Here's a range of activities, each divided into less/more time and complexity: ingredients, ingredients - making healthier choices, cuisines, recipes and traditions around the world, where food comes from, eating and drinking, and cooking. There are also recipe links to make over 40 dishes from around the world.
Ingredients
Less time / Less complex
1. Food, geography, literacy and art: Where in the world? Research where the following food is grown or produced in the world. Name the place on the World map and sketch the food.
- Black pudding
- Chickpeas
- Coffee beans
- Feta cheese and buffalo mozzarella cheese
- Hoki (a type of fish)
- Kohlrabi
- Laverbread
- Orange, lemon, banana, watermelon, mango, pawpaw and coconut
- Oysters
- Rice, plantain and yam
2. Food, literacy and geography: List all the fruit and vegetables you eat in a week. Research where in the world they were grown. State if the fruit and vegetables are in season in the UK or grown somewhere else in the world.
3. Food, geography, literacy and art: Dishes from around the world. List five countries and name a local dish for each. Find or draw a picture of each dish. Use the Cook world dishes worksheet to support.
More time / More complex
4. Food, geography and literacy: Complete the Where in the world? worksheet. Name the ingredients and describe where they are grown, reared or caught, and how they are prepared.
5. Food, literacy and cooking: Couscous is described as the world’s smallest pasta. Research how couscous was traditionally made and how it is made today. Describe the difference between couscous and giant couscous. Why not make Vegetable couscous salad, Chicken tagine with apricots, or Spicy potato Scotch eggs (coated in couscous).
6. Food, literacy, art and cooking: The way food is prepared and made, along with customs, and the use of local and seasonal ingredients, often combine to create dishes unique to a particular region. Choose a region in the UK and research the ingredients, food and recipes distinctive to that area. Create a poster to explain what you have found. Why not make one of the recipes to share with your family?
Ingredients - making healthier choices
Less time / Less complex
1. Food, numeracy and health and wellbeing: How can you modify a recipe to reduce the amount of saturated fat, salt or sugar or increase the amount of fibre provided? Use the Modifying a recipe worksheet, to modify a scone based pizza recipe considering which ingredients you could replace, reduce or add.
2. Food, numeracy and health and wellbeing: Use food labels to make healthier choices! Reference Intakes are guidelines for the maximum amount of energy (calories), fat, saturated fat, sugars and salt for an adult female. Using the Front-of-pack nutrition labels worksheet, measure the quantity of sugars and/or fat provided by the food and drink in the worksheet and compare the front-of-pack label amounts to the reference intake.
3. Food, literacy and IT: Record a food diary for one day and enter this information into Explore Food. Compare your results to the recommendations for your age. Explain how you can modify your diet to meet the recommendations.
More time / More complex
4. Food and IT: You can make healthier choices by following The Eatwell Guide, but what food goes where in the UK’s healthy eating model? Play the Eatwell Challenge interactive game to test your knowledge!
5. Food and health and wellbeing: Twist the dish! Work through the Twist the dish presentation to look at how changing recipes can influence nutritional content. You can use the supporting card set to redesign each meal to promote the key healthy eating messages.
6. Food, health and wellbeing and IT: Read through the Lasagne recipe on the Change for health worksheet. Work through the activity and list the changes you would make to reduce the total fat and increase the fibre content.
Cuisines, recipes and traditions around the world
Less time / Less complex
1. Food, geography and IT: What dish comes from where? Using the UK and world food maps, click and drag the dish into each of the places where the food originates from.
2. Food, literacy and geography: List three of your favourite recipes and research where they are from. Name the country where it originates from and identify three other recipes that also originate from that country.
3. Food, geography and literacy: Select a country/region to study and research the different aspects of their cuisine. Investigate how the history, geography, economics, and religion influence the food choices, methods of food preparation, and the food culture of people.
More time / More complex
4. Food, literacy and art: Read through the International food culture and tradition presentation and create a poster showing examples of the cultures and traditions of three of the countries listed.
5. Food, art and cooking: Create an infographic showing the different types of bread that are made and eaten around the world. You can use the Bread traditions around the world presentation to help. Why not try making one of the recipes shown in the presentation?
6. Food. Literacy and cooking: Find a traditional and modern recipe for the same dish and list the reasons why the recipe has changed. An example could be Lamb tagine and Minced lamb tagine. This could include: consideration of dietary advice, healthier eating; wider variety of alternative ingredients available; use of ready-made components; change in lifestyle e.g. less time for cooking traditional meals; loss of personal food preparation and cooking skills; increased cost of ingredients and personal preference.
Where food comes from
Less time / Less complex
1. Where food comes from and IT: Is your food from a plant or an animal? Complete the Plant or animal interactive resource and match the 10 food to whether they are from a plant or animal. How many can you get?
2. Where food comes from and IT: How well do you know food assurance schemes? Try our Matching activity and match the food assurance logos with the name of the food assurance schemes. How quickly can you get them all?
3. Food and cooking: Create a seasonal recipe! Pick one of the four seasons and create a dish that uses food that is in season at that time (use the UK seasons presentation to see what food is in season when).
More time / More complex
4. Food and technology: Read through the Development of food technology presentation looking at the history of food production. Test your knowledge with the Development of food technology worksheet.
5. Where food comes from and literacy: Take a look at the Farming for you posters. Make a list of 12 key facts you have learnt about where food comes from, two from each of the six posters.
6. Where food comes from: What is meant by a plant based diet? Research what is meant by a plant based diet and create a diet plan for the next two days that is based on plants.
Eating and drinking
Less time / Less complex
1. Food, literacy and art: People eat different food and meals according to the time of day, who they are and the occasion. Draw four columns on a piece of paper headed: breakfast, lunch, evening meal and snacks. Look at the Mealtime cards and name the food or meal. Write, or draw, the food or meal on the chart under the one of the headings. Explain why you have put the food and meals under the different headings.
2. Food. literacy and numeracy: We eat different food depending on the time of day, occasion and lifestyle. View the Mealtimes presentation and complete the Mealtimes worksheet.
3. Literacy and health and wellbeing: There are lots of reasons why drinking water is good for you. See if you can work out why Anna, Elsa, Olaf and Sven think so too by completing the Frozen drink plenty activity.
More time / More complex
4. Food, health and wellbeing and literacy: The number of meals eaten outside of the home has increased significantly over recent years. An awareness of the nutritional content of foods purchased, as well as eaten out of home, is one important factor to help reduce the risk of obesity. Research what information is available to consumers to help them make healthier choices. Use the internet or visit local supermarkets, coffee shops or restaurants and compare the information found on packaging and menus. Create a ‘daily specials’ menu for a local café, including the consumer information required. Use the Out of home presentation to support. If in England, remember that food businesses with 250 plus employees will be required to label the energy (calories) in the dishes served.
5. Food, numeracy and literacy: Compare the cost of two foods that you’ve had (or seen) when eating out to something similar that can be cooked at home, e.g. pizza, sandwich, smoothie. Which is cheaper? Explain why this might be.
6. Food, literacy and art: When choosing whether to cook a meal from scratch, reheat a frozen ready meal or eat out, what affects the choice you make? Is it cost, health, seasonal food, local food, or something different? Carry out a survey of ten of your family and friends about what affects the choices they make and produce an infographic of the results.
Cooking
Less time / less complex
1. Numeracy, art and cooking: Play the Build a pizza game with four of your family or friends and then make your own pizza! Print the Build a pizza game. Each player takes a turn to roll the dice. Each number on the dice relates to a pizza ingredient on the sheet. As a player rolls a number and ‘collects’ an ingredient, they can tick this on their sheet. When all the ingredients have been ticked, the player can draw their pizza. After the game, and with adult supervision, make a Picturesque pizza. You could watch the video and cook-a-long with Frances.
2. Cooking and literacy: With the supervision of an adult, if needed, make one of these recipes: Coleslaw; Couscous salad; Fruit salad; Vegetable kebabs or Smoothie. You could watch the recipe video and cook-a-long: Coleslaw video; Couscous salad video; Fruit salad video; Vegetable kebabs video or Smoothie video! After you have made the recipe, answer the following questions:
- Did you enjoy making the recipe? Why?
- If you made it again, what would you do differently?
- List the equipment that you used.
- Explain how you used each piece of equipment safely.
- State what you can do now, that you had not done before, e.g. peel carrots
3. Food, IT and cooking: Fusion food combines ingredients and ideas from different culinary traditions. Using Gourmet Burger Builder and the Fusion food presentation for inspiration, create an exciting fusion burger. Follow the recipe produced and make your burger. Why not serve it in a bao bun?
More time / more complex
4. Science, literacy and IT: Do you and your family enjoy eggs for breakfast? Investigate healthier cooking methods and cook your eggs in a variety of ways, e.g. boiling, scrambling (in a pan or a microwave), poaching, frying and baking. Compare and evaluate the results. Use Explore food to determine the healthiest cooking method.
5. Food, cooking, science and art: There are three main potato types – fluffy, salad and smooth. Read the Cooking potatoes fact sheet and create a poster to explain the different ways to cook potatoes and the science behind each one. Why not try one of these recipes for potato accompaniments: boulangere; croquette; dauphinoise; chateau; Delmonico; fondant; macaire; noisette; or parmentier?
6. Food, geography and cooking: Have you heard of the term ‘global cuisine’? This means a local, regional or national cuisine that has spread around the world, its food is served worldwide. Examples of this are Chinese, Indian and Japanese food which can be found in many parts of the world. Make a ‘global cuisine’ dish to share with your family. Search the recipes on Food - a fact of life for inspiration.
Around the world in recipes
Food – a fact of life recipes
Why not cook your way around the world? There is a wide range of recipes available on Food – a fact of life. Here are just a few:
- Anzac biscuits
- Beef lasagne
- Beef quesadillas
- Bubble and squeak
- Chelsea buns
- Chicken (tofu) stir-fry
- Chicken fajitas
- Chicken pie
- Chicken tagine with apricots
- Classic tomato ragu
- Cottage pie
- Croque monsieur
- Crumbed pork liver
- Easy Bombay potatoes
- Gnocchi with simple tomato sauce
- Greek yogurt with honey
- Guacamole
- Hot cross buns
- Hummus
- Individual steak and kidney pie
- Kidney and hock pie
- Koftas
- Lamb or beef samosas
- Meatball aloo ghobi
- Mini Cornish pasties
- Mulligatawny soup
- Naan bread
- Noodles
- Parkin
- Peach gateau
- Pork jambalaya
- Pork Thai bites
- Raita
- Salsa
- Scrummy scones
- Shepherd’s pie
- Shortbread
- Simple spring rolls
- Soda bread
- Spaghetti bolognaise
- Tortilla toasties
- Victoria sponge cake
- Welsh rarebit
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