Teenage cooks will do alright

What do you get if you cross a healthy fast-food cookery camp with a bunch of teenagers? Lots of good food for thought, writes Sylvia Thompson

IT WAS A tiramisu with a difference. Gone were the coffee-soaked Boudoir biscuits. Gone was the marscapone blended with whisked eggs and icing sugar tinged with Amaretto layered with biscuit and topped with sprinkled cocoa. Instead, there were ginger biscuits soaked in orange juice, layered with fresh raspberries and natural yogurt.

It was an absolute travesty of Italy’s most famous dessert – but it tasted good, and what’s more, the teenage summer campers were pleased with their healthy dessert made in minutes.

The setting was nutritionist and wholefoods cook Lynda McFarland’s first healthy fast-food cookery camp for teenagers at Our Lady’s Bower secondary school in Athlone, Co Westmeath. The idea was to give teenagers hands-on cookery experience and ideas for healthy and quick meals that they could cook at home for all the family or for themselves as they started college away from home. Four boys and four girls signed up for the three-day camp.

“I have done a lot of cookery workshops for adults and some cookery demonstrations for children, but not a practical class like this,” says McFarland. Each day (camp ran from 10am-2pm), the teenagers made something healthy for breakfast (cheese and tomato omelette or home-made granola with natural yogurt and fresh fruit) and dinner (fish pie with mushy peas) and a healthy dessert or snack (tiramisu and chocolate brownies).

“I didn’t want to keep mentioning health and nutrition, so I just brought in good quality ingredients for them to use in the recipes. And I put up charts on the wall with healthy eating tips, meal suggestions and the healthy eating food plate,” says McFarland.

On the day we visited, the participants were busy making home-made beef burgers and crispy wedges. “I couldn’t boil an egg before I came to the camp but I’ve learnt so much over the last few days about fast and easy things to cook,” says James (18). “It’s easier than it looks. I liked making the chicken curry and omelette.”

David (15) already enjoys cooking at home. “I could do pancakes and omelettes before, but I wanted to try my hand at something more exotic,” he says. “I liked making the fish pie best.”

Lisa (15) is an enthusiastic cook at home. “I like baking cup cakes and banoffee at home, but here I’ve learnt how to use different ingredients to make healthier options of the same food. For instance, we used the natural yogurt and orange juice in the tiramisu and we used spelt flour in the fish pie,” she says.

Kate and Éadaoin, both 16, are new considering doing Home Economics for the Leaving Certificate, not having studied it up to now. “The camp really showed us different ingredients and how you can put spices like ginger and cinnamon in smoothies or how to include avocados and courgettes in meals,” says Éadaoin. “There are some girls in our school who skip breakfast, which isn’t healthy. I eat breakfast but the ideas for the healthy breakfasts that I learned at camp are great,” says Kate.

McFarland says the best way to teach people to eat healthier food is to let them sample it and show them good quality ingredients. Cathriona Finnerty, who is currently studying nutritional therapy, is working with McFarland at the summer camp. “Children aren’t learning as much [about food] from their parents and grandparents as they used to. Cooking is a great thing to do on rainy days,” she says.

Sitting in the kitchen of Our Lady’s Bower, eating home-made beef burgers and wedges with freshly tossed salad, I can vouch for the quality of the food served. And while we ate, the conversations about processed foods, celebrity cooks and the like certainly proved that this group of teenagers were well on their way to knowing how to cook well for themselves as adults.

lyndamcfarland.com