QOTD: Cooking Classes

I know when I went off to college I barely knew how to cook, and even now I would not call myself a pro. Apparently I'm not alone; celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has approached the British government to ask them to offer cooking classes to low-income people because he believes many U.K. citizens' inability to cook will cause them to eat less healthy meals during the economic downturn.

According to the Washington Post, Oliver argued that, for the first time, many families in the U.K. cannot cook well and are likely to rely on take-out for their daily meals. He also suggested that people with less money to spare are not likely to try new recipes that might be more nutritious.

While the chef was worried about the nutritional quality of the food people were eating, if he's right this inability to cook may also contribute to an individual’s or families’ financial difficulties.

After the Congressional Food Stamp Challenge last year, Washington Post Lean Plate Columnist Sally Squires wrote about how to shop in order to stretch food money. She also mentioned how a local executive chef, Rick Hindle, had created several tasty, healthy meals for a dollar or less each by cooking from scratch. Not even McDonalds offers meals cheaper than his “colorful quesadillas” (60 cents per serving), but both Squire's suggestions and Hindle's recipes required cooking.

Recipes abound online, as do video clips of cooking demonstrations. Assuming younger people are the ones least likely to know how to cook and that most younger people in the U.K. and the U.S. have access to these online resources, would the addition of free cooking classes help? Or are the real issues convenience, time, and lack of interest in cooking?

If a free class on cooking inexpensive, nutritious food were available in your area, would you take one?

Bonus find: If you're looking to pinch dollars, the USDA database of recipes is searchable by the estimated price of the finished meal.