Eatertainment for Kids

The Herald News: Forget swimming lessons and soccer, the latest trend in extracurricular activities for children ages 4 to 16 is cooking class. And not just any cooking class. There are culinary summer camps, cooking birthday parties, private cooking lessons, plus a plethora of new cookbooks for the young chef who aspires to be the next Rachael Ray or Bobby Flay.
“Part of what we are seeing is a trend in ‘eatertainment’ with all the cooking shows,” says Stephen Hengst, spokesman for the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.
Indeed, kids even make up a large part of the audiences for cooking shows, says Mark O’Connor, a spokesman for the Food Network, noting that at book-signings and public events, kids flock to see celebrities like Ray and superstar chef Emeril Lagasse.
“Based on our Web site traffic, message boards, mail questions and telephone calls, we know that there are a major amount of kids watching from as young as 5 up to 15 years old,” O’Connor says.
For the parents of budding chefs, getting kids in the kitchen for something other than meals is about capturing a bit of nostalgia, says Hengst. “They used to cook with their mother or grandma, but life is so hectic they don’t have time to do the same for their kids.” So they send them, or go with them, to cooking class.
Kids savor new trend: cooking classes [HeraldNewsOnline.com]