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Kids in the kitchen

Contrary to popular opinion, plenty of children are getting hands-on with preparing and cooking food.

Dani Valent
Dani Valent

Ella Mooney in her school's kitchen garden.
Ella Mooney in her school's kitchen garden.Kristoffer Paulsen

The prevailing narrative about children and food is that they're eating too much, it's the wrong food anyway, and they're eating it in front of brain-draining screens. They're overweight, potentially diabetic and on track to number among the 65 per cent (and rising) of Australian adults who are too hefty to be healthy. But there's a counterweight tale, too, one of children who cook and eat healthy food, building good habits for their own lives and perhaps for their less-aware elders. They are influenced by cooking shows on television, educational programs in schools, other family members and, sometimes, necessity.

The barbecue specialist

Jett Masters, 9, was taught how to turn on the barbecue at his regional New South Wales home and is now the household's breakfast fry-up specialist. ''I am usually the first one up and I am hungry,'' he says. ''My dad says my stomach does the thinking for me in the morning.'' His short-order cooking routine is pretty slick. ''Everyone has their eggs different, so sometimes I feel like I am working in a cafe,'' he says. ''Mum likes her eggs runny and dad likes his eggs dry. I can kind of get them like they want them. I even cook mushrooms for my sisters, though I don't like mushrooms myself.'' His mother, Amanda, approves. ''I like the kids to have a cooked breakfast, and he might be doing that while I'm making school lunches.''

Elliot Baker at work in the kitchen.
Elliot Baker at work in the kitchen.Harrison Saragossi
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Jett is clear about his motivation. ''I cook so that I can eat yummy food,'' he says. ''I make butter chicken, smoothies, salads and popcorn, too,'' he says. ''I look in the fridge and decide what to cook from there.'' If he's unclear about ingredients, he will look them up online. ''The other day I Googled 'condensed milk' because I was halfway through making a caramel slice when I realised we didn't have any.'' Jett doesn't plan to follow his uncle into a cooking career. ''I won't become a chef, but I love cooking. It's really fun and I feel like I'm helping,'' he says.

The gourmet

Fifteen-year-old Elliot Baker blogs about his restaurant meals (ayounggourmet.com) and interns in restaurant kitchens during school holidays. He isn't sure if he wants to be a chef or a food writer when he grows up, but he does know his interest in food was fuelled by elaborate dinner parties at home in Brisbane. ''Around the age of 10 I started to like helping out,'' he says. This now includes planning his own dinners, inspired by cookbooks from his collection. ''The one I'm most proud of was from my Philip Johnson books,'' he says. The four-course menu included pancetta-wrapped scallops, grilled quail with sherry-soaked raisins, and praline semifreddo with salted caramel. ''I really enjoy putting a smile on people's faces, feeling the happiness from serving something I've worked hard on,'' he says. ''And I really love the eating part.'' Elliot's parents don't count on him to help with the daily cooking, and his mum is happy to buy whatever appears on his shopping list for the special dinners. Christmas and birthday swags include cooking accessories, cookbooks and meals at special restaurants. ''They are very supportive,'' he says.

G Storm with his native African dish, fufu.
G Storm with his native African dish, fufu.Luis Ascui

Elliot posts his cooking adventures on Twitter and Instagram. He recently uploaded photographs of a five-course dinner, featuring sous vide pork belly and deconstructed lemon meringue pie. Though he was happy with the flavours, the presentation wasn't up to scratch, so he reworked (and re-photographed) some dishes the next day. ''We had leftover ingredients, so I decided to use different plates and do it again. I want to create a portfolio of good-looking food I've made.''

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The apprentice is turning into something of a master, teaching cooking classes for younger children. ''We do simple stuff like pasta with tomato and mozzarella. I'm a little bit nervous while I'm teaching, but it's good to show kids the basics, things like mirepoix [a chopped vegetable base for French dishes]. That's a good feeling for me.''

The kitchen gardener

Jett Masters at the barbecue.
Jett Masters at the barbecue.Briony Masters

For many Australian children, their first cooking experience is now at school, as part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program, which has rolled out in 561 primary schools around Australia, engaging about 60,000 children. Ella Mooney, 11, is a year six student at an east-side primary school in Melbourne where students grow food, care for laying chickens, and turn the eggs and vegetables into healthy vegetarian meals. Ella has been part of the program since year three. ''You need a lot of patience to grow food,'' she says. ''You need to check for bugs, keep watering, and I've learnt that worm poo is the grossest thing ever.'' In the kitchen, she's picked up skills and new dishes. ''They taught us how to use a knife - you make a bear claw with your fingers, curling your fingertips under so you don't chop them.'' She's savoured ratatouille, Thai curries and lemon muffins, but hasn't embraced eggplant soup. ''It was pretty gross.''

Ella's mother, Karyn, is a fan of the program. ''I hadn't been confident with her using sharp utensils, but her chopping and preparation skills have really lifted,'' she says. ''Ella is so eager to help at home and I'm loving it. It takes a lot of pressure off me.'' Ella now cooks complete meals, planning the dishes, writing a shopping list and selecting ingredients in the supermarket while her mum runs other errands. On weekends, Ella sometimes walks to the local shops with her younger stepsister. ''It's exciting, but it's a big responsibility to take care of somebody younger than me,'' she says. ''It feels really nice to be in charge of the cooking. One time the butcher didn't have any long sausages, so I called home. A lady had told me that there was another butcher across the road and mum said, 'Yeah, go for it', so I did, and they were good sausages.''

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Ella enjoys the craft of cooking. ''I like the chopping and grating and peeling,'' she says. ''It's fun to use my hands and it's nice to smell the spices.'' Completed dishes bring gratification beyond taste. ''When we're eating, everyone says, 'Thank you for making this', and I feel really proud.'' She relishes the independence her skills have bestowed. ''When I'm an adult, I don't want to be one of those couch potatoes phoning for takeaway food,'' she says. ''I want to actually go to the shops and interact with people and come home and cook.''

The hungry refugee

Some children cook because that's the only way they'll eat. Irakiza Jeanchrisoatome Froleni, also called G Storm, is a 17-year-old rapper living in Noble Park in Melbourne, but he was born in Ngara refugee camp in Tanzania and lived there until he was 11. ''The first time I cooked I was five,'' he says. ''I was home by myself while my mum was working. When you're bored you get so hungry. I had watched my mother make fufu and beans, so I knew how to make it. For fufu, you boil water and put flour in it and mix it together, and it comes out like a ball.''

UN food rations arrived regularly, but were dull and never stretched far enough, so camp residents supplemented their diets where they could. Meat was especially coveted. ''If we saw a dog with a bone we would chase him until he dropped it, then clean that bone and put it in our soup,'' says G Storm. He hunted for rabbits and shot birds with home-made weapons. ''We made slingshots from the inside tyres of bikes and shot seagulls, little birds, anything. To cook them, we'd get three rocks, put the wood in the middle, make fire and barbecue them. If you tell this to Australians they feel really sad about it, but the birds were really tasty and it's how we had to eat.'' Finding wood for cooking was always an issue. ''Sometimes we would wake up at three in the morning, walk for 20 miles, cut up wood, and get home late at night,'' says G Storm. Some residents left the camp to hunt. ''People used to bring back zebras, elephants, snakes, everything except lion.'' Children foraged a spinach-like grass to boil and fry, fashioned empty oil cans into beehives, and grew corn and beans. ''We would have to sleep in the field with a piece of wood in case someone came to steal from our little garden,'' he says.

Coming to Australia was full of surprises. ''We were put in a house,'' says G Storm. ''I had seen a fridge on television. I knew that's where the food was, but we were too scared to eat it. We didn't even know what some of it was.''

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The abundance of meat was shocking. ''In the camp, if you had one quarter of a kilo of meat you would call yourself a boss. Here, someone brought us five kilograms of meat. But after a while we got sick of all this meat and we were back to eating fufu.'' He still cooks, especially if his mother is unwell. ''It's weird, because in my culture boys aren't even allowed in the kitchen. But I grew up without a father, and I find it easy and helpful. If you're a guy and your sisters or your mum are not around, you can't just sit around hungry until they get back. It's good to learn. I cook African food, but I would love to learn to make lasagne.''

Building new life skills through cooking

Children's occupational therapist Sylvana Spina is a big fan of the benefits that spring from cooking. ''It's a sensory, tactile experience, involving fine-motor and co-ordination skills,'' she says. ''Nowadays kids get their hands dirty less, so kneading dough, separating eggs, learning the different pressure that you need, it's all really good.'' Spina is a mother of four (her two teenage girls competed in the Junior MasterChef TV show in 2010) and also sees benefits beyond physical learning. ''Cooking teaches maths through weighing and measuring, plus organisational and sequencing skills.'' The social aspects are key, too. ''When we sit together and eat, we connect and talk about our day. It's essential, not just for our little ones but for our teenagers, so they feel that they belong.''

Alice Zaslavsky is a former teacher and MasterChef 2012 contestant who now focuses on food education. ''Cooking is great for learning risk-taking and resilience,'' she says. ''You fail as a cook and it's OK. You try again.'' She says parents shouldn't worry if children just want to make sweet treats. ''I think it's better for them to bake biscuits than for parents to buy them a box of biscuits. They see what's in them, the work that goes into them, and they see reward for effort.''

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Dani ValentDani Valent is a food writer and restaurant reviewer.

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