Cooking from Home - Create & Cook is back!

Cooking has been a great comfort during lockdowns for many young people turning to the kitchen for some fun and stress relief. Now comes the opportunity for young cooks from across Gloucestershire, Oxford & Shropshire aged 12-14 to enter this year’s Create & Cook cookery competition sponsored by our very own Best of Our Counties.

Taking part from home as part of their school online learning or as a family activity, the Create & Cook Competition is looking for keen young cooks to enter their 2021 competition by 26^th March 2021.

The Challenge for our Young Cooks

Having sponsored the competition for the last few years, it’s a great example of our values in action, supporting local suppliers who in turn are helping the local economy and developing young people.  With education at the heart of the competition, it gives the budding cooks the opportunity to learn from a younger age about where the food comes from and why we support local produce.

This year the challenge is to create a two-course menu using local ingredients. Run by fit2cook food education and sponsored by our Best of our Counties brand, the competition ties in with KS3 curriculum learning about sustainability and food miles.

Changes for this year

Now that schools are currently closed, the Create & Cook Competition has moved online with worksheets and weekly challenges posted on their social media to help teenagers learn about the fantastic food producers and farmers across the counties and understand why local food is not only good for the local economy but also the planet.

Last Year's Winners

Rising to the Create & Cook challenge in 2020 and winning the competition in Shropshire last year, were Daisy Carrol aged 12 and Grace Hannah aged 13 from Shrewsbury High School. Their winning menu was cumin crusted lamb with shallots and crushed new potatoes and tomatoes with a strawberry cream Paris-Brest choux pastry ring.

Last years winners in Shropshire, Daisy aged 12 and Grace aged 13 from Shrewsbury High School

The girls sourced their spring lamb from Battlefield 1403 Farm Shop, their strawberries, potatoes and shallots from JP Fruits in Shrewsbury’s Market Hall and their cream from Mawley Dairies. The skill in their choux pastry Paris-Brest was particularly impressive for such young cooks and praised by the judges.

Nicola Wildin, Premium Food Buyer from Best of our Counties, mentioned “The pandemic has made us all change in the last year and as a nation, we are all cooking more. Shopping locally, knowing where our food comes from & how far it has travelled is more important than ever. The competition is a great way to encourage young people to discover local food & develop their cooking skills whilst having lots of fun”

Min Raisman from fit2cook food education, who organise the Competition, thinks the resurgence of interest in buying local and the desire to tackle climate change makes the competition very relevant “It’s wonderful to see young cooks taking a real pride in their local food suppliers and where they live.  There is a real drive amongst young people to save the planet, they see the clear link between buying local, limiting food miles and reducing carbon emissions. This all bodes well for the future of our local food and farming sectors and the environment.”

To find out how to enter the 2021 competition and to see past winning menus please see here.