We all know Education Minister Michael Gove is publicity mad, unveiling a new 'initiative' on a daily basis - and yesterday he scored another public relations triumph, proclaiming from next September all kids aged seven to 14 will have compulsory cookery lessons.
I have been advocating precisely this as a way of dealing with obesity and poor diet for at least two years, but I'm not complaining you stole my (free) idea Michael, and I'm not even on your payroll as a special adviser.
Your timing is impeccable, right in the middle of the giant mince crisis, when night after night news bulletins feature mums and pensioners moaning that their ready meals, cheap burgers and frozen lasagnes aren't what they say on the label.
'Gove's plan gets the thumbs up from me. Mind you, I'd go further' says Janet Street PorterLet's not trash Gove's plan by wondering how schools that can't even cook nutritious hot meals for kids at lunchtime are going to suddenly magic up the facilities to teach food preparation and bake simple recipes from scratch.
More from Janet Street Porter... JANET STREET-PORTER: I despise the nanny state - but it's the only cure for Fat Slob UK 02/06/13 Wrinklies, rise up! Attacked for stealing the young's jobs and patronised by politicians. We oldies, says JANET STREET-PORTER, unveiling her Grey Power Manifesto, need to fight back... 31/05/13 JANET STREET-PORTER: Watch out... soon GPs will ban patients altogether! 27/05/13 Janet Street-Porter: 'Experts say I'm common but I'm just not bovvered! It hasn't held back David Beckham or Adele' 19/05/13 'Yes, I'm a Nimby. And proud of it!': JANET STREET-PORTER cheers on the Not In My Backyard brigade and snubs wind farms 13/05/13 Janet Street-Poter: We'll all have to cough up for Dave's betrayal on booze 'n' fags 05/05/13 How many of us ever thank those who shaped our lives? In these witty yet surprisingly tender letters, JANET STREET PORTER says: Thank you for making me the nation's favourite big mouth 03/05/13 JANET STREET-PORTER: Hand back our bus passes and TV licences?! You must be joking, Iain Duncan Smith 28/04/13 As Sharon Osbourne leaves Ozzy behind, Janet Street-Porter says there are four words a wife should never trust: 'I promise I'll change' 21/04/13 VIEW FULL ARCHIVEWho will be paying for the pots, pans and ingredients? What other subject will be culled to fit cooking into the curriculum?
Where are the qualified teaching staff coming from? Just thought I'd ask.
Otherwise, Gove's plan gets the thumbs up from me. Mind you, I'd go further.
The great minced beef disaster, to give the current catastrophe its full title, exposes with horrible clarity the yawning gap between what we read about food and watch on telly and what we shove in our mouths every evening.
Celebrity chefs waffle on about balanced menus and garnishes while we consume ready-made slurry while sitting on the sofa or tweeting.
To cater for our interest in food as entertainment rather than as an essential life skill, the BBC has just re-launched Food and Drink - another programme added to our daily diet of televised gluttony.
This week the delights include everything from The Great British Menu (daily), the Hairy Bikers, Come Dine With Me (daily) and Hugh F-W launching another fish campaign. On this week's Food And Drink, Michel Roux Jnr promises to show us how to make an apple tart 'flamed with Calvados'.
Hello? Flamed with Calvados? What planet are these people on? How many households have Calvados lurking at the back of the cupboard, unless it's muck left over from lighting the Xmas pud?
The mince crisis is all about people not having the confidence to cook that most basic of foods, ground beef. Telling non-mince people how to flame a tart is like giving a child of ten a Maserati.
We need more than Gove's cookery classes for kids to prevent future food scandals - every meat-eater in the land must be able to cook minced beef from scratch.
Then they can confidently go to the meat counter in the supermarket, or the butcher, ask the magic question: 'Is it British?' and buy a handful for every person at the table, blow weights, that's how I do it.
They can then make burgers, shepherd's pie, spag bol, whatever, for less money than buying the tainted stuff on sale in the supermarket. And it takes no longer.
JSP'S BASIC MINCEChop up an onion or two and soften in oil or butter. Do not let the onion brown. Add a grated carrot (optional). Add one handful of mince per person. Break up lumps with a fork, cooking slowly until brown. This should take around five to eight minutes. Stir in a tablespoon of flour. Add tomato puree if you want. Add a cup or so of beef stock made from a cube. Put the lid on and cook for ten minutes, adding more liquid if necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste.
I'll go further - before we can claim benefits, why doesn't the Government order us to pass a minced beef test? Pensioners buying tinned processed meat is bizarre - surely most have time to cook the stuff from scratch?
We've got a citizenship test, why not a Mince Exam? As the crisis lurches on, and Ministers (unhelpfully) talk about 'criminal' conspiracies and the blame gets passed from supermarkets to abattoirs up and down the convoluted food chain, there's only one solution.
Don't eat processed meat, you have no idea where it's from. A pie can contain meat from all over the world, but if it is assembled and cooked in the UK, it can be labelled a 'British' meat pie.
Life's too short to eat mystery meat. Cook your own.
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Hey, dads! Please stop doing that
Who is the most embarrassing dad in Britain? There’s no shortage of famous contenders. David Beckham — could that man keep his trousers on for five minutes?
How can his gorgeous sons develop their own sense of style when dad spends hours hogging the mirror?
Simon Le Bon’s moustache (grown for charity in November) is a cry for help. It’s sprouting like an ugly thistle ‘because my wife likes it’. Attention-seeking? Surely not.
Chris Huhne — is there any need to explain?
Embarrassing dads: David Beckham, Chris Huhne and Duncan BannatyneTony Blair, with the TOWIE tan, the gold necklace, the black shirt artfully unbuttoned — move over Peter Stringfellow, there’s competition in town!
But the prize goes to Duncan Bannatyne, who is divorcing his second wife (they have two children aged 13 and 11). He described his family as ‘gold-diggers . . . and disgusting parasites’ and claims he’s cried every day since Mrs Bannatyne walked out two years ago.
Do these men consider what their kids have to put up with each day? Talk about self-centred prats.
Just £50,000 to look like a demented pirate Talent: This talented man, John Galliano, will surely get another job, but I doubt he'll match his previous salary John Galliano was sacked from Christian Dior two years ago after a drunken racist rant in a bar in Paris saw him end up in court.After a spell in rehab, this week he will be making a rare public appearance, at the Oscar de la Renta show in New York. This talented man will surely get another job, but I doubt he’ll match his previous salary. He’s currently suing Dior for compensation, and legal documents reveal that on top of his £850,000 annual salary, he was entitled to claim for £50,000 on grooming! At his most flamboyant he looked like a pigtailed cleaning lady crossed with a demented pirate — was someone having a laugh at his expense? TV Ruth’s Welsh wallies are just like my relliesStella on Sky 1 is easily the best comedy on television at the moment. It is co-written by and stars Gavin and Stacey’s creator Ruth Jones as the fortysomething Stella, a divorced mum of three who has just had a phantom pregnancy and lost her toyboy as a result.The show is warm-hearted, borderline tasteless and always surprising. Luckily, a third series has been commissioned when the current run ends in March.Set in the mythical village of Pontyberry in the valleys of South Wales, Stella reflects a claustrophobic world where everyone knows everyone’s business, there are few jobs and not a lot of cash.I know it well, having spent a large part of my childhood staying with my granny in a village near Bangor where everyone had a nickname (mainly because they were all called Jones), and you couldn’t walk ten yards without a twitching curtain checking out who you were with and what you were wearing. Comedy: Stella is co-written by and stars Gavin and Stacey's creator Ruth Jones as the fortysomething Stella Ruth has brilliantly captured the full range of eccentric characters you find in these places — from Auntie Brenda, who has to have the final word on every subject, to pitiful Alan the redundant lollipop man. There’s Paula, the functioning-alcoholic funeral director, who is a sex addict, and Dai, her recently dumped husband who dresses up as Adam Ant for the school reunion.Eccentrics run in the Welsh side of my family — I had two great-uncles, one who drank and was the village grave-digger, and his brother, a teetotaller, who preached in chapel. I’m not quite sure which one I take after.
