Cooking With Kids This Summer

Cooking with the kids has never been more popular since lockdown hit with more family oriented time in the home, whether that's simple baking or more complex dinners. We take a look at what we've seen from the world of getting creative in the kitchen with the little chefs as we head towards the summer holidays.

The Inspiration Wave

One area of inspiration for kids in the kitchen is social media, more specifically Instagram, where many celebrity chefs have taken to the kitchen with the whole family and documented the process. We've seen Jamie Oliver and his son as well as Christina Tosi and her children in their Instagram Bake Club, as well as Nadiya Hussain sharing plenty of appetising content of what she's cooked with her kids too. Away from social media there's plenty of inspiration and education to be had from television too with kids cooking shows becoming big business.

Talking of celebrities and chefs, Marcus Rashford and top UK chef Tom Kerridge have collaborated to set up the "Full Time" campaign aiming to end food child poverty by helping teach kids how to cook through a series of recipe cards and videos for kids, using simple ingredients often found in the cupboard.

Bigger Picture

It's not just the practice of cooking something tasty that's happening in the kitchen. Cooking is also being used to teach kids everything from complex baking techniques to global cuisine, as well as using the act of cooking to educate around other topics such as foraging, sustainability and more.

Examples of this include The Foodini Club, a subscription cooking kit containing a seasonal foraging guide each month; The Green Kids Cookbook by Jenny Chandler, which aims to teach kids now only how to cook, but how to eat and cook sustainably; and many other kids and guides too.

Global Flavours

Kids these days are exposed to a plethora of global flavours and the same can now be said for the dishes they're cooking at home too. From kids sushi to tiny tot tacos, there is almost no corner of the culinary planet that is not now being cooked by little hands, in some form or another.

Trendhub subscribers can read the full foodwatching report on Cooking with Kids over on the hub here. Those keen to find out more about the report and also how to subscribe can get in contact using the details below.