“Wash hands, line bin, put on apron”. They were always the first steps neatly listed in my flowchart. It was just the way that Mrs Stinchcombe told us to write the method for making a recipe. Six rectangular boxes on an A4 page one below the other with arrows between meant you could write the steps clearly, concisely and practically so that when it came to make whatever it was that week, you could easily follow what you’d written – or come unstuck if you’d not given it enough attention.
September always gives me a sense of a fresh start; it’s something that having been in school for so many years as either a student or teacher is hard to shake. It also makes me reminisce somewhat about school days – something that my brother and friends are always happy to do. Chatting to my brother the other day, we remembered some choice teacher catchphrases from our high school days. One of the ones that made us double over with laughter was from Mrs Stinchcombe – our fantastic food tech teacher. She would demonstrate the recipe (Victoria sandwich, spaghetti Bolognese…) one week and you’d cook it the next week. Her phrase as she was demonstrating at her teacher’s kitchen unit at the front of the classroom bit of the kitchen was, “You’d better be watching because you’ll have to do this next week”, catching unawares those looking away, playing the fool, or not filling in their flow chart properly. When creaming sugar and butter she’d say, “If your arm’s not aching, it’s not ready”. “It think it’s ready miss” “Is your arm aching?” “No, Miss” “Then it’s not ready”.
She had such a warmth and sense of humour, but didn’t pull her punches either, but then with 25 12-year-olds in a class she couldn’t afford to – she’d once lost an eyebrow trying to fix a gas hob after all. But when I think back now, if I learnt the art of cooking from my Nans – a pinch of this, a splash of that, Mrs Stinchcombe (and later Mrs Westerland) taught me the science. The importance of weighing and preparing all your ingredients (to be put on a white try before you started in food tech class), the basics of food hygiene and safety (boiling hot soapy water for anything raw poultry has touched), what food is made up of and how it changes when you cook it (why toast tastes sweeter than bread) and of course, the science behind a non-sinking sponge – the one thing my Nannie Gwen could never master.
Bake Off has not long started in typical style with cake week and my work colleagues encouraged me to make them something (it didn’t take a lot) and so I whipped up a Victoria sandwich. No need for a recipe, or instructions. I knew it from Mrs Stinchcombe’s class. I can see the flow chart in my head and the list of ingredients and their measurements. I still double line the base of the baking tin on her recommendation. I used the creaming method – and my arm ached – “Because you still get a better result when you mix if by hand”. It came out just as I wanted and I filled it with the classic buttercream and strawberry jam combo.
What I realise when I look back now is that she prepared us for feeding ourselves, budgeting, making a meal for a family, portion control, and also about cooking for pleasure as well as sustenance and health. The first thing we learned to make was as salad. Simple preparation, but it instilled in me the importance of thoroughly washing vegetables to remove pesticides and chemicals, how to easily deseed and chop a pepper or chilli, and how to present food on a plate among other things. What followed over the next two years was a succession of gradually more complicated recipes, spaghetti Bolognese, Swiss rolls (well, Yule log as it was Christmastime) – “Put a tea towel underneath and score the end to make it easier to roll” – and of course a Victoria Sandwich. Why we still insist on this being the finest example of a Brit’s ability to cook is a little beyond me, but we all enjoyed the results nonetheless and as my colleague will attest, it has not done me any harm.
My brother was lucky (being four years older than me) and got to study catering for GCSE. It had sadly disappeared from the options when I reached the end of year nine. He earned his food hygiene certificates, learned how to make all sorts of pastry, and even had a work experience placement in a canteen. When I came to look at the courses, food tech didn’t seem nearly as fun or hands-on as catering. I foolishly took graphic design. I remember saying to Mrs Westerland on my last day, “In my next life I’ll take food tech”. I like to think that I’ve redeemed myself by now writing about food for a living – something I never would have done had it not been for Mrs Stinchcombe and those flow charts.
