1. MARGUERITE PATTEN TALKS TO ALLABOUTYOU
MARGUERITE PATTEN TALKS TO ALLABOUTYOU
20 March 2008
Marguerite Patten was born in Bath and then moved to
High Barnet, near London, where she was educated
and trained as a Home Economist. She began her
career in the electrical industry (abandoning the role of
home economist for a short time to go on the
professional stage). In 1942 she became a senior Food
Advisers in the Ministry of Food, working in East Anglia
and London showing people how to keep their families
healthy on the rations available. From late 1943 she
ran the Ministry of Food advice Bureau in Harrods,
which became the Harrods Food Advice Bureau in
1947. In the same year Harrods opened their Home
Service Bureau and Mrs Patten, with her team of home
economists, was responsible for all demonstrations on
cooking and on newly introduced household
appliances. These years of meeting the public enabled
her to appreciate the needs and the cookery problems
of a great variety of people. She left Harrods in 1951
becoming a freelance presenter and cookery writer.
1 She was the first TV cook, she's spent over 60 years advising people on how to eat, and she's written over
2 170 books. Here she talks to Adrienne Wyper about what really constitutes healthy eating habits .
3 At the age of 92, Marguerite has seen lots of changes in how we eat, many of them to our detriment. One
4 of these changes is that, 'Over the years, for one reason and another, families have stopped eating
5 together.' She believes that this is a habit we all need to get back into for several reasons.
6 Keeping an eye on what children are eating is one good reason for sitting down together, explains
7 Marguerite. 'If children and young adults eat separately, how do you know they're eating well? I'm sure
8 you've seen in the paper a report on someone who finds her young daughter has become anorexic, and
9 says, "I didn't know." But mothers and fathers should know and notice these things. So if people eat
10 together there's a very good chance you will see who is eating properly.'
11 Talk while you eat
12 Developing children's conversational skills and staying informed with what's going on in children's lives
13 is another key reason. 'Mealtimes don't consist just of eating,' says Marguerite. 'They consist of
14 conversation, exchanging views, listening, not only mums and dads but the children too. That's how they
15 learn to communicate.'
16 Marguerite recognises that with today's busy lifestyles, we can't be expected to eat together at every meal.
17 'It may be difficult to do it every day. Being realistic, if you can't do it during the week, eat together on
18 Saturday or Sunday. Then you can say can we make a point of doing this every Sunday, because we've
19 all enjoyed it very much and we'd love to do that, make it our special get-together day.'
20 How did we start eating apart?
21 Marguerite has several theories on how we began to eat separately. 'Our obsession with TV must take its
22 share of the blame,' she says. 'It wasn't really popular until the Coronation in 1953. And everyone wanted
23 television then. People wouldn't go out on certain nights because their favourite serial was on.' And she
24 jokingly refers to her own culpability: 'I think cookery writers like Marguerite Patten devised snacks for
25 people to eat on a tray, so we played a part!'.
26 The introduction of what were known as 'labour-saving devices' and convenience food also made it easier
27 for family members to eat at different times: 'We had the coming of freezers,' recalls Marguerite. 'Not
28 only could you freeze fresh food, but you could go out and buy frozen food. And then microwaves
29 became very important and that's when manufacturers thought, "Ooh, people can store my product in the
30 freezer and put it in the microwave", and so convenience food had a very big effect.' But Marguerite is
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2. MARGUERITE PATTEN TALKS TO ALLABOUTYOU
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resolute in her belief that 'all of those shouldn't stop people buying fresh food.'
32
33 The rise in women working outside the home also plays a part in disjointed mealtimes, agrees
34 Marguerite. But, she points out, she was brought up by a working mother and they ate well. 'My mother
35 became a widow when I was 12, my brother was nine and my sister was four. She came from a
36 generation that never worked after they were married. She was a trained teacher and because she had to
earn money she went back to teaching. That didn't stop us having good meals.'
37
38 As we all know, obesity in children is on the increase, and separate eating times - often separate menus -
39 don't help. As you'd expect, Marguerite has a take on this: 'There are far too many children who are
40 overweight, because they eat such a lot of rubbish, and it's rubbish between meals. If a child nibbles
41 between breakfast and lunch, or - even worse - doesn't have a breakfast they are starving hungry by break
42 time, and start to stuff crisps and sweets and a fizzy drink. How can this child be expected to eat a good
midday meal?'
43
44 Marguerite feels strongly that children should eat a good breakfast: 'It's quite easy with modern cereals -
45 or yogurt is better - then they won't be hungry in the middle of the morning and they'll be ready for
lunch.'
46
47 Eating habits in the past
48 However, Marguerite does concede that it was easier to get kids to eat more healthily in the past, when
49 there was less choice and special children's foods. 'When I was at the Ministry of Food in the war, there
were no snacks or temptation. Temptation is everywhere now.
50
51 'In 2003 as an experiment I did two weeks of wartime school dinners for a class of 30 eight-year-olds. It
52 was wintertime so we had to use root vegetables, and not one of those children had ever seen a parsnip
53 before - or a turnip or a swede - let alone eaten one. They had seen cabbage and were determined they
54 weren't going to eat it. By the end of the fortnight, because they weren't given any choice, they were all
55 eating dishes like Irish stew, shepherd's pie - with all the vegetables - and enjoying it. I think it's a
question of re-educating children's palates when they're not used to healthy food.'
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57 How to eat better
58 Eating more healthily needn't be complicated; it just requires a little more planning. 'If you look carefully
59 you'll find there are cheaper things you can buy,' says Marguerite. 'You can buy cheaper cuts of meat and
60 let them stew gently in the evening, then get them out, let them cool and put them in the refrigerator. You
61 do have to think more carefully, but what you're paying for is real food. You may have to compromise a
little but keep as your basis real fresh food.'
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63 Marguerite is a great believer in the virtues of oily fish, and its nutritional benefits for children. 'Omega
64 3, and the vitamins that go with it, are absolutely essential for growth, and growth isn't just arms and legs
65 in children, it's their brains too. Fish oil supplements for children nowadays - like Haliborange Omega-3 -
taste so much better than the spoonfuls of fish oil 60 years ago!'
66
67 Marguerite also believes that seasonal, locally produced food is better - and cheaper. 'If people want to
68 buy foods out of season, where have they come from? How long have they travelled, are they worth
69 eating? I would say no, because they're out of season. So if you look for seasonal foods you will find by
and large they are cheaper.'
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71 'I think organic foods are very good but for people on a limited income I think they've got to assess that.
72 Basically, if the food is fresh and if it's locally grown it's going to be good for you. It's almost better to
73 buy frozen vegetables than tired vegetables. Most are frozen within a very short time of being picked.
They haven't got the same flavour as really fresh ones but they're better than tired ones.'
74
75 It's a paradox of society today that we're all interested in food, but spend less time cooking from scratch.
76 Marguerite agrees that people are more interested in food and cookery programmes, even though they
77 may not cook from scratch very often themselves. 'People love watching it. Cooking is a fascinating
78 thing. Children are fascinated when they start cooking. You look at their faces, you look at their pride. It
79 doesn't have to be dry and dreary, it's fun. And that I think is what mealtimes should be: fun, enjoyable
and healthy.'
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3. MARGUERITE PATTEN TALKS TO ALLABOUTYOU
BIOGRAPHY : http://www.celebritychefsuk.com/chefs.asp?id=17
PHOTO AND SCRIPT : http://www.allaboutyou.com/food/Marguerite-Patten-celebrity-chef-interview/v1
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