IT IS a paradox of our times that people are fascinated by food, as the glut of cookery programmes on TV shows, and, yet, fewer people cook, as shown by the boom in convenience meals.

But, in the process, kitchen skills that youngsters acquired by watching their parents cook are being forgotten.

Is not Ribble Valley MP, Nigel Evans, right, then, to call for them to be put on the school curriculum in the form of a new food technology subject?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.