Rope Mussels in the Classroom
By Bec Marriott; Head of D&T and Food, Hall Park Academy
For the first time in 10 years I started my September term at a new school, this was exciting and nerve wracking in equal measure. I joined the school as Head of Design and Technology and Food and resumed my role as a passionate and devoted teacher of food.
As part of my dedication to the subject, I am always looking for opportunities for students to cook with ingredients for limited or no cost to themselves. It is always a bonus if the ingredients are unfamiliar to them. The Food Teachers Centre (FTC) set up the ‘Fish Heroes Programme’ in 2020 as an initiative to promote the use of fish and seafood in schools, and to support teachers with getting their students to prepare, cook and eat seafood. As part of the programme the FTC work closely with industry and find companies that are willing to donate ingredients or resources to help their mission. One of these is the Fishmonger Company which supports the programme.
Simon Gray who manages the programme, was offering 250 schools across England the opportunity to have a free delivery of 8kg of fresh mussels thanks to the generosity of Offshore Shellfish and DFDS. I set a reminder on my phone, eagerly signed up and fortunately, Hall Park Academy was one of the lucky 250 schools to be receiving a delivery.
When I asked my year 10 Food Preparation and Nutrition (FPN) students how many of them had eaten mussels only 4 of 16 had. When I then asked how many of them had prepared their own mussels, only 1 of 16 had. These rough percentages were echoed across my other classes in year 7, 8 and 9.
When we received the mussels there was a level of excitement and apprehension from the students, some had never seen mussels before and did not know what to expect. I spoke to students about sustainability and showed them a video from Offshore Shellfish which got students discussing why sustainability is important when producing food. I gave live cooking demonstrations to the classes with students having the opportunity to cook their own. I taught them how to prepare the mussels, what to look out for, such as damaged shells, food safety practices and how to cook them. Each class enjoyed mussels in a Thai curry broth, served with buttered bread. The year 10 FPN students worked in small groups and made their own portion to eat. Students particularly enjoyed washing the mussels and closing the shells to see if the mussels were safe to eat. They were impressed with how quick the mussels cooked too.
Tasting the mussels was a fun experience, the students were really quite nervous and nearly every group asked me to ‘go first’. I absolutely love mussels so I was delighted by this, I eagerly tucked in and used sensory words to describe the taste and texture so that they felt prepared. Soon after watching me eat the mussels, students came forward clutching their fork or bread and dug in. Many students opted for making mini mussel sandwiches, most were happy to eat them straight out the shells and a few students dipped the bread into the broth and called it a day. The students were absolutely beaming about the fact that they had prepared something new and had been ‘brave’ enough to try a new ingredient. They thoroughly enjoyed the experience with some students even asking for copies of the recipe and asking where they can buy their own. Within our community we have a large Morrisons which has a fresh seafood counter, the students were happy to know they could buy fresh mussels again should they want too.
Without the Fish Heroes programme it’s highly unlikely that we would have introduced mussels to the number of students that we did. It cost only a small amount of our budget as we only had to buy a few ingredients to make the broth and it is something we will definitely do again. I have recently been successful in getting a delivery of 12 cans of pink salmon for students to use for free from the Fish Heroes Programme and I am in the process of including more fish dishes into our KS3 curriculum.
Reagan - year 10
Imogen - year 10
If you would like to find out more about the Fish Heros Project by the Food Teacher's Centre follow this link:
