Gone are the days when kids occasionally peeped into the kitchen and asked mom ‘What’s cooking?’ Now little masterchefs are whipping up their own concoctions at home and mums and dads are eating right off their palms. Who do have you at home -- The star sandwich maker? The Italian pasta pro pre-teen? Or the Chota Bheem who rolls his own oats and dates laddoos?
Two factors seem to be driving this move -- TV’s glamour bug that goads the lil ones to be Masterchefs, and parents worrying about their children’s food habits and nutrition. Diptee Chodankar, a home science and hotel management graduate runs workshops called Kids In The Kitchen for five to 14 year olds, where they learn, to rustle up cornflakes bhel, Italian khakra twist, or churma laddoos with chapatis. She started this after observing the eating habits of her nine-year-old. “All of them watch Masterchef on TV. So I thought why not teach them to make something nutritious for themselves? The ‘cooking without fire’ workshops encourages children to use whatever is available in the house,” says Diptee. Many of the children come to learn dishes so they can participate in cooking competitions in their schools. Madhavi Madineni sent her son Dhruv, five, and daughter Lasya, eight, to one of Diptee’s workshops because she believes the kids need to hear from a nutritionist what to eat and not, and because she felt the children will appreciate her efforts better. Lasya is now aware of which food has more Vitamin C and which Vitamn A, and even rustles up something for herself after school sometimes. “My favourite is bread dahi vada. You cut the edges off the bread...,” she begins and rattles off her recipe.
Fourteen-year-old Rohan Pai a.k.a The Maskerchef combined his love for cooking with his love for making videos to run his own YouTube Channel with his cousin in tow; they wear a mask each time (Batman, Santa Claus) so that people don’t identify them! He already has about 10 episodes up and running that include Batman’s Brownies, ShereKhan’s Shahi Paneer, and Ali Baba’s Ambotik. Starting off at five making scrambled eggs and dosa for himself, he was inspired seeing his mom in the kitchen. By and by he started surfing the Internet for recipes, and trying them out for himself. He also follows several famous chefs on YouTube. “I cook when I’m bored. It’s a fun thing to do.” He says all his school friends watch and discuss the Masterchef series on TV. Many of his friends and family have tried his recipes from his channel, taken pictures and sent them to him.
“I have actually lost count of the kids who have told me ‘Oh I love to cook but my mother doesn’t let me’ or ‘I would love to make anything but I only bake since my mum doesn’t allow me to use a knife’,” says Monika Manchanda, food consultant and culinary trainer, who has conducted over 40 cooking workshops for children over the last four years in Bengaluru. She rues that we underestimate kids in kitchen, and don’t give them the liberty to do what they want. “We are always worried about the ‘mess’ they will create and hence tend to do stuff ourselves but a little guidance can actually take them a long way.”
“I think cooking is a life skill and everyone should know how to put together a meal for themselves. It is also important to make them aware of what goes behind putting that food on the table. I also strongly believe that kids appreciate and eat better when they actually get involved with it,” stresses Monika. When her son was barely over two, she would give him a plastic knife to chop tomatoes or a grater to grate a carrot while she put a meal together. “As we spent more time in the kitchen, the chores he helped me with increased and reached a point where we would actually talk about cooking and techniques! At six, he was putting together a sandwich for himself and last year at 7.5 he grilled lamb chops for me (with a thermometer at that) after I had a very hard day at work.”
Sanaa Abdussamad and Jalaja Ramanunni run Kidchen,which believes in imparting cooking lessons as a life skill to kids. “It’s not just treated as a hobby. And this is not a ‘You’ll be a Masterchef’ place. Food will always be a part of our lives. We make actual stuff we eat. We use food to talk about maths, science and geography. And we do make it fun,” says the no-nonsense Sanaa. Using tools that children can relate and which are child-safe -- Lego cookie cutters, dump trucks as spoons, child-safe knives -- they get children interested in the process. Kids take turns and knead dough. They are encouraged to get creative with everyday recipes - ever met Curd Rice Man? “Some of the recipes which are a favourite with kids include spinach chips, banana ice cream, carrot crackers, and energy balls. Kids between six and eight these days are so enthused, knowledgeable, and exposed. We do get the kids who hate their beetroot, but we have a rule that you must try everything once before you say you don’t like it,” adds Sanaa.
Restaurants too are not far behind and are tapping in on the enthusiasm. California Pizza Kitchen has a Kids Kitchen Tours programme on Sundays that’s seen over 100 children go through their kitchen watching in awe as pizzas they put together are baked in the oven. “The idea is to bring about an interest in cooking, to give them an idea of where their food comes from, to get an idea of how a kitchen works,” says Parthiv Joshi, brand chef at CPK. Children are handed small balls of dough, given a choice of toppings to pick from, and they go through the whole base-cheese-sauce-toppings process before they hand over their creations to be baked by the chefs.
Monika Manchanda surmises the purpose of getting kids involved in cooking when she talks of how it ultimately is a medium to open their minds to so many things -- “Things from as small as less wastage and reuse, to gender equality by saying everyone works in the kitchen.”
