in the Yvelines, cooking classes for “balanced” and inexpensive meals

While a group is peeling and cutting apples for dessert, Myriam is busy behind her food processor. “There, we are grating the zucchini”, explains this mother wearing a cap and wearing a kitchen apron. Myriam participates in a workshop of the association Good and rebound in Rambouillet (Yvelines), Thursday, September 29. The objective is to learn how to make tasty and inexpensive dishes, such as the zucchini lasagna on the menu that afternoon.

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Even if inflation has slowed slightly over one year according to the latest figures published by INSEE on Friday, to reach 5.6%, food prices continue to rise. Myriam is forced to cut corners on quality: “It’s true that it’s not easy because it’s expensive, vegetables in supermarkets. Eggplants for example. The kilo, we will find it at almost 5 euros.”

“They tell us: eat five vegetables and fruits a day. But the problem is that it’s expensive if you want to eat a balanced diet.”

Myriam, student of the cooking workshop

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Anne Rouche, leader of the cooking workshop, has already supported around thirty people in less than a year. Some of them are RSA beneficiaries referred by departmental social workers. “I’m careful to offer fairly basic dishes that can then be redone at home, says Anne Rouche. From the moment we know how to make the cake dough, we can make a cake with olives and ham, with tuna and tomato… We can vary”.

Fresh, healthy, practical and economical dishes. The idea for these workshops germinated from a joint observation by the Yvelines department – ​​which subsidizes the workshops to the tune of 6,000 euros – and Anne’s husband, Pierre Rouche, the director of the Bon et rebound association, specializing initially in the recovery of unsold fruit to make jams. “All the fruit and vegetables that we have in excess, we give them to the Restos du Coeur and the Secours Catholique, explains Pierre Rouche. And the return of these associations was to tell us: but in fact, our beneficiaries do not always know how to treat these fruits and vegetables. Can’t you create courses that would allow these people to learn how to use these fruits and vegetables?”

The increase in the cost of living, adds the association manager, has made these workshops more necessary than ever. “The price of fruits and vegetables is rising, how can they best be used? A healthy diet obviously involves the use of fruits and vegetables.”

The Bon et bounce workshops end with a meal that brings together facilitators and student cooks. This is also the aim of these workshops and this is what the participants are looking for: to find social ties for people who are sometimes isolated.