Breakfast at Tiffens’ is a family affair

Breakfast at Tiffens’ is a family affair

Mum and two daughters enjoying polytechnic cookery courses

In more than 35 years of cooking as a mother of now four adult daughters and feeding a family of six, Jane Tiffen has only just discovered that she has been slicing onions the wrong way.

And the Waimate woman made the discovery in front of almost her entire family – in a cooking class at the Aoraki Polytechnic where along with two of her daughters, Rosemary and Elizabeth, the trio are turning cooking classes into a family affair.

Rosemary and Jane are completing the Aoraki Certificate in Cookery course while Elizabeth is in her second year, this year doing the Aoraki Certificate in Professional Cookery. She completed the certificate course last year.

It is a family involvement in tertiary training that Aoraki Polytechnic cooking tutor Wally Katene says is especially unusual.

But it doesn’t end there. Third daughter Tracey is completing a business and administration course at Aoraki this year as well.

Originally from South Australia, Jane has been in New Zealand for 35 years and married Ken Tiffen of Waimate 32 years ago. The family, who still live together on their 10-acre lifestyle block on Upper Hook Road in the Waimate District are self-sufficient.

“Growing our own veges, and raising pigs, cattle and chooks means we need to make few trips to the supermarkets,” Jane, who also makes her own butter, said.

“But that has also meant we have a foodie focus and we all wanted to learn the proper way to prepare food.”

Rosemary, who left a career in retail to pursue “her real interest in food”, decided the polytechnic course, after hearing glowing reports from sibling Elizabeth, was for her.

“So I said to mum, what about you too?”

With no qualifications, Jane, 53, said she needed to upskill to find a job and agreed the cookery course would provide her with the widest range of opportunities.

“When we went to secondary school I had to either learn to sew or cook. Mum said you are to sew, so I never really learned how to cook.

“Like many people, I got by, but this cookery course has been a revelation in food for me,” Jane said.

“I never really learned how to season food, or how to use a chef’s knife properly. I have learnt so many new things.”

Top of the list though is Hollandaise sauce.

“I could never do it. Wally said all good chefs can do a good Hollandaise sauce and he showed me how.

“And slicing onions should always be done lengthwise. For all these years I have been cutting them crossways,” Jane said.

“Above all, we are all learning what food goes with what and where problems can occur.”

Dinner time in the Tiffen household is not the clash of wills or temperaments that too many cooks in the kitchen have often been blamed for.

“I stay out of it,” Rosemary said.

“Much easier and safer to let Elizabeth and mum give me the orders.”

Elizabeth said her second year course was a major step up from the certificate course.

“It’s fantastic. This year it’s more than cooking. It’s about supervisory skills and the training of other people.”

With a family of cooks and business graduates, there was just one question left – any thoughts of Breakfast at Tiffens’?

“It’s definitely our goal to open our own restaurant or café. The skills we are learning will allow us to do that,” Rosemary said.

ENDS

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