Mary: Schools should teach kids to cook 10 healthy meals

MARY Berry puts her success as a cooking phenomenon down to learning the basics from her home economics teacher as a schoolgirl.

But she has slammed today’s schools for failing to teach children simple cooking skills and cutting resources.

Miss Berry, 83, said: ‘Every child, when they leave school, should be able to create ten dishes that they really enjoy themselves, that are healthy, that aren’t expensive, that are nutritionally good.

‘When they leave school and they’re living in a rented room with one ring, they should be able to create a meal quickly from a few ingredients – and enjoy them.

‘But the problem is that the schools have let go of their home economics departments. They’ve sold off the equipment and made them into other rooms.’

Miss Berry, pictured, also told The Sunday Times Magazine that she would have all children taught how to ‘make gravy sauce, how to cook vegetables, how to cook cheaper cuts, and so forth’.

The former Great British Bake Off judge said she first learnt to cook from her domestic science teacher, Miss Date.

She added: ‘She inspired me because she gave me time. I hadn’t been good at other subjects, but suddenly I could do something and I was being praised for it..

On her new BBC series Britain’s Best Home Cook, which starts on Thursday, Miss Berry judges the best of amateur savoury meals. But it seems she has little time for the latest trendy food fads.

She said: ‘You’ll notice that there’s not much kale in the show. It’s the fashionable thing at the moment. Four years ago it was given to horses. Now it’s everywhere, but I think it will pass.’