Culinary crusaders such as Jamie Oliver, and his battle for the hearts and lunch boxes of the nation, have already encouraged more children to get interested in food and where it comes from. Jamie's Home Cooking Skills course focuses on giving young people the skills they need to prepare good, home-cooked food, while television programmes such as Big Cook Little Cook make food fun for pre-schoolers. Junior Masterchef is now so cool that JLS have appeared on it. Online, there are scores of cookery websites solely for young foodies; catering summer camps and cookery classes for children have been one of rare success stories of the recession.
Hannah Bradley runs 'crafty cooks' classes for pre-school children in London and says demand has never been so high. "There is a widely-held view that children are not adventurous when it comes to food, but that is wrong," she explains. "Just look at what was offered as children's meals 10 years ago, where everything came with chips, compared to now where you can have great children's menus in so many pubs, cafés and restaurants. People in general are getting more and more interested in food and this is rubbing off on children."
As the following interviews attest, the message from the next generation of junior foodies is loud and clear: food is no longer just about getting through dinner time. It's a way of life.
Scarlett Emmanuel-Jones, 13, Entrepreneur
"My first food memory is meringues with whipped cream. My aunt made piles of them for my granddad's birthday and I think I must have eaten most of them. I've always had a very sweet tooth.
I really enjoy cooking and do as much as I can. I made my brother macaroni cheese the other day as he didn't believe I could. I can do roasts, too. My favourite dish is a simple one I make in the wok with rice, roast salmon fillet, sweetcorn and soy sauce. I hate, and will not eat, tomatoes.
I came up with idea of developing my own range of sausages because my dad runs a sausage company. He was always bringing home new recipes for me and my mum to try. I really liked them but suggested smaller ones for kids. He thought it was a good idea, so we used his existing recipe and played around with some different shapes, such as chipolatas, small round 'marbles' and mini sausages.
We decided on chipolatas and once they were developed, they were tried out in shops and dad named them after me – he called them 'The Black Farmer's Daughter'. They are now stocked in supermarkets and the turnover is £1m a year. I don't get extra pocket money, though.
Adults do sometimes get it wrong when it comes to food for children. They underestimate what flavours we like. Often there is not enough seasoning and food made especially for kids can be tasteless. We can be adventurous. I ate snails when I was in France once and I really liked them.
We also mostly recognise that healthy food is important. It usually tastes better and isn't filled with loads of chemicals. I've sometimes looked at the ingredients on packs of food and have been shocked at how long the list of additives is."
Josh, 12, and Aaron, 15, Food testers
Brothers Josh and Aaron Henderson are 'food testers' for the children's newspaper First News. Josh says:
"The worst thing we had to eat was chocolate-covered ants. They were disgusting. I could feel bits of their bodies in my mouth. They were slightly crunchy and I washed them down with a lot of water. We've also tried minced brain, which was meaty, cheese-covered mealworms and salt-and-vinegar crickets.
It can be gross but I quite like the challenge, although I am normally quite nervous about eating bugs.
I've never been ill and if I know it's going to be disgusting I have a technique – I try not to chew too much and swallow quickly.
Out of the two of us I have the strongest stomach. I will eat an ant or a worm but I won't eat mushrooms or peas.
We do a food test for the newspaper a couple of times a month. We sometimes suggest our own ideas, like giant gummy worms and lasagne sandwiches, and our mum videos us testing the food and it is posted on the newspaper website.
It is not always horrible stuff – we might be testing a new product, like freeze-dried astronaut ice-cream, or Marmite chocolate.
I'd like to try eating an ostrich egg and there was some haggis pizza in the freezer that we're trying here, but I'd draw the line at eating an eyeball.
Occasionally I cook myself. I won a cookbook in a competition and I like cooking recipes from it. I will make cakes and puddings and I try to eat healthily.
I like watching cookery shows, too; my favourites are Come Dine With Me and Heston Blumenthal's programmes, because he does weird stuff with food."
Zac Lewis, 12, Restaurant connoisseur
"My mum works in the restaurant business so I've been in and out of restaurants on a regular basis since I can remember. I've eaten at a Michelin-starred restaurant: The Curlew in East Sussex, and I could tell the food there was of a very high standard.
I like different restaurants for different reasons. I like Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill in the West End for the sea bass, the Coach & Horses in Farringdon for the scotch egg and the globe artichoke, Browns because they do a really good burger, and there's a chain of Indian restaurants I really like called Masala Zone.
Kids can be overlooked in restaurants. I eat from the main menu now but when I used to eat from the children's menu there was never enough choice. If restaurants want to encourage children to take an interest in eating out, they should extend their child ranges to encourage children to eat different things and experiment more. I will try anything once, but I am not a fan of really spicy food and I don't eat beetroot.
I would expect to pay between £15 to £20 for a decent main course and I often go in the kitchens to have a look around and meet the chefs. I've met Jean-Christophe Novelli, Marco Pierre White and Aldo Zilli.
If I am at a restaurant and the food is not up to standard, I will complain. It happened in the Rainforest Café. I sent the food back because there was no cheese on the macaroni and the sauce was floury.
My interest in food extends beyond restaurants. I enjoy cooking and have been on a cookery course. To be a good cook you need to know about ingredients and have an instinct about how they work together. At home, I cook with my mum and make dinner with her for the family; she is the better cook at the moment, but I hope to catch up."
Sienna De Polla, 8, Organic fanatic
"Most of what I eat is organic. I can taste the difference. Organic tastes fresher. And it means my eggs come from chickens that can run free. I don't like the thought of animals being stuck in cages.
I believe that organic food is important because it is a lot healthier than non-organic food. The organic ingredients are fresh so the food tastes a lot nicer. It is also better to eat because it is not covered in chemicals – it is all grown naturally. We have lots of vegetables in our garden at home so I get to water them and watch them grow. As a family, we have always eaten a lot of organic food because my dad owns What on Earth, an organic food company.
I like to cook sometimes and can make pancakes, omelettes, cakes, biscuits, muffins and smoothies – and I juice. Next,I want to learn how to cook roast chicken and pasta dishes.
If I had to choose my favourite foods they would be calamari, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and artichokes. One day I'd love to eat prawn tempura and sushi in Japan.
I'll try most things but I don't like tofu and hamburgers. I'm not a big junk food fan although occasionally I'll eat chips."
Rachel Richardson, 15, Cake decorator
"Cakes and cake decorations are my speciality. I went on a course at school where I learnt how to make really intricate roses out of icing. I do them at home now. I make birthday cakes and I made the family Christmas cake last year. I love cooking and find cake-making calming and therapeutic, especially when I make delicate decorations. It also makes me feel happy knowing I've made something for people to share. It's good to show you care for someone by cooking for them.
At the weekends I work in a cookery shop and they have cake-making courses. Sometimes I'll help out.
I've been encouraged from a young age to be involved in the kitchen and to be independent and try things out. My gran is good at cake-making and in the summer holidays she used to have a rota where once a week me and my family would take it in turns to cook something. We do that now at home, where we have a timetable. It's important to eat together.
I recently went on a cookery course in south-west England where I learnt to cook a range of Italian dishes. We did a three-course meal, starting with sea bass ravioli. We made the pasta from scratch. For the main course we did stuffed chicken leg and de-boned the chicken and made our own stuffing, experimenting with different spices. For dessert we made lemon tarts. I cooked the same menu for my family when I got back.
I do eat junk food sometimes; I don't enjoy it but if friends are eating it I'll have something. I can't see the point, though, when there's nice food in the house.
It is important for kids and teenagers to have a healthy diet and take an interest in what they eat. Nowadays you don't know what you are putting in your mouth a lot of the time. Even some sandwiches have high sugar content."
VIEW GALLERY
Comments