Teaching of a vital life skill has to be funded by charity

On the face of it, it’s a jolly little story about Cornwall's national dish: but our article on page 13 today reporting that money raised during Cornish Pasty Week 2025 is to go towards providing cookery equipment and lessons in schools highlights the gap between what education promises and what it delivers for too many of the county’s children.

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Some older readers may recall that when they were at their state schools - and certainly at their private ones - ‘home economics’ was a staple of the curriculum. Schools had kitchens where children could learn how to cook healthy and nutritious - if not always terribly appetising meals from scratch using cheap ingredients brought from home, which were then carried thence carefully on the bus to be shared with the family (or, should the recipe have been less successful, given to the dog). The ability to feed yourself was r