A food writer and an actor have joined forces to launch a website that they say takes a fresh approach to teaching children to eat and cook healthy food.
The Table of Delights website, which launches on Friday, is the brainchild of Bristol cook Claire Thomson, whose family cookbook The Five O’Clock Apron came out in 2015, and actor Katy Carmichael, best known for her performance as the neurotic Twist in cult sitcom Spaced, who is now co-artistic director of Bristol’s Theatre Damfino.
“The idea came about because our children were at school together and Katy and I would chat about the similarities in our professions,” says Thomson. “There’s that same sense of high energy and performance, putting together five courses or putting on five acts, and we began to wonder if there was a way of combining the two.
“At the same time, it really annoys me that we’re still teaching people to ‘hide’ vegetables when feeding them to children, rather than celebrating them as food, and I wanted to address that.”
The pair initially collaborated on an acclaimed children’s theatre show, also called Table of Delights, which last year won the Off West End Theatre Award for best production for over-eights, but they soon realised they wanted to spread the message further that cooking should be a celebratory experience, and eating well can be fun.
“We wanted to reach out to a bigger audience,” says Thomson. “Cooking should empower children but they need to participate in order to enjoy the experience. Too often the only things children do in the kitchen is make pizzas or cupcakes. I wanted to move away from that towards something more energetic and interactive.”
Thomson cites as influences Roald Dahl, the Horrible Histories series and the late Tony Hart’s visual art programmes for children. “We’re not preaching to people, and we didn’t want to do a squeaky-clean CBeebies kind of thing either.” Carmichael throws seminal BBC children’s programme Why Don’t You? into the mix.
“Children love watching other children doing things and then trying it out themselves,” she says, “and that’s what we’re aiming for with this site. We wanted a mix of silly and educational. To say: after you’ve watched this, why don’t you get into the kitchen and create something of your own?”
So the site has songs about sardines and stories about murdered beetroots (“Kids love something a bit macabre,” notes Thomson) alongside information about how to turn cream into vampire blood, recipes for stargazy pie and detailed lesson plans for teachers. “There are some great recipes on the site,” says Carmichael, “but there’s also a lot of entertaining stuff – things to muck around with.”
Also contributing are Gallows Ghost singer Kate Young, illustrator Alex Lucas and comedian and mime Les Bubb. “It’s about locally sourced, homegrown talent and has an eclectic, low-tech feel that is very Bristol and that I hope will be part of the appeal,” says Carmichael. “This isn’t just about good food, it’s about food for the imagination.”
Thomson agrees. “It was important to us that this isn’t a preachy site,” she says. “Children should enjoy themselves in the kitchen, and hopefully this site will allow them to do just that.”
Sarah Hughes
4 February 2017
