4/5 Edible Social Studies: Week 1

We started our exploration of the food system and climate change this year with a discussion about the power of culture. Scientists have determined that social comparison is the most effective way to get people to change their behavior—more powerful than education or monetary levers such as fines, coupons, or tax credits.

In the classroom we watched a video about local edible insect company Don Bugito, which is bringing back a food tradition that dates back thousands of years as we grapple with changing the way we produce protein in the United States. Don Bugito produces protein using far less land and water and generates far less waste than the production of cows, chickens, and pigs.

In the kitchen we took a pancake recipe from the fourth grade Edible Social Studies curriculum that highlights native plants such as strawberry and acorn and swapped in cricket flour for the acorn. At first, there was a lot of hesitation amongst the chefs to eat insects, but once the pancakes were beautifully browned and drizzled with maple syrup, they were very popular! Students also had the opportunity to try other treats from Don Bugito: toasted mealworms, chocolate covered crickets with amaranth, and coconut brittle “bugitos.” Seeing our friends around the table trying something different made it easier for all of us to experiment with a new way of cooking and eating.

TK Edible Social Studies: Month 1

Our first salad of the year celebrated the waning weeks of summer and all things melon. In the classroom we learned the names of five varieties of melon: black watermelon, Charentais, Goddess, Sharlyn, and Ha’Ogen. We passed around the Sharlyn melon to experience its aroma and we wondered what color each of the melons would be when we cut them open.

We sang a silly song about melons to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat:

Melon, melon, you’re so sweet, Full of vitamin C! Green and yellow, orange and red, Makes our bellies happy.

In the kitchen, we discovered a rainbow of melon and got to work using our crinkle cutters to cut melon wedges into bite-sized pieces. We dressed the salad with fresh lime juice and zest and mint ribbons, which made for a refreshing treat on a warm, sunny afternoon. Happy melon season!

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Field Trip

For the culminating field trip of our Everybody Cooks Rice Unit the first grade chefs took MUNI to Hayes Valley and visited the Buoy cafe, which makes desserts using Korean rice flour.

The cafe had reserved a long table for all of us and everyone got to try the black sesame brownie and the raspberry roll cake. After our cafe visit, we walked to the Helen Diller Civic Center playground for lunch and free play. What a great rice-filled way to end our time together. Thank you to all the chaperones who helped make it possible. Can’t wait to cook together again next year!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Field Trip

For a culminating celebration of our healthy bodies, healthy communities Edible Social Studies unit this year, the kindergarteners walked from school to the Dearborn Community Garden in the Mission. They were tasked with finding plants to represent all the colors of the rainbow, they tasted some fresh rainbow chard, they spoke with one of the community gardeners who handed out California poppies, and they enjoyed strawberry popsicles on a bright sunny day while hanging out together in urban nature. It was such a fun year - thank you to everyone who made it possible. We can’t wait to see all of our chefs again in first grade next spring.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

For our final class of the year, we read The Mochi Makers by Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson. In the book, a child and her grandmother make the Japanese treat made from pounded glutinous rice.

In the kitchen, we made dango, which is similar to mochi but dango are made from glutinous rice flour, not from the rice itself. We used a special Japanese flour called shiratamako and flavored the dango with matcha powder. Our Japanese sundaes featured vanilla ice cream, sweet adzuki bean, black sesame seeds, kinako (toasted soybean flour), condensed milk, kuromitsu (a Japanese sugar syrup), our homemade dango, and local organic strawberries donated by our friend Lorraine Walker, the farmer at Eatwell Farm in Dixon. It was a sweet and happy ending to a wonderful 10 weeks together.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 10

In the classroom this week we read the book Sweet Justice about Georgia Gilmore, a woman who fed the Montgomery bus boycott and changed the world through her food and cooking.

Georgia was famous for her pies, so in the kitchen we made our own chocolate strawberry cream pies featuring beautiful fruit donated by our friend Lorraine Walker at Eatwell Farm in Dixon. Everyone enjoyed slicing strawberries, whipping cream, shaving chocolate, and sharing jokes and laughter around the table for our final lesson. No doubt all of our chefs will grow up to change the world with their cooking someday, too!

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week we read Bowl of A’s: An Italian-American Tale about Italian students in Rome who are having a potluck with their American teacher. Silly misunderstandings ensue when construction noises make it hard for the teacher to hear the names of popular Italian dishes the children will bring.

In the kitchen we made risi e bisi, a Venetian classic featuring short-grain Italian rice and peas. This is a perfect dish to make in the spring, as we used locally grown organic sugar snap peas, shelling peas, and pea shoots. The recipe was popular, and we learned an Italian phrase from the book that came in handy at the end of class: “Tutta buon!”

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week we read Where We Come From by Diane Wilson, Sun Yung Shin, Shannon Gibney, and John Coy and illustrated by Dion MBD. The authors talk about the stories, cultures, and places that have shaped their identities.

In the kitchen classroom we learned how to make green onion pancakes, a staple of my own family’s Taiwanese American food culture. The kindergarten chefs rolled out a simple dough made of wheat and water, painted the dough with oil, salt, and sliced green onions, then rolled, twisted, and rolled again before frying the pancakes in a hot skillet. Human palates tend to respond to anything greasy and salty, and this recipe was no different. We had a lot of smiles at the end of class!

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 8

In the classroom this week we read Sankofa: A Culinary Story of Resilience and Belonging. The book is about a child named Kofi who learns pride in his Ghanaian American culture through sharing food with his school community.

In the kitchen we made a vegan version of jollof rice, a fragrant West African dish made with tomatoes, chiles, and spices. The first grade chefs made a puree of peppers and tomatoes, then sautéd spices in coconut oil before cooking the rice in the spicy red liquid. While the jollof rice simmered, we made a simple slaw with cabbage, carrots, lemon juice, and mayonnaise, which provides a crunchy, cooling counterpoint to the hot rice.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 8

In the classroom this week we started a two-week exploration of global foodways with the book My Food, Your Food, Our Food. We learned about a grain called fonio that is a staple in West Africa and talked about the fact that food practices around the world share many similarities and have many differences.

In the kitchen we made a curried fonio pilaf highlighting several ingredients that are native to the African continent such as yams and black-eyed peas as well as ingredients that were naturalized on the African continent such as coconut, tomato, ginger, and hot chiles. The flavor profile of this dish represents a new experience for many of our chefs, who all bravely tried something outside of their comfort zones.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 7

This week in the classroom we watched a video about how rice paper is made and the role it plays in Vietnamese food culture.

In the kitchen we made salad rolls featuring edible rice paper and rice noodles. It was a great hands-on activity and each chef got to make two rolls filled with the fillings of their choice. We had a rainbow of colorful fruits and vegetables such as cucumber, carrot, purple cabbage, red Butter lettuce, Thai basil, mint, and cilantro. For protein we had braised tofu from local food producer Hodo. For dipping, we made a sauce with nut-free sun butter as a base. Some chefs tried to spell out their initials with calendula petals! All the rolls were gorgeous to look at and fun to eat together.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 7

In honor of Earth Day, in the classroom this week we read the book To Change a Planet and watched a short Learn Bright video about Earth Day. We discussed how replacing animal protein with plant protein is one of the most impactful actions a single person can do to help the environment. Beans are a great source of plant protein. Bean plants fix nitrogen in the soil, which keeps the soil nourished and healthy for future generations.

In the kitchen we made a spread with fava beans, a spring treat that is just starting to come into local markets. The kindergarten chefs learned how to peel the favas, blanch the favas, and then remove an additional peel to get to the bright green bean inside. We pureed the fava beans with tahini, lemon juice, garlic, dill, and olive oil and enjoyed the spread with locally made Rustic Bakery crackers, bread from local bakery Rize Up, and carrot and cucumber coins.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 6

In the classroom this week we read The Shape of Home, a book about an Iranian American child and her classmates who are from all around the world.

In the kitchen we made a Persian carrot rice dish called havij polo in Farsi. Students grated carrots and fresh turmeric, snipped candied lemon peel, pounded saffron, and made a savory layer cake of sorts with a carrot-raisin mixture and pre-cooked basmati rice. The dish was finished with the syrup left over from the candied-peel-making process and dried rose petals. We enjoyed the savory, sweet, bitter, and spiced end result, which represented a new flavor profile for many in our first grade community.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 6

In the classroom this week we talked about mindfulness and read the book No Ordinary Apple: A Story About Eating Mindfully. We discussed our five senses and how we can slow down and grow our awareness of them to do all kinds of things, including learning to appreciate foods we previously did not enjoy.

In the kitchen, we made carrot and spinach latkes and ate them with a homemade applesauce containing four different varietals of apple: Granny Smith, Cosmic Crisp, Opal, and Pink Lady. In our closing circle, we shared something we noticed with our senses while we were eating our meal together. Students noticed the latkes were crispy, the spinach was colorful, and the applesauce smelled like flowers.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 5

In the classroom this week we learned about chifa, a cuisine that emerged from Chinese immigrants living in Peru over a hundred years ago. We read the book Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match, which is a story about a Peruvian Scottish American child learning how to navigate and celebrate the many facets of her identity.

In the kitchen we made a chifa dish called arroz chaufa (chaufa being the Spanish transliteration of the Chinese words for fried rice). It is similar to a traditional fried rice, but incorporates cumin and ají panca, a mild and fruity red pepper from Peru. The first grade chefs got more practice cracking raw eggs and had a lot of fun building the arroz chaufa in a wok.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 5

This week in the classroom we discussed the power of seasonality, both in the foods that we eat and in the different community gatherings and holidays that bring people together throughout the year. We read the book Spring is for Strawberries and learned that most fruits and vegetables grown in our local environment are only in season (or at peak ripeness) during specific months. Our current global food system obscures this fact; for example, we can now find strawberries grown in Mexico at the grocery store 365 days a year. But strawberries grown in California usually only become available around the first signs of spring, which happens to be right in this moment!

In the kitchen we made a salad with several ingredients that announce the arrival of spring: strawberries, spring onions, asparagus, sugar snap peas, and baby spinach. We learned a technique for cooking vegetables called blanching, which involves quickly cooking vegetables in salted boiling water, then shocking them in a cold-water bath to stop the cooking process. We had some leftover parmesan from last week’s stone soup, so that made for a popular garnish after we dressed the salad and sat down to eat. In our closing circle, each chef shared their favorite season of the year.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 4

In the classroom this week we read Maurice Sendak’s book Chicken Soup with Rice, which celebrates the deliciousness of chicken soup with rice at all times of the year.

In the kitchen we made a vegetarian version of a classic chicken soup with rice originally from the Sephardic Jewish culinary tradition called avgolemono. The first grade chefs did an incredible job of finely dicing carrots and celery to form the base of the soup together with green garlic. We added cooked rice and made a mixture of eggs and freshly squeezed lemon juice that was then slowly tempered into the soup at the very end to add flavor and to thicken the consistency. The finished product was garnished with loads of fresh herbs!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 4

This week we read Marcia Brown’s retelling of the European folktale Stone Soup. We talked about what the story is trying to teach us as readers. At the beginning of the tale, the villagers are protective of their resources and unwilling to share them with the newly arrived soldiers. At the end of the book, we learn how the soldiers draw out everyone in the community to contribute something to the meal, which is then enjoyed and celebrated by everyone. The villagers could not have made something as delicious as stone soup had they cooked in siloes. Only by coming together did they create a dish worthy of sharing.

In the kitchen, we made our own version of stone soup, including adding a real stone to our pot! Every single chef contributed something, whether that was chopping celery, potatoes, pepper, and carrots; measuring the vegetable stock; mincing herbs; mincing garlic; or stirring the pot. You can make stone soup with anything you have on hand as long as everyone works together towards the grand finale.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 3

In the classroom this week we read The Story of Manoomin and learned more about a sacred food of the Anishinaabe people. We also watched a short film from PBS Wisconsin featuring Fred Ackley Jr. of the Sokaogon Chippewa Community of Mole Lake. Students watched Fred go through the process of harvesting, drying, parching, winnowing, and cooking wild rice and heard the Ojibwe origin story about the food that grows on water.

In the kitchen we made a salad with cooked wild rice originally produced by the Red Lake Nation. The first grade chefs added three additional ingredients that are native to present-day North America: cranberries, squash, and pumpkin seeds. They learned to make a salad dressing by slowly adding oil to lemon juice to create an emulsion, and added arugula, green onion, and dill for additional texture and flavor. We enjoyed the manoomin salad with strawberry leaf tea, another ingredient native to present-day North America and a staple of Anishinaabe foodways and medicinal practices.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 3

This week our theme was all about making art! In the classroom we read the book Time to Make Art by Jeff Mack and talked about how being creative is a great way to stay healthy and how sharing art is a great way to build strong communities.

In the kitchen we prepared a number of edible materials, then grabbed cutting boards as our canvases. Each chef was able to use a variety of colorful ingredients to make their own masterpiece. Then, we drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned with salt and freshly ground pepper, and enjoyed our salad/art. Almost every chef was able to try something new today, which made the project even more fun.