2nd/3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 2

In the classroom this week we reviewed statistics about California’s farmworkers: most are Mexican, most are men, most are undocumented. We discussed how people without documentation are not protected by laws guaranteeing a minimum wage, meal and rest breaks, or the right to vote. Mexico is both California’s neighbor and another major agricultural producer. We read the book Mi papá es un agrícola/My Father the Farmworker, which was written by the son of a Mexican man who came to the United States to work on farms as part of the Bracero Program in the mid-20th century.

In the kitchen, we made a bright, delicious guacamole using Haas avocados grown in Mexico and Bacon avocados grown in California. The chefs enjoyed the guacamole with yellow and blue tortilla chips from local food producer Sabor Mexicano. At the end of class, we washed the avocado seeds and every student placed one inside a damp paper towel inside a sandwich bag, where they will sit for a few weeks while we wait for them to sprout. In the new year, all the second and third graders will be able to take home an avocado plant, which won’t likely produce fruit for many years but should make a lovely houseplant!

2nd/3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 1

For our first week together, the second and third graders learned that California is an agricultural powerhouse that produces much of the produce eaten around the country and even the world. In the classroom, we read Before We Eat: From Farm to Table by Pat Brisson and illustrated by Mary Azarian to remind us of and celebrate all the labor that goes into our food system.

In the kitchen, we made a 100% California-grown salad highlighting the autumn season. Our produce came from local organic farms in San Benito, Santa Barbara, San Mateo, Tulare, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties. The thyme came from San Francisco County from a pot on my balcony! There was quite a bit of salad spinning, chopping, and emulsifying involved in putting together all the colorful components of our dish. In our closing circle, each chef named their favorite ingredient in the salad. Every ingredient (except for poor fennel) got at least one shoutout. Happy fall!

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

In the classroom this week we watched a short film called Seeds of Our Ancestors from the Cultural Conservancy featuring Native youth from California talking about their relationship to Native foodways. We spotted 12 ingredients in the film that we’ve used during our unit this year.

For our final course of the year, the fourth and fifth grade chefs made a simple chia porridge with a huckleberry sauce and topped the dessert with edible flowers, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, cocoa powder, bee pollen, and mesquite powder—all ingredients native to the Americas.

Each table played the Ohlone staves game, a fun game of chance with extreme highs and lows. It was wonderful to see how supportive the chefs were with each other through robust competition. In our closing circle, everyone shared a favorite recipe from the fall and an appreciation about Edible Social Studies. Our fifth graders will be sorely missed!

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week we learned about the three sisters, a companion planting method Indigenous peoples across what is now the Americas developed over thousands of years. The short film we watched was narrated by Oneida Nation citizen Rebecca Webster. The Oneida are one of five nations in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. As it was the week of Election Day, we also learned that the Haudenosaunee are the oldest participatory democracy in the world. Haudenosaunee values and practices influenced the creation of the US Constitution in the 18th century.

In the kitchen we worked with the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash) as well as other ingredients native to the Americas such as tomatoes and potatoes. Our recipe comes from the Chicasaw Nation and involves a lot of chopping, which our fourth and fifth graders are pros at by now! The resulting stew was chunky, hearty, and thoroughly nourishing. We closed class with a circle where each chef shared something they are grateful for.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 8

This week we watched a short film about the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, their migration story, and the importance of birdsongs in Cahuilla culture. We learned that in the desert, water is life.

In the kitchen, we worked with three ingredients that have sustained desert peoples in what is now called the Coachella Valley for thousands of years: cactus pads, prickly pears, and agave. The fourth and fifth graders blanched freshly picked cactus pads and made a salsa, which we enjoyed with blue and yellow tortilla chips. They scooped out the flesh from prickly pears grown in Sonoma and donated by a friend to The Breakfast Project, mashed them, strained out the seeds, and sweetened the puree with agave syrup. The puree mixed with fresh lime juice and sparkling mineral water made for a truly delicious and refreshing beverage as we honored and celebrated all the treasures the desert has to offer.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 7

In the classroom this week we watched History of Native California from Humboldt State University featuring Wiyot, Hupa, Yurok, and Karuk communities sharing their stories.

In the kitchen we worked with a variety of cultivated and foraged wild mushrooms and made a ragout we enjoyed with fusilli pasta. We reviewed the importance of mushroom identification expertise as many varieties of poisonous mushrooms look extraordinarily similar to edible ones. Students prepared king trumpet, lion’s mane, chanterelle, shiitake, oyster, brown and white beech, and hen of the woods mushrooms. It was a rich, sensory experience, and the lesson definitely converted some mushroom-adverse chefs into fans!

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 6

This week we learned all about highly nutritious stinging nettles, which are native to North America. Indigenous peoples such as the Kawaiisu have many medicinal and ceremonial uses for nettles, including walking through the plants to get stung on purpose in preparation for dreams and visions.

In the kitchen we made a potato and stinging nettle soup with nettles foraged in Mendocino County. Students used tongs to blanch the nettles and were able to chop them up afterwards as heat deactivates the sting. The aroma as the nettles were cooking is reminiscent of spinach! In addition to working with a wild ingredient that is difficult to find at a local grocery store, we got to play with immersion blenders to make a smooth, pureed, deep green soup after all the vegetables were cooked through. Many chefs garnished their soup with crème fraîche, a drizzle of olive oil, and some locally grown society garlic edible flowers.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 5

This week we discussed how Indigenous cultures often use all parts of a plant—for food, medicine, ceremony, housing, and more. In the classroom we watched a time-lapse video of the sunflower plant (native to present-day North America!) go from seed to seed in 75 days. We learned that Indigenous peoples make bread and cakes out of sunflower flour, use sunflower oil for sunscreen and to treat snakebites, take pigment from the petals to color hair and textiles, and use the long, fibrous stems for construction.

In the kitchen we made a salad featuring five parts or expressions of the sunflower plant: the sprout, the tuber (which is commonly called sunchoke or Jerusalem artichoke), the petals, the seeds, and the oil (which we made into a dressing). In our closing circle, each chef named the sunflower part they liked the best after tasting the salad.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 4

In the classroom this week, we watched a recent news segment about a Chumash-led initiative to establish the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary off the Central California Coast.

In the kitchen, students made a seaweed salad with hijiki, wakame, and kombu. Each chef rolled their own sushi roll using another seaweed, nori, as a wrapper, and sprinkled the rice with another seaweed, dulse, and furikake, a Japanese seasoning that contains sesame seeds and seaweed. This recipe was very popular, and almost every chef said they tried something they had never eaten before.

During the closing circle, students shared ideas about what humans get from water, including plant and animal life, hydration, sanitation, play, and spirituality.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 3

We learned about the Mojave people who make their home along the Colorado River this week and watched a short film about the Mojave relationship with the mesquite tree.

In the kitchen, we made mesquite sweet potato and pepper tacos featuring mesquite powder as part of a spice mix. Mesquite powder is made from the dried screwbean fruit of the mesquite tree; many chefs agreed it smells and taste like chocolate! We used sweet Gypsy and Jimmy Nardello peppers in our tacos and enjoyed them garnished with purple cabbage, fresh lime juice, cilantro, and queso fresco.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 2

In the classroom this week, we looked at photos of Prunus subcordata, also known as the Sierra, Klamath, Pacific, or Oregon plum, which is native to present-day California and Oregon. We learned the Konkow word for this plum and watched a short film by the Konkow Valley Band of Maidu Indians about recent initiatives to return land back to their tribe.

In the kitchen, we made a plum panzanella, not with native plums, as we don’t have a known, organic source for them, but with the descendants of plums from around the world that are now a highlight of the late summer California agricultural bounty: Black Kat and Dapple Dandy pluots from Cliff McFarlin Family Farms in Orosi and Santa Rosa plums from Knoll Farms in Brentwood.

There was quite a bit of chopping involved in this salad, as well as making a salad dressing and adding in fresh herbs such as thyme (which we grew in our own school garden!) and basil. We added a little fresh mozzarella to the mix, and only wish there had been a bit more time for the bread pieces to soak up the dressing before we had to eat, though this didn’t stop some chefs from having four servings before our closing circle.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 1

For the first class of the unit, the fourth and fifth grade chefs learned about the acorn as a universal and important food source for Indigenous peoples almost everywhere in present-day California, with the exception of the desert. Acorn gathering season is September and October, so students were able to touch and observe locally gathered acorns from the East Bay.

In the classroom, we watched a video of a North Fork Mono and Chukchansi woman known as “the acorn lady,” Lois Conner Bohna, preparing acorn and talking about the steps and tools used to process acorn into food.

In the kitchen, we made strawberry acorn pancakes with acorn flour produced in Nevada County, about 150 miles from our school. It was fun to be back in community cooking together, and the pancakes were popular, especially with loads of maple syrup (a nod to the Indigenous foodways of the Northeast!) on top.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 10

In the classroom this week we read Sweet Justice: Georgia Gilmore and the Montgomery Bus Boycott about how an extraordinary citizen and activist who was famous for her cooking helped make the world a better place through her food.

In honor of Georgia Gilmore, we made our own pies in the kitchen for our final class of the year. The kindergarten chefs made a simple graham cracker crust, whipped chocolate whipped cream, macerated fresh cherries, and topped off their pies with handmade vanilla whipped cream and milk chocolate shavings. It was a very sweet ending to a wonderful ten weeks together.

Room 107 was able to take an Edible Social Studies walking field trip to the Dearborn Community Garden in the Mission to celebrate the end of our time together. It was a reminder that spending time in nature, being together, and enjoying popsicles are all ways we can continue to stay healthy and strong.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

In the classroom this week we read Suki’s Kimono by Chieri Uegaki and Stéphane Jorisch, a book that reminded us to stay true to ourselves, even when others may pressure us not to.

In the kitchen we worked with fresh mochi and made strawberry daifuku, a Japanese dessert we filled with sweet red bean paste and fresh fruit. Shiratamako flour is harder to find than mochiko flour; both are made from glutinous rice flour and will work with this recipe. Fresh mochi is very sticky, so we had a lot of fun coating our hands with cornstarch before starting our prep. It was many chefs’ first time eating mochi and red bean paste.

To celebrate our ten weeks of exploring all things rice, we ended the year with a rice-themed party, complete with horchata and many different kinds of rice-based snacks including dosa chips, gluten-free pretzels, teriyaki mochi bites, rice cakes, and both savory and sweet rice crackers.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 9

This week in the classroom we read the book Where We Come From, written by John Coy, Shannon Gibney, Sun Yung Shin, and Diane Wilson and illustrated by Dion MBD. This is the second week of our exploration of foodways from around the world.

In the kitchen, I shared a recipe from where my parents and many of my ancestors come from, Taiwan. The kindergarten chefs learned how to roll out a wheat flour dough, brush it with oil, season it with salt, sprinkle it with green onions, then roll it again into a log, twist it to form layers, coil it into a cinnamon roll shape, roll it out again, then pan fry it before finishing with some flaky salt. I brought a Taiwanese cucumber salad as a cruncy, acidic accompaniment to the savory pancakes, which were a hit! I hope everyone felt inspired to learn more about their own family stories and celebrate their own traditions.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week we read Dan Yaccarino’s book All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel. His story covers what values have stayed the same over multiple generations in his family and also how their lives (and names!) have changed.

In the kitchen we made risi e bisi, a true celebration of springtime with loads of sugar snap peas, English peas, pea shoots, and fresh herbs. The optional Parmigiano Reggiano for shaving on top was a very popular finishing touch.

3rd Grade Chinatown Field Trip

The third grade chefs visited Chinatown on a sunny spring day and explored some of the places we learned about during our winter Edible Social Studies unit on the history of San Francisco. We started at the Dragon Gate, the first permanent ceremonial gate installation in the United States. It was designed by three Chinese American architects who won a design competition in the 1960s and features materials gifted to the city by the government of Taiwan. The fish symbolize prosperity and the dragons symbolize power.

We walked past the Sing Chong building on Grant Avenue, an example of the “new Chinatown” local residents rebuilt after the devastating earthquake and fires of 1906. The classical Chinese architectural style was meant to draw tourists to the neighborhood and emphasize Chinatown’s cultural significance at a time when the local government wished to displace Chinese residents.

Each chef got a freshly baked unfolded fortune cookie while waiting in line at the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company, where we got to see the cookies coming straight out of the oven and being formed by hand. We took our cookie order with special fortunes inside just for Harvey Milk students to nearby Portsmouth Square, the site where the discovery of gold was first announced and the site of California’s first public school, and to St. Mary’s Square, where we had some time to play at the park before heading back to the Castro.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 8

We will spend the next two weeks discussing global food cultures and how we can expand our palates by learning about what and how people eat around the world. In the classroom we listened to the song and read the book My Food, Your Food, Our Food.

In the kitchen we worked with a West African grain called fonio. The kindergarten chefs agreed raw fonio looks a lot like sand! We sauteed onions and ginger in coconut oil to build a foundation of flavor, then added sweet potato, curry, harissa, rainbow chard, tomatoes, and black eyed peas. The fonio takes only five minutes to cook once it’s combined with vegetable stock and brought to a boil. There were a lot of new flavors for everyone to experience and now we can all say we’ve tried something we’d never tried before.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 8

In the classroom this week we read Sankofa: A Culinary Story of Resilience and Belonging, a story about a child named Kofi who grapples with his Ghanaian American identity when his school holds a potluck. Kofi learns that what many people call the best rice, Carolina Gold, came from enslaved West African people who braided the grains into their hair to ensure their families’ survival.

In the kitchen we made jollof rice, a staple of West African cuisine. It is fragrant, spiced, savory, colorful, and perfect paired with a simple, crunchy Nigerian coleslaw to balance the heat. The first graders are complete pros at this point in the unit, it’s incredible to behold!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 7

This week our theme was mindfulness and mindful eating. In the classroom we read No Ordinary Apple: A Story About Eating Mindfully by Sara Marlowe and Philip Pascuzzo. We learned that mindfulness includes slowing down and using all of our senses to be present in whatever we are experiencing. The kindergarten chefs are all familiar with Mr. Glover’s mindful moment during opening circles on Fridays; we talked about how this same practice can be applied when we sit down to eat.

In the kitchen we started class with a mindful tasting of four different apple varieties: Fuji, Crimson Gold, Pink Lady, and Arkansas Black. We listened to the apples, noticed their color and shape, smelled them, touched them, and tasted them slowly and in different parts of our mouths. There was a LOT of difference between the apples when we took the time to notice!

We then made carrot and spinach latkes and enjoyed eating them with an applesauce made from the same varieties of apples that we tasted. There is so much to be grateful for when we stop and check in as a community.