Thame Food Festival gets kids cooking

Natalie Coleman with the four proud Thame school pupils

CHILDREN from the three Thame primary schools opened last weekend’s Thame Food Festival with BBC One’s MasterChef winner 2013, Natalie Coleman, in a bid to inspire other young foodies to cook.

Lyla Davies, aged 10 from John Hampden County Primary School, Emily Tattersfield, aged 10 from Barley Hill Primary School and Orlagh Roberts and Daniela Gonzalez both aged 10, both from St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, took to the stage with Natalie when she gave the festival’s first ever cookery demo devised especially for children.

Natalie, who has recently taken up the role of Ambassador of Central Street Cookery School at St Luke’s Community Centre in London, was first up on the demo stage this year with a 45 minute session just for children. With the help of the four girls, she used her demonstration to encouraged children to learn about food and pick up new skills and ideas that they could try when they cook at home.

As well as joining Natalie on stage, the four children took home a signed copy of her cookery book1, after convincing her and festival patron Lotte Duncan to pick them to take part.

“We challenged the children to tell us why they wanted to cook with Natalie and get a place in the spotlight at this year’s Thame Food Festival,” said Lotte. “We know that children love to cook and that being able to cook is a great thing to be able to do. It’s fun and brings the family together, plus it’s a good way to give children valuable skills for life.

“Helping children gain these skills is also a passion of Natalie’s which is why she chose to cook especially for and with them at the festival,” she said. “Now, more than ever it’s important for children to learn about food and get into cooking right from the beginning.

“We had a fantastic reaction to the competition with all the children and their teachers getting behind it, and had some brilliant reasons making it very hard to pick a winner! In the end we picked four. I have to say that it was truly fantastic to see them rise to the challenge on the day – all of them did a wonderful job and were so excited to be on stage helping Natalie!” she added.

For more information about the Thame Food Festival, please go to www.thamefoodfestival.co.uk

SOURCE: Contributed by Sarah Pracey