Cooking Communities: using multicultural after-school cooking clubs to enhance community cohesion

Abstract

There is concern over the lack of cooking skills among young people in the UK. Studies suggest that teaching young people cooking skills can help to improve dietary quality. In light of this evidence, in 2009 Cooking Communities piloted a series of multicultural after-school cooking clubs at secondary schools in Leeds, UK. These clubs aimed to develop young people's food preparation and cooking skills as well as to enhance their understanding of different cultures. Ten 1.5 h cooking clubs were delivered over a 10-week period. Each session concentrated on a recipe linked to a different cultural event, such as bread for harvest festival and honey cake to celebrate Jewish Rosh Hashanah. Pupils completed questionnaires both before and after attending the cooking clubs to assess their cooking abilities and multicultural understanding. These clubs lead to significant improvements in skills such as meal preparation and pupils' ability to cook healthy foods/meals. Pupils' cultural awareness increased significantly after participation in the cooking clubs. Multicultural after-school cooking clubs are an ideal way for young people to enhance not only their cooking skills but also citizenship skills and an understanding of different cultures. This model of multicultural after-school cooking clubs could be adopted by other schools and youth settings in the future to help to promote cooking skills, healthy eating, and respect across different cultural groups.

Public perceptions of cooking and the implications for cooking behaviour in the USA

“…number of cooking class programmes implemented in schools, federal nutrition assistance programmes and other community programmes (27,(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44) . In conceptualizing cooking, for some, the type of food being prepared is of primary importance (i.e.…”

Adolescent food literacy programmes: A review of the literature

“…These suggested contributing factors include changes in the food environment, such as increased acceptance of fast foods and popularity of supermarket home meal replacements . Changes in family demographics, such as dual income or single parent family living, are also suggested to result in decreased opportunity for adolescents to acquire cooking skills from parents and be exposed to food preparation in the home environment . In addition, the changing nature and demise of practical cooking and food preparation skills within the secondary school curriculum from a focus on ‘hands on’ cooking skills to a more theoretical approach decreases the likelihood of development of food preparation skills through this avenue .…”

“…These influences, in parallel with the increasing recognition of the need to develop food literacy skills among adolescents because of their increasing independence from the home food environment, highlight the necessity for purposively designed interventions targeting this age group and area of skill development. However, the development of food literacy interventions that are successful in initiating and supporting behaviour change in adolescents presents challenges in terms of increasing motivation among the target group, addressing determinants of dietary behaviour and decreasing barriers to eating a healthful diet .…”

Consumers' interest in learning about cooking: the influence of age, gender and education

“…Cooking skills may be associated with health benefits (Brown and Hermann, ; Carter, ; Engler‐Stringer, ; Foley et al ., ) and with higher quality diets (Woodruff and Hanning, ). An increasing number of publications describe interventions to teach cooking skills with the ultimate goal of improving the health of the population (Quinn et al ., ; Brown and Hermann, ; Beets et al ., ; Clifford et al ., ; Bukhari et al ., ; Fisher et al ., ; Gatenby et al ., ). This renewed interest in cooking is partly a response to the epidemic of obesity and metabolic disease (Lichtenstein and Ludwig, ), and findings that large proportions of the population consume diets containing large amounts of energy dense, nutrient poor products (Moodie et al ., ) and less than recommended amounts of whole foods such as fruits and vegetables (Victorian Population Health Survey, ).…”