Cooking and cooking skills

This chapter introduces the complexity of cooking skills as a task, educational process and theoretical debating point. The processes and transformations that constitute cooking have contributed to human evolution by making people more mobile, healthier and able to be both domestic and economic. Anthropological literature has long recognised the central role of food and cooking in sustenance and pleasure, economy, politics, culture and social organisation. Traditionally, cooking skills were passed down through the generations, in which the teaching of theoretical and practical cooking skills became a principal component of the curriculum for working-class girls. That Food and Cooking Skills Education (FCSE) is a school curriculum subject implies that it is worthy of intellectual and academic pursuit. The boom in tablet and smart phone technology has widened the permutations and possibilities available for people to access informal FCSE, with many features considered close to the cooking experience, involving most of the senses.