Ridgwell Press Shop - I taught them to cook

New ordering system for Ridgwell Press

2010-01-19T18:12:47+00:00

We have a new payment system in place since January 2010.
Payment is required before you receive goods or services such as the Nutrition Program.
Why have things changed?
It is costing too much for us to chase payments from schools where sometimes the invoices are sixth months old – we send letters, emails and phone but still be do not get paid. So now we have a new system.
What should you do if you can ’t pay by credit card?
Go to our online shop and place the order and follow through as if you were going to purchase by credit card.
When you get to the payment section choose Bank Deposit.
We will then create a proforma invoice and when you pay you get the goods.

Examining Food and Nutrition

2009-06-27T17:23:49+01:00

This was a challenging book to write for specifications for 2010. So much changes in the world of food, and every page has to be checked with all the experts.
202 pages with Exam Cafes with revision tips and answers to questions. It covers so much of the Home Economics and Food Technology curriculum and can be used for controlled assessments.
Lots of interesting things on nanofoods, GM foods, Fairtrade, Soil Association, Food Miles, moral and social issues.
If you would like a sample download, email us.
I am currently writing a blog for the book I Taught Them to Cook.
You can find it on
Jenny Ridgwell’s blog.

Guild of Food Writers Awards

2009-06-26T17:20:35+01:00

June 25th 2009 was the evening of the Guild of Food Writers Awards at the Great Hall in Lincoln’s Inn London
Egon Ronay was the guest of honour and presented the prizes. The Food Book of the Year award went to Heston Blumenthal for The Big Fat Duck CookBook, which weighs six kilos!
Winners also included my friend Geoff Tansey for The Future Control of Food. Geoff has been broadcasting about the effect of dairy foods and meat on cancers such as his illness from prostate cancer.
Here’s a picture of Heston Blumenthal – we talked about the new edition of his book Kitchen Chemistry which has been delayed for the time being – we’ve got the book on our list of useful things to sell.
Hope one day that our books and Nutrition Program will get some recognition – but education resources are somehow outside the loop.
Alaska Seafood did amazing fish canapes such as black cod and seared salmon and we sipped on organic wine from Bonterra Vineyards – the rose wine was completely finished by the huge crowd and its deliciousness appreciated!

Eating in the 1940s and 50s

2009-06-22T18:56:00+01:00

Today I went to Greyfriars Court Sheltered housing in Lewes and met with the older people who live there. They’d agreed to answer my foodie questions.
Such things as
‘When did you first eat an avocado, iceberg lettuce, or garlic?’
‘When did you get your first fridge and before that how did food keep cool?’
I took some Eccles cakes for a treat but they were a bit tough and the sugar on the top had caramelised somewhat! It was alively discussion and the group was well travelled and interested in food.
What new things did I learn?
Some ladies used liquid paraffin to make cakes during the war! I thought it was a bowel loosener, so a slice of their cake would have had strange effects later in the day.
One lady made wartime mayonnaise from cold thick custard, vinegar and mustard and she said it livened up a drab lettuce no end. Not sure I’m going to try it!
I wondered why Boots the Chemist sold olive oil that my mother would dribble in my ear when I had earache, yet we never thought of cooking with it. The group told me that people who ate garlic had to be really careful not to create smelly breath, and many people avoided it for that reason.
And why didn’t we eat much chicken? Seems that most of the birds were kept for egg laying, and by the time their laying was over, they were tough old boilers. Chicken was a feast for holidays and Christmas.
What had they learnt in school about cooking? – very little it seems except how to clean down tables and make pastry and cakes! Most of them thought cookery was useless and that they had learnt more from their mothers or cookery books. So that is my life work summed up!
I saw one lady’s recipe book with titles such as Mock crab, Muesli and pizza – quite adventurous for the 1950’s. So thankyou to the ladies and gentleman who took part.

Teaching cookery in the 1970s

2009-06-21T18:00:34+01:00

I am currently writing a book about how I started teaching cookery in London schools in the 1970s.
It’s called I taught them to cook.
Having left university with a science degree, I knew a lot about nutrition and the chemistry of food, but I had no idea how to run a cookery room, manage a boisterous class and cook things. My first lessons were a disaster. Bread rolls baked hard as bullets, cakes that sunk, pressure cookers squirting tomato soup all over us.
The 1970s was a time of great change in our food culture, but I had to teach boys and girls really daft things in order to get them through the CSE and O level Cookery. Lessons included

How to lay an invalid tray and make junket,
Awful offal such as stuffed hearts,
Lots of fatty cakes and pastry.
There were no microwaves, food labelling or computers and we learnt as we went along.
The book includes stories of the different lessons I had to teach and the challenges of teaching in the east end of London in such interesting times as the miner’s and teachers’ strikes, the 3 day week and the introduction of strange new foods including TVP.