Good idea: Lessons for children in how to grow and cook food

Provider Country Trust

Name Norfolk Food Discovery

Summary Children from the most deprived ?communities in Norfolk are being taught how to grow and cook good food

Norfolk Food Discovery is a three-year Lottery-funded project, teaching primary school children from Norfolk’s poorest urban areas how to grow and cook good food.

Run by the Country Trust between October and July each year, 180 children from six primary schools in Norwich and Great Yarmouth grow fruit, vegetables and herbs in their own allotments.

Chefs then come into school to teach them how to cook the food into healthy meals, which children take home to their families. Through blind tasting, the children get to try bold flavours, which they may not have experienced, such as asparagus and blue cheese.

Country Trust director Stewart Goldie-Morrison, says: “Many of the children we work with have appalling diets. This project equips them with growing and cooking skills for life, but also raises their self-esteem and aspirations.”

The children also get to visit three local farms over the changing seasons, to show them how food is produced commercially, and they are encouraged to take part in farm activities. The final stage of the programme lets children run a farmers’ market in school playgrounds.

Janet Clay, head teacher of Henderson Green primary school, says: “A lot of our children have a very narrow sphere. They play on the estate, and that’s all they see all their lives. As well as the planting, and getting new tastes, they’re seeing people at work on farms, getting a sense of what it is like to have commitment to work. And they’re meeting new people.”

Sharna, a pupil at Peterhouse primary school, says: “At the dairy, I saw lots of cute baby cows. I heard cows mooing. When I got home I showed my mum and dad my sweetcorn, a ginormous potato, and sugar beet. I can’t wait until we go on the next farm.”