We gave children in Wales sharp knives and heat. The difference it made was astounding…

Carwyn Graves 

For the last few years I have had the pleasure of writing a monthly column on Welsh food culture and its sheer diversity, past and present. I missed last month’s installment, because all my time over recent weeks has been consumed in putting this theory into practice with a new, bold and ambitious national charity for Wales launched October 24^th…

Cegin y Bobl is the brainchild of award-winning restaurateur and broadcaster Simon Wright along with a whole host of Wales’ top chefs who are working together to transform the nation’s relationship with food.

But this is not just a bright idea – the new charity builds on the existing Cook24 project in Carmarthenshire (ending December this year) that has seen hundreds of schoolchildren embark on 6-week food discovery courses – and former foodbank users equipped with the skills and confidence to cook for themselves.

As chef Jen Goss says, ‘We’ve seen children as young as seven being given sharp knives and heat to work with ingredients and create something delicious – and the difference it’s made has been amazing.

“Children now eat a notably wider range of foods, parents say this has completely changed their child’s approach to mealtimes, teachers see kids more engaged in learning – and also adults, including cohorts of foodbank users, now feel confident in cooking healthy food from scratch.’

Falling in love with food…

Courses are deliberately hands-on, face-to-face and intensive, for the most part spanning 6 or 8 weeks in half-day chunks.

With groups of varying shapes, sizes and ages, the consistent approach taken is built around empowering people in their relationship with food and particularly with cooking from fresh, raw ingredients – most importantly, of course, veg.

For children, this means instilling autonomy and a sense of confidence in the kitchen – which in turn means giving 7-year-olds sharp knives and heat. But that ‘common sense’ approach seems to have made all the difference – especially for those children whose relationship with both food and education has been most challenging.

As a primary headteacher in an ex-mining village in Carmarthenshire recently told us, “We’ve seen a real shift in some of our kids who we find hard to engage with in the classroom… now they’re absolutely thriving and developing their skills within the cookery lessons.”

Or there’s 9-year-old Bill (name changed) who thinks his life course has been transformed through doing this – he now cooks for his parents at home and now wants to go on to become a chef. Similarly with adults, such as the cohort of food bank users in Llanelli, the majority of whom stopped using it after the course because of the pride they had in their new skills, the confidence they had to use those skills – and at the end of the day that sense of achievement in taking some basic ingredients and transforming them into good food.

A Welsh food revolution

The aim of Cegin y Bobl now is to scale and replicate this model across Wales, using the existing resource of independent hospitality that exists in every county.

According to restaurateur and founder Simon Wright, ‘this is what we have been crying out as a society for…. if we don’t tackle these issues around food head on now – health, local supply chains, jobs, nature – then when?

This is about tapping into the passion and skills that already exist out there in every community to make a real difference in a way that Government can’t.’

As well as the positive tales I have often reported on here, Wales has a well-documented food problem. This spans the whole gamut from a skyrocketing diet-related disease bill at the NHS, nature in freefall, farming often loss-making at best and crippling food insecurity that now affects 1 in 5 of our children.

Thankfully, a huge array of nimble and ambitious civil society initiatives are now springing up to turn the tanker around, from securing land for new farming entrants in Powys to putting nature-friendly Welsh veg straight onto school plates.

And it may just be that in Carmarthenshire, we have stumbled upon another part of the jigsaw, that has the potential to transform the nation’s relationship with food.

Future

We were amazed when Sheila Dillon, veteran food journalist of BBC Radio 4’s Food Programme, said recently that ‘Cegin y Bobl is the most exciting story I have come across in decades of food journalism.’

The charity launches in Cardiff Bay on Thursday October 24^th, and is now in serious fundraising mode to secure the future so that this work can be rolled out across Wales – with a modest (!) target of £250,000 from the public.

With 9% of crowdfunder target secured even before launching – can you now help us get to where we need to, so we can get cracking to transform the nation’s relationship with food? A patriotic ‘alternative Christmas present’, perhaps?

Normal service on Carwyn Graves’ series on the diversity of Welsh food culture will resume next month…