Published on May 23rd, 2012 | by Kim LaCapria
09-Year-Old Food Blogger Shames School, Foments Lunch Change
Everyone wants to be a food blogger, but 9-year-old Scottish schoolgirl Martha Payne just kind of walked into it with her viral project NeverSeconds.
Payne is not even in double digits yet, but the budding culinary critic caught the attention of the blogosphere as well as prominent fans in her native UK (like Jamie Oliver) after her writings and pics became popular internationally. There’s something fascinating about school, airline and hospital lunches, and NeverSeconds captured the intriguing element fresh from a young girl’s perspective with accompanying real life pics.
Reminding us that British kids are a million times fancier than American ones, Payne earlier told the BBC that the food served at her school was “wee bit small and sometimes they’re not very nice either.” But after her blog caught attention worldwide and got the Jamie Oliver shoutout, her dad was called in to chat with school officials about the menus.
And not long after that, Payne wrote of some incremental menu changes like unlimited veggies. The pint-sized blogger reported:
“My Dad met the council today and its official that we are allowed unlimited salads, fruit and bread! I’m really happy that all of my friends can help themselves to good stuff.”
You can check out Martha’s adorable and shockingly articulate NeverSeconds by clicking here, and the review of the above pic reads:
“The meatballs tasted like meatballs, not lamb, if you know what I mean! I can’t remember what the gravy tasted like but it was good mixed with the mash potato. We’ve not had these yoghurts before but the toffee flavour was lovely even though it tasted of oranges. Told you it was an orange day!”