Andrew’s sister is a teacher at Wood Green Junior School, Wednesbury and through her we arranged to run two morning demonstrations and two hands-on afternoon sessions.

The morning demonstrations were aimed at parents and children, 30 parents and around 60 children came to each. We wanted to teach the parents how to use vegetables in a variety of different dishes so we cooked a roast pumpkin soup and a vegetarian pasta dish, the ingredients of which could also be turned into a floured wrap. The parents got involved with the omelette demonstration towards the end.

We set up a huge vegetable and fruit display. This really got the children’s attention, as they had never seen some of the produce on display. It was very hard to keep the children focused but we gave them a variety of cooked vegetables to taste. This was worthwhile because most of the children did try the vegetables even if they didn’t like them.

The afternoon sessions were for two groups of 16 children. They were fantastic! They all wore hats and aprons. To start with, we let them try a mixture of sweet, sour, salty and bitter foods to see if they could actually recognise which taste buds they were using and then we did a blind fold test so they could use their other senses. We sat with the children and helped them to prepare their own fruit kebabs with honey and yoghurt and to make their own smoothies.

We received so many letters from the children thanking us and telling us how they enjoy making smoothies in the morning before school and also that their mums and dads are making soups and pasta with them. It is amazing to watch 5 and 6 year-old children use their taste buds and it was very rewarding.