Flour power

Why aren't there classes for children who want to make bread? Pru Irvine asked innocently. And that's how she found herself teaching youngsters to show the dough no mercy

What does it mean to be the breadwinner in the family? I asked the children. It means the person who makes the best bread, they said. I was humbled by the sweetness of their response. They wanted to get the answer right, and we were there to make bread. Twenty children and me in an Italian food store in the heart of Edinburgh, for an afternoon's bread-making course.

I'd only ever made bread in my own kitchen before, and only ever for family and friends. So the thought of doing it with a gang of seven-to- nine-year-olds in the shop's professional demonstration kitchen was anxious- making. Cooking with children in a public arena is rare in this country. There are dozens of children's cookery books but there are few cookery classes, and I doubt whether a children's cookery school exists at all in Britain.

So there we were. The room was filled with mixing bowls and wooden spoons, yeast and soft brown sugar, bowls of glistening white rock salt, bags and bags of flour - stoneground, unbleached, wholemeal, white and granary. There were hot water and towels and little dishes of poppy seeds, sunflower and caraway seeds.

They'd all brought their own pinnies, but mostly chose the white plastic ones provided - the sort the professionals wear, they assumed. After all, said seven-year-old Susie: "I feel a bit silly in a banana." She held up hers, which sported a gigantic overripe banana stretching from her chin to her toes.

We made bread. We shrieked with excitement as the yeast puffed up over the top of the glasses and spilled on to the work benches. We feigned agony in our attempts to cool the water from hot to tepid. I couldn't think of any dough jokes and neither could they. But it didn't dampen the general enthusiasm and pleasure that filled the room. We took on a commando-style approach to mixing the dough. They punched it with their little fists. They were rough, and showed no mercy. A few extra handfuls of flour later, the dough became silky and soft and lay quietly proving in the tins.

The children hated the mess. They picked and scraped at their dough-covered hands and wrists as if they'd been afflicted with some dreadful skin disease. When I suggested they might like to wash their hands the room emptied in a second. For me, this was an important part of teaching them to make bread. I wanted them to enjoy the mess, to like the feel of the flour and the salt on their hands, and I felt sad that they couldn't.

How I came to be in this demonstration room in one of Britain's most famous Italian delicatessens is a story of one woman's will over another woman's idea. It can be careless to let your ideas slip when you're in the company of a person who can make dust grow by tomorrow if she decides it could be good for the soul and good for the business. I was at a dinner when I caught the eye of a strange but familiar woman looking at me. "I'm sure I know you," I said. "You've got a face I recognise."

"I don't think so," she said. "I work in a shop."

Not any old shop, mind you. Valvona & Crolla is a magical den of Italian foods in the heart of Calvinistic Edinburgh. It has been owned and run by the Contini family since the 1860s, and it was Maria Contini whom I was sitting next to at dinner. Why don't children cook? I asked. I don't mean the home economics of scones and curry. I mean why don't we teach them about the pleasures of cooking with fresh ingredients - rather than the speed at which they can assemble pre-prepared produce? Why don't children make bread?

That's what I really wanted to know. I make Pru's Loaf for my family every other day, I told her. Maria's brow furrowed. Of course, there's nowhere in Edinburgh where children can go and learn to cook, I said. These were the fatal words. Within six weeks Maria was ready to go and so was I, apparently. We agreed to one pilot. I was nervous. We sold out immediately. I agreed to another. That, too, sold out, and the waiting list grows daily.

As the parents arrived to collect their children, the bread came up from the kitchens on cooling-racks. We had produced 10 hot, steaming, perfectly risen and shaped loaves. We were thrilled. For Valvona & Crolla, their first foray into the world of under-age cooking produced an all-round sense of deep satisfaction.

"Children are interested and enthusiastic," said Maria.

"We've always encouraged them to taste things in the shop," she added. "Tasting fresh foods helps develop a child's curiosity about cooking. I hope these bread-making classes will kindle a real interest in the taste of bread - not just in the eating of it, but in the simplicity of making it".

And what about the children? Ten-year-old Johnnie said he wanted to learn how the professionals did it because he loved to cook. All the children I talked to said they'd come because they were interested in making things, and bread and cooking generally came high on that list. Only one parent admitted to having told their child that she was going to do the class, like it or not.

One mum said that her son saw cooking as his route to independence. There's a man of the future for you.

Further information from Valvona & Crolla (0131 556 6066). The classes cost pounds 5 each and last two to three hours. The next sessions will be in the summer holidays.