October 15, 2014
Food for all
Cooking classes are very popular and frequently used in Caritas' organizations. They are often held in asylum houses and they're meant to assist mothers who are in a difficult situation. Cooking classes are offered as a programme in St. Vincent's Centre for people with mental disabilities in Olomouc.
Clients of outpatient services of St. Vincent's House or field services of Support for Independent Living learn how to cook. The local social workers help clients master skills and habits related to cooking. At St. Vincent's House, ten clients can enter these cooking classes currently. Every client gets his or her own individual plan including recipes to learn. Cooking courses are held four days a week from Tuesday to Friday. The menu of all meals in a month is at the office of social workers.
On the days when cooking is done, two clients come at half past nine, one of them as a chef and the other one as his assistant. They collect a fee of 30 CZK from applicants for a lunch. With these funds, they buy fresh ingredients according to the recipe, and a maximum of six portions is cooked. Some kinds of food, like oil or onions are permanently available in the kitchen. Most of these meals are simple, cheap and tasty. In August 2014, meals like Chicken Paprikash, Risotto, Burgers, Potato and Segedin Goulash, sweet and salty Pancakes were cooked. Cakes were also baked.
Before serving, the cook and his assistant prepare placemats, invite the diners and they have lunch together. If all the money is not spent, ''customers'' get back extra money. Everybody washes up themselves. They clean the pots and utensils used during cooking. Even though the clients are really skilful, workers from the centre support them during the whole process, from choosing a recipe, during the cooking, and whilst serving the food. The level of assistance varies according to the circumstances. Sometimes, clients bring lunch from home and it's just the meal they had learned to cook in the cooking classes. The success of the programme which started in 2010 is proven by the fact that there is a waiting list of people who want to join the course. It is not possible to increase the number of future chefs due to personnel and operational reasons.
The article comes from a report published on the occasion of the campaign '' One Human Family, Food for All''.
