Chefs And Kids

Here's a neat piece from today's Columbus Dispatch. It seems that chef's are going into the schools in central Ohio to work with kids and get them to want to eat delicious, healthy food.
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2011/05/09/chefs-connect-with-small-fries.html?sid=101

Maybe the chefs can teach the kids what most mothers (no, Michael, not yours) taught us about eating good food.  In
my mother's house  we had to eat good food or starve because good food is all my mother knew.
 
Putting the school menu in the hands of teachers and dieticians
has not worked well--quote " It's a great start that will allow us
to get out of this mess we are in with school food".

The trouble today is that so many mothers do not teach their kids about GOOD food.They teach them about easy to make and quick food that, while filling, lacks nutricional value.

Interesting article, Michael.
 
I am not a chef  but  have started something new  as of two weeks ago.  I am conducting  a " Good Cooking and Good Manners Club"  for  my youngest granddaughter and two of her   best  friends.  They have been getting off the bus here at night and  we are preparing an entire meal, setting the table nicely  and  practicing  good manners while we eat.  It  has been so much fun.
 
The girls are learning the importance of a well balanced meal and  have to  put foods together that will look colorful on  the plates.  They have come up with some great ideas.  This past week,  they  did a Giant meatball and Ruby pasta dinner.  Ruby pasta is what we call pasta that is at least  two feet long................kids  just love it!
 
They also put together  a great Italian salad which they prepared and dished into  bowls for each person.  There was no time to make bread so Mr. Pillsbury  helped us  out  with  breadsticks  which they baked.  They  loved their elegant desserts which they did.  They squeezed  oranges  and  put  orange sorbet into each orange shell.  They  topped it  with a  wonderful red maraschino cherry.   
 
The most fun remark of the dinner was made by the one little girl  who cannot understand  all the fuss about  proper manners.  She said  "Well,  I guess it is sort of fun doing good manners  but  I cannot eat as  fast  because I have to do too     much thinking!"               

I think part of the problem is also that many mothers (especially young mothers) these days never learned healthy cooking from their mothers.  We are getting into a second generation (and even some third generation) of mothers in the work force who have much less time available to prepare food for their families.  Pre-half-cooked frozen and instant just-add-water commercially-prepared meals probably would have never gotten to be so popular so quickly if it hadn't been for dog-tired mothers lacking time when they got home after their factory (and other) work going back as far as World War II.  Ease and speed in feeding their families often took precedence over healthy food and good nutrition. 
 
I applaud you, Greymo, in doing your part to help reverse the trend.

Great job Greymo.

6star hits it on the nail, when I went grocery shopping yeaterday, my cart was loaded with fresh chicken, veggies, fruit, cheese, etc., all to make scratch meals. I started looking at all the other shoppers carts, full of nothing but cans, boxes, pouches, frozen food bricks and basic junk food.
I never pay attention to all the pre made open a box crap on the shelves, but I started looking at all the convience foods that are in the market today.
 
Prime example, one of my neighbors is a stay at home mom, a 5 & 12 yr old. She can't cook. Mashed potatoes are the ready made type that are in the deli section...just pop in the microwave. Just about everything is ready made in the freezer.
I was over there the other day, she was actually cooking something!... browning some ground beef for sloppy joes, then I watched her add 2 cans of tomato soup and some yellow mustard. Done she proclaims!
The husband is more of a picky eater than the kids, red meat and potatoes, nothing else crosses his lips. Everthing drowned in ketchup.
Now they are raising another generation that does not know anything about food or how to cook.

Great Job Greymo indeed!Children really need to learn these things.They need to learn them so when they get out in the real world and work or what have you, they will have some idea about what is healthy, and how to behave at  awork related or other such function. Sometimes people do go out for lunch at work to other places besides fast food, and in the corporate world good manners are important if you also have to wine and dine clients.
We sometimes ate tv dinners once in awhile, or maybe Hamburger Helper.
But if we had Hamburger Helper Stroganoff, we added canned mushrooms to it, and had a salad and some sort of vegetable as well.
And both my mom and dad could cook.I loved my mother's homemade spaghetti sauce and meatballs,and her chili too. She was a clipper of recipes from way back when,and I still have her old Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook with lots of recipes clipped from newspapers in it.
Even my dad would make things out of the cookbook from scratch.We always had a salad and veggies with whatever meat dish was prepared.
I feel sad for your neighbor's kids. At least with my dad being in the Airforce, we got overseas and ate different foods.The family always loved seafood, chinese and japanese food. And we would make simple mexican food like tacos,chalupas and enchiladas once in awhile.Sometimes momma would make a few Hungarian dishes from her side of the family.
I guess a lot of women never learned how to cook, since it was easier to go and open a can after a hard day of work,and mom never taught them.
My mom stayed at home too,but somehow managed to find time to cook real food.I guess everyone is in a hurry and too lazy to bother to really learn something about food.