Mary Berry says schools should teach 10 meals

Teachers should “blow the science of it” and go back to showing young people “what’s good for them, how to buy it and how to make a few dishes that they enjoy and don’t cost too much”, she said.

Berry, who has written more than 70 cooking books and currently presents the Great British Bake Off, was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

She told an audience she had only taken up cookery after being considered “too dim” to take academic subjects.

When asked about the status of cookery teaching today, which can include lessons on designing food packaging, she said: “Hopefully it’s coming back in schools. There is a drive for it to come back in schools and so there should be.

“But not in the form that it has been lately. It should be that every child when they leave school can do 10 meals, because when they leave home they’ve got to be able to eat healthily.”