When chefs and nutritionists call for children to be taught about food at school, I now know what they mean.
Stephen Bulmer, former chef-director of the Raymond Blanc Cookery School at Le Manoir invited a couple of us journalist/mums down to his new academy, Brook Hall Cookery School in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, last week.
Within minutes of our arrival he'd persuaded a tribe of four-to-six-year-olds (including my very fussy son) to sample corn asparagus, baby turnips and beetroot. In the first hour, they had made marbled brownies and chocolate biscuits; pretty soon after that they were fighting to knead the pasta dough and churning out tagliatelle and spaghetti with very little help.
As they were hard at it for a couple of hours I had expected mutiny, boredom - or chaos at the least - but everyone successfully cracked eggs into bowls rather than their neighbour's hair and nobody baled out.
And the best bit? They all sat down together and demolished plates of salmon fishcakes in a fresh tomato sauce with steamed baby vegetables.
So, I've seen it for myself: children love to cook and they eat better food when they do. There's no doubt in my mind that it should be on the school curriculum
