard or cheap fishy margarine from county supplies. No more struggling on hot summer days trying to get lumps of fat in between layers of fatty pastry. No more scraping off sticky failures from my work surfaces.
No more greasy baking trays for me to soak after school in the butler’s sink full of boiling water and caustic soda.
No more fatty cooking that drips through the shelves of the oven, splatters the oven sides and glass doors and covers the oven with blobs of grease.
My cookers need an industrial cleaning company to come in after these pastry lessons and remove the amount of grease that has accumulated from these wretched high fat pastry dishes.
After school I spend hours lying on the kitchen floor, scraping out layers of fat and scouring the trays at the bottom of the oven with endless Brillo pads to stop black smoke from billowing out when the ovens are lit.
There is a limit to the cleaning greasy oven punishments I can hand out to naughty students to help with this task!
And no, the school cleaners do not want to do this job – it is not part of their role according to Jim the caretaker.
The exam has been renamed Food and Nutrition. We learn about healthy eating and cutting down on saturated fat. Fatty pastry lessons must stop.
‘No help in the Practical exam’ Fodd teacher Simon said – It reminds me of running so many catering exams with half classes of 12 students making 3 dishes each in 3hrs! I felt like a fireman on standby, a paramedic waiting for his first patient and a counsellor consoling students in tears when their gateaux came out as flat as a pancake and would double up as a spare tyre for a Go-cart. Such Fun!!!Sara wrote ‘This reminds of me and my best friend in school when we did A level food and so much of many of the girls I’ve taught over the years.‘Liza – ‘It’s got to be Angel Delight!!! A favourite in my house and for me growing up. ‘ Elizabeth – ‘Angel Delight is my favourite – it takes my straight back to my teenage years and I can almost taste the butterscotch. ‘Food Teacher Manda – ‘I’ve had a really tough half term and this is exactly how I’ve felt for most of it! I loved your book! I found it inspiring. I read it over the summer and it gave me great motivation to persevere with the new phase in my teaching career. Food Teacher Andrea – ‘Having had no practicals last year I am truly exhausted each night after running round all day doing back to back practicals!‘‘We want to cook – not do theory!’ Food Teacher Heather ‘This is my favourite image in your book and made me laugh as it sums up what kids are like most of the time in the classroom when you tell them they are doing theory. So many people have the impression that Home Economics is easy and you just do cooking. So they think it is ideal for those who are not academic, whereas we actually do as much theory as practical and you end up with pupils looking like the person in the picture.‘‘A mouse was watching me cook’ Food teacher Adele – ‘A couple of years ago my school had all of the heating pipes & radiators replaced . They left holes in walls where they shouldn’t have been. We got some new pets in the form of mice.‘Food teacher Bea – liked the mouse story and said ‘I wonder how many circles we have gone around and how many things we are starting to do that you used to and then went out of fashion!!!‘Food teacher Becky ‘I love the drawing of the mini. I just adore them – I’ve got one now.‘
