Meet the Meath chef bringing his culinary expertise direct to YOUR kitchen
There is not a week that goes by now without a story in the media about the huge health epidemic coming down the track regarding diet, exercise and obesity. Well the news is that it’s actually here already, all around us, at work, in schools and at home. We are simply eating too much, a lot of it the wrong stuff and we just do not move enough to burn it off. Like a car putting more and more fuel in the tank and not driving anywhere, means we just get bigger and bigger.
The government, the medics, the insurers, the sports and fitness worlds, even the food manufacturers are all screaming at us to get our act together before it’s too late. We are basically sleep walking into a nightmare.
One local food professional has hit upon one solution that just might help some people address their diet issues. Gerard Meade is well known in the Meath area for various hospitality work and with over 35 years experience in the food business working previously as a chef around the world and latterly as a consultant to the industry here in Ireland. He is also as a freelance cookery instructor for the last 15 years now and has realised the big barrier to diet is actually cooking itself. He explains to Inspire how The Healthy Cooking Club all came about.
“I was running cooking classes a few years ago for adult education courses and having themes based on health and diet recipes but the people coming to these classes were actually already very schooled in all things relating to diets, they had come straight from their gyms and would not have looked out of place on the covers of magazines, the exact people I was not expecting to turn up. I was aiming the tuition at students who really needed to address medical and diet issues. Somehow they were just not interested in coming to a classroom scenario.
“So my curiosity was asking why and upon meeting up and talking to dieticians and people I knew who would have benefitted from this type of tuition I asked them what would happen if they had personal classes in private at home and they said absolutely they would love that. The thing was, it’s an inhibition to get out there in a public setting as you feel you are on show and for classes you feel you are being tested on your ability so for some members of the public its simply a no no, never mind strange equipment and having to commute.
“The next issue was content, people were fed up with starving themselves and counting calories and having recipes with ingredients they did not like being forced upon them and as we now know 95% of people on diets actually fail in the long run to lose weight. So people wanted their familiar foods but done healthier with some new ideas thrown in but above all else they wanted to learn cooking skills to be able to work faster and cleverer at home and navigate through recipes easily.
“They wanted to know about shopping, storing food, batch cooking, menu planning, portion control, all the things we take for granted in professional cookery but translated into easy to understand ways. It seemed the key to diet and good eating was through the cooking door, learn to cook properly and you are in. It’s a lifestyle change if anything but also learning about foods and what they do to you. It’s amazing how little some people still really know despite all the TV shows we watch and cookery books we buy. Everyone in secondary school should be taught how to cook.
“The final obstacle was cost and how to pay for someone like myself to spend a few hours in your own kitchen to improve your skills, show you new techniques and inspire you to take a new path to both cooking and diet. So I remembered the Tupperware party concept where the host would just be the host but the guests would be the customers. It seemed a shame that all the knowledge I gave out would be going to just one person so why not invite a few close friends, neighbours or family members to sit in on the session and they too can avail of the training as well as taste the food, ask the questions and crucially share the cost of the class and the healthy cooking club concept was born. Depending on the size of your kitchen half a dozen people can comfortably take part in the programmes each time”
Since launching last year the classes have been slowly taking off through word of mouth.
Gerard explains it’s not as simple as just ringing him up and then him turning up at someone’s house with a chef jacket. The real work is in the planning in fact, as because it’s a bespoke service it means the host has to decide on what the class actually entails. It’s about what they want to learn or improve upon so Gerard visits each client, works with them in advance to compile what is feasible and then they must have their kitchen ready, ingredients purchased and of course invites arranged so that everyone is available on the chosen date.
The plus side is that you are working with your own equipment and utensils, in familiar surroundings with people you know and trust making it the perfect learning environment. An added bonus is that your guests can stay on after and make it a lovely social occasion with beautiful food to eat and of course plenty to talk about after the tutor has left. For hosts it has been a life changing experience, they have simply not looked back.
“This I feel is something very new for Ireland, it’s a first, we have piano lessons, life coaching and personal fitness trainers but why not in cooking, you can watch all the videos you like in learning skills but nothing beats one-to-one practical guidance whether its driving, swimming or whatever, I try to gauge each client so that I can work at their level of past experience and knowledge, I will know what they will be able to achieve and then my job is to bring them there.
'It’s not like TV where it’s practically a game show with some producer wanting a grumpy guru shouting and wanting tears and walkouts to add drama, I am doing this for real, with real people, it’s as calm, respectful and relaxed as can be, I am teaching a long time and I know exactly how to work with people and develop a professional relationship. Like all client and professional relationships it will be only judged on the outcome and so far all outcomes have been truly excellent and very rewarding for the clients”
He says that the only downside is that places can be limited as he does not plan to have other people step in for what he is doing so it really is a first-come first-served scenario.
He will be confining The Healthy Cooking Club to the Meath area for now but will be happy to travel further afield in the future as it develops. It is also very rewarding as he feels he is making his contribution to the existing health and diet crisis and by watching people turn their eating around by improving their cooking is something he wishes he could do in every home.
For further information follow Gerard on facebook/healthycookingclub or email healthycookingclub@eircom.net