Cooking: A Family Affair
Sonia Gardner Rudisill and Angela Gardner Santerini both share a lifelong love of cooking that they are passing on to their children.
Cooking is one of the Gardner family’s favorite pastimes. We both inherited the “cooking bug” from our Mom, Gloria, whom you can learn more about here: http://www.athomewithdon.com/article.aspx?aid=56 , and from our Grandmother, Miss Dale (who we called Sweet Nana). Growing up we always had home cooked meals, and dinner was time for the whole family to gather and share what happened to each of us at school or work. (Our mom was a trauma nurse for years and used to delight in telling us all the gory details of what went on in the ER while we were eating. Not always good for the appetite.) Baking cookies and making fancy desserts and treats for special occasions was an activity we looked forward to as children, and still enjoy to this day. It’s a given if there is a Gardner family gathering, we are all going to plan an event and cook together. Now that we’re grown and have children of our own we’re passing our passion for cooking on to them.
Teaching children to cook is more than just a fun family activity. By providing the opportunity for them to learn about healthy ingredients and how to transform those ingredients into delicious meals you are providing a foundation for them to lead a healthy lifestyle into adulthood.
You can begin teaching your children at an early age by allowing them to help out with meal preparation and having the tasks they participate in grow along with them. In addition to being educational, children gain a sense of accomplishment and a foundation to build on as they grow older and can learn more sophisticated things. Children as young as three years old can begin to learn about cooking by doing simple activities such as washing fruits or vegetables, helping to clean off the table or counters, cutting shapes with cookie cutters, and other simple, safe tasks. Also, by simply allowing them to watch a parent prepare a meal they will absorb a lot.
Between the ages of six and 13 you can add more complex tasks that have the added benefit of providing a real-world experience that complements the math and reading skills they are developing in school. Examples of good activities for this age group include reading recipes, using measuring cups, writing shopping lists (parents tell them the items and they write them down), and simple prepping tasks that don’t require a knife, such as husking corn, or tearing lettuce for a salad.
13 to18-year-olds can graduate to activities such as using a knife to chop fruits and vegetables (with supervision, of course), using other utensils such as a food peeler or grater, small appliances such as a hand mixer, and even following steps of a simple recipe. Older teens can build on their skills by planning a special menu for a party or other event, learning to use more complicated appliances such as food processors or blenders, and making multiple recipes and dishes with very little adult supervision. We both remember that it was our teenage years when we really started to love to go grocery shopping and to plan meals and think up recipes.
During all phases of your child’s cooking education, it’s important to teach them about proper safety procedures, including sanitation. You can never emphasize safety in the kitchen enough. But most of all, remember to have fun and lots of patience. If children see cooking as an enjoyable activity rather than a chore they will get a lot more out of it and build great memories to last a lifetime.