Captain Cook's Tuck Box
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Frequently asked questions and answers about children's cookery software
FAQs are Frequently Asked Questions - questions that people often ask. These FAQs include answers too, so perhaps they should be called 'FAQWAs' - Frequently Asked Questions With Answers!
The questions and answers are separated into three sections. Simply click on the section heading to reveal the questions and then click on the questions to reveal the answers! ("CCTB" stands for "Captain Cook's Tuck Box").
If you need help and the solution to your problem is not here, please e-mail: 
support@anastasis.co.uk
- General questions
- Questions about recipes
- Questions about entering recipes
General questions
Q: What ages or year groups does CCTB cater for?
A: From 5 years old to 12 years old, or school years 1 to 8. Although they are all easy recipes for children, children will need adult help and supervision when handling food and kitchen implements, and younger ones will need lots of help! These easy recipes for kids are provided in three cookery books for "Beginners", "Juniors" and "Seniors", so it is simple to find recipes suitable for different ages and abilities.
Q: What does CCTB run on?
A: It runs on Personal Computers (not Apple Macs) which use Microsoft Windows as their operating system. It has been tested on Windows 2000, ME and XP. You will need 500 mb of free disk space, mostly for the videos, and 125 mb of RAM. You will need a sound system if you want to hear the speech, music and sound effects, and a printer, preferably in colour, to print recipes, menus, certificates of attainment and other things.
Q: Who publishes CCTB?
A: The schools edition is published by Anastasis Ltd, a private limited company, registered in High Wycombe, Bucks, as company no. 3802203. The Managing Director is Arnold Page, BSc, BD, MIWSc. It has been published principally to raise money for registered charities.
Q: Is CCTB BECTA-approved?
A: Yes.
Q: Can CCTB be bought for home use?
A: Yes. The Home Edition is similar to the Schools Edition but does not have the Administrator facilities, Class or Pupil Name maintenance and reporting. The numbers of personal users and general themed cookery books are both limited to 6. In addition, pupils at schools which buy CCTB can order a Students' Edition from Anastasis Ltd for only £5, using special order forms which are supplied to the school. This is similar to the Home Edition, but does not include the books on Safety and Health in the Kitchen nor the Guide to Healthy Eating. It allows up to 2 personal users and themed cookery books, but does not have any help files.
Q: Is CCTB easy to install?
A: Like all software it's easy if you follow the instructions. The School Edition can be installed on stand-alone PCs or a network and must be installed on each PC from which access will be required. If it is installed on a network then a network administrator should install it. When the installation programme asks for a folder for the database files, the administrator should select a directory and folder on the network server.
Q: When I started to install CCTB it said that if I installed Microsoft Agent and speech software it would not be possible to remove them. This sounded worrying so I cancelled the installation.
A: These items will be installed only if they are not on your computer already. They are both Microsoft systems which should not cause any problems if they are installed. However Microsoft has not made it possible to remove them once they have been installed. The warning is given because some people object to installing anything on their computer if they cannot remove it again later.
Q: What happens if CCTB goes wrong or doesn't work properly?
A: First send us a full description of the problem via the e-mail facility on this web site. If the problem can be solved simply we will e-mail the solution to you. If for some reason we cannot solve the problem simply we will tell you. You should then return the original CD to Anastasis Ltd with a full description of the problem. If the problem is in the CD we will then either fix it and return a working CD to you, or else refund the purchase price in full, whichever you prefer. Please note that the offer of a refund applies only if we cannot solve the problem via e-mail and then only to software which does not work properly when it is correctly installed on a suitable operating system.
Q: How can we find time to fit cookery lessons into the timetable?
A: Design and Technology Key Stages 1 and 2 for England and Wales specifically include "Follow safe procedures for food safety and hygiene" and "Design and make assignments using a range of materials including food", so there should be room for at least a few lessons during each school year. There are somewhat similar requirements in the curricula for Scotland and Northern Ireland. One way to fit in more lessons is to run an after-school cookery club.
Q: I would like to organize a cookery club but I need help to get started.
A: Captain Cook's Tuck Box contains information about safety and hygiene matters, and it has a graduated course of 15 recipes which, if followed in order, will teach children most of the basic cookery skills. The Food Standards Agency has supported the production of a booklet called "Cook-it! A guide to setting up and running a cookery club", available at www.continyou.org.uk. This not only gives full practical suggestions but also includes suggestions for financing a club.
Q: I have seen other recipes software. What's special about CCTB?
A: It's hard to know where to begin! First of all CCTB is believed to be the only CD recipe software written specially for children in the UK. It enables children to plan a meal, then produce a printed menu from a selection of borders, fonts, and folding styles. It has a cook's tip for every day of the year, and a set of food jokes that lasts for three months! It prints a birthday card for you on your birthday. It includes a genie who lives in a tuck box and has a seemingly endless supply of healthy eating ideas. It lets you enter and edit your own recipes. It tells you how to cook the top of a fried egg without splashing hot fat over it or turning it over, and how to remove a tea-bag without scalding your fingers. And what child could resist learning to make Babyburgers, Smiley Faces, Sea Urchins, Venus Swamp Soup, Bacon and Potato Hotch Potch, Worm Pie, Caterpillar Salad, Fried Fruit Sandwiches, Igloo Cake, Apple Burp, Dog Biscuits or Coconut Slush? Is that enough to start with?
Q: Does CCTB include a healthy cooking video?
A: The 32 videos included each deal with a single common culinary task which a child could carry out, e.g. preparing celery. They are not specifically targeted at "healthy" foods or healthy cooking methods, but generally speaking all food prepared at home from fresh ingredients without added preservatives and colouring is more healthy than shop-prepared food.
Questions about recipes:
Q: Where did the recipes come from?
A: Most of them were written by four ladies, two of whom are teachers, and all of whom are very good cooks. They all had small children who helped them to prepare and cook many of the dishes. Most of the recipes were based on existing recipes that were improved after trying them out. However recipes from a fifth cook, "Uncle Arnold", were mostly created especially for CCTB. All the cooks photographed their own dishes, which is why a few of the photos still look amateurish, but they prove that every recipe in CCTB has been tried and tested, and has not just been copied from somewhere else. One or two recipes which didn't work at all were rejected. So the ones that remain can be described as kid friendly recipes.
Q: What kinds of food are included?
A: Almost every kind! The following kinds of food or meal are included: Barbecues, Biscuits, Breakfasts, Cakes, Celebrations, Cheese dishes, Cold Desserts, Cold Sandwiches, Drinks, Egg dishes, Desserts, Fish and Seafood, Hot Desserts, Hot Sandwiches, Ices and Yogurts, International food, Meat and Poultry, Microwave food, Packed lunches and Picnics, Party food, Pastas, Pastry, Pizzas, Play food, Rice and rice dishes, Salads, Sauces and Dressings, Savoury Snacks, Soups and Starters, Spreads, Sweets (confectionery), Vegetarian.
Also there are recipes for special days such as Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Bonfire Night, and for Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu festivals.
Q: What measurement system is used in the recipes?
A: The recipes can be displayed with metric units (gm, ml, etc) or Imperial units (oz, pints, etc.) units. Similarly oven temperatures can be shown in Celsius, Fahrenheit, or even Gas Mark (Regulo) settings. The units (and many other aspects of CCTB) can be changed on the "Settings" screen by individual users to suit their own preferences.
Q: I can't see a box for the number of servings on the Recipes screen. Where is it?
A: It is visible only when you are editing (changing) a recipe in your personal cookery book or a book that you have created as the Administrator. If you want to change the number of servings in a recipe that you can't edit, go to the Menu bar and select "Edit | Number of Servings". (You must have a recipe displayed to do this.)
Q: When I try to find recipes on the "Find recipes" screen, why doesn't it show recipes from the Beginners', Juniors' or Seniors' cookery books?
A: It should do! If it doesn't, it is probably because you have entered a score in the Score box. Recipes in the Beginners', Juniors' and Seniors' cookery books don't have yumminess scores, so they won't appear if you look for recipes with a yumminess score. Make sure that the Score box is blank if you want to find Tuck Box recipes. If that is not the problem, click the "Wipe out" button to start your search again, then set one box and click "Find". Then any other boxes you want, one at a time, and click "Find" after each one. As soon as the Tuck Box recipes stop appearing in the list of recipes found you should be able to see why. Remember that if you select "Yes please" then only recipes with the item shown next to the "Yes please" box will be found. If you select "No thank-you" only recipes without the item shown next to the "No thank-you" box will be found.
Q: Are any additional cookery books available?
A: Not yet, but we hope to make more available in the future.
Q: Not all the recipes could be described as healthy kids recipes. How can I find the ones that are?
A: Go to "Recipes|Find recipes" and select "Meal types|Healthy eating".
Questions about entering recipes:
Captain Cook's Tuck Box is almost unique among recipes software programmes, because it allows you to type your own recipes in or edit recipes which you have copied from the recipe books provided into your personal cookery book. However, the process of entering or editing a recipe does sometimes raise questions, as shown below.
Q: What is the point of entering an origin?
A: In the "Find recipes" screen you can search for all the recipes from a particular origin, for example the Beginners' Cookery Book or a particular magazine from which you have copied some recipes. If you have assigned that origin to your recipe then your recipe will be displayed in the list of recipes it finds.
Q: What is the point of entering a meal type?
A: In the "Find recipes screen" you can search for all the recipes suitable for a particular meal type. If you have assigned that meal type to your recipe then your recipe will be displayed in the list of recipes it finds. The "Meal menus screen" also uses meal types to display suitable recipes for your dinner or party menus.
Q: Why does each ingredient have to be entered in a row of little boxes for quantity, measurement, name, preparation, etc.? Why can't I type ingredients in directly, like instructions?
A: Ingredients have to be entered in a special way so that they can be scaled for different numbers of servings. For example, if you had a recipe for 2 people that said "5 drops almond essence" and you then wanted to see the quantities you would need for 20 people, you wouldn't want to read "50 drops almond essence". The programme knows how much a drop is and if you changed the number of servings to 20 it would display "4 teaspoons almond essence", which is much better.
Q: How do pupils enter a food which isn't listed in the "Food" box on the Ingredients screen?
A: Only the Administrator (usually the cookery teacher) can enter new food types. Pupils who want to enter "edible snails", for example, should ask their teacher to enter these as a new food type, via the Menu bar "Edit | Food types". Snails will then appear in the drop-down list in the "Food" box on the "Ingredients" screen.
Q: How can I enter alternative foods, e.g. "12 oz cod, haddock or whiting"?
A: Enter the first food ("cod") in the "Food" box, and the rest in the "Preparation and Notes" box. Start with a comma (", haddock or whiting") or the word "or" ("or haddock or whiting").
Q: Why do I sometimes get a message "There is something wrong with ...?"
A: There are several possible reasons:
- The units don't match the food, e.g. "1 lb water", or "1 pumpkins"
- Imperial and metric units are mixed, e.g. "1½ litres" instead of "1.5 litres"
- The ingredient you have entered is silly, e.g. "thick orange juice" or "1 large litre milk chopped into small pieces"
Q: Why can't I enter "1 level tablespoon orange juice"?
A: Because orange juice is a liquid and you can't have a heaped tablespoon of it! Just enter "1 tablespoon orange juice." The programme checks that entries make sense, and sometimes it gets a little over-fussy.
Q: In a salad recipe for 4 people I entered "4 small tomatoes" (one for each person) but the programme changed it to "2 medium tomatoes". How can I stop this?
A: Enter "1 small tomato" instead of "4 small tomatoes", and type "per person" or "per serving" in the "Preparation and Notes" box. Whenever the programme sees the word "per" it does not scale the quantities for different numbers of servings. If you are the Administrator, another way is to enter "small tomatoes" in the food box. When the "Food types" screen pops up enter "small tomatoes" as a special food type. The number of small tomatoes required will then be scaled as normal for the number of servings selected.
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