THE children who have come to learn how to cook at Jen’s Homegrown Cooking Academy are nothing like their peers in Junior Master Chefs, an Australian game show where eight- to13-year-olds try to outcook each other.
At Jennifer Palencia’s home in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Kuala Lumpur, the nine children, aged between seven and 12 who have come to try their hand at making beef burgers, baked bananas with chocolate chips and nata de coco with cream, do not even have the proper tools to work with.
To dice onions and slice cherry tomatoes, the children saw away with serrated knives. This, said Palencia, 50, was a safety measure the school had decided to take after one parent made her guarantee that her son would not sustain any cuts in class.
The children also displayed none of the speedy and precise routines exhibited by the show contestants. To complete the simple menu, they took four hours and even then, there were three adults on hand to help them brown onions, grill patties, fold banana parcels and crack open coconuts for the dessert finale. If not, they might have needed a longer time.
It is a scenario that raises pertinent questions on children and housekeeping. Coming from a generation where kids are already proficient in pounding chillies and slicing onions by the age of seven, it makes one wonder if the children in Palencia’s class do take an active role when it comes to food preparation at home.
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