2nd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 3

This week we learned about some of California’s first farmworkers, Chinese immigrants, who helped build the state’s agricultural infrastructure in the mid-19th century. In the classroom, we watched a film teaser for a documentary called Invisible Assets: The Chinese Contribution to California Wines. The film explores the history of the many unnamed Chinese people who built the vineyards for which the town of Sonoma is now famous. We heard Sonoma’s mayor Jack Ding, a Chinese immigrant, talk about his dream of installing a Chinese ting honoring the labor of Chinese people in the middle of a public park in his city.

In the kitchen, we celebrated the Lunar New Year, an important culinary holiday for many Asian cultures, including the Chinese, by making dumplings. Our were filled with carrots, cabbage, garlic chives, shiitake mushrooms, tofu, ginger, shallots, and cilantro. We steamed the dumplings in bamboo steamers and one lucky chef at each table found the shiny coin hidden inside, which represents good fortune in the new year. Happy Year of the Rabbit to all!

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies: cafe ohlone field trip

We were so fortunate to have a bright, sunny day in the midst of a few winter storms to head to the land now called Berkeley. All our fourth and fifth grade classrooms got to visit the only Ohlone restaurant in the world. At Cafe Ohlone’s latest space, called ‘oṭṭoy (which means “to mend” or “repair” in Chochenyo), students had the opportunity to learn from Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino, the Ohlone founders of mak-’amham (Chochenyo for “our food”), a cultural institution focused on empowering the Ohlone community and teaching the public about Ohlone culture through taste.

Inside the restaurant, we observed native plants, listened to the voices of both elder and youth members of the local Ohlone community play over speakers, and learned a few Ohlone words. “Horše tuuxi” means hello. The land now known as San Francisco is “Yelamu.” The land around Mission Dolores, Dolores Park, and near Harvey Milk is “Chutchui.” Mr. Louis showed us several beautiful baskets used in preparing acorn. Mr. Vincent talked about abalone and taught us the Chochenyo lyrics to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star that his younger brother wrote.

We enjoyed hot elderberry tea and brownies. Unfortunately, it was the first day the Cafe Ohlone team was training the UC Berkeley dining staff on how to make their recipes and too much oil was incorporated into the acorn brownies that morning so they were unavailable. Instead, everyone was served brownies from the UC Berkeley dining hall. They were delicious and a huge hit, but we’ll have to come back another time to taste the real thing. (And we’re lucky to have worked with acorn flour already (in our strawberry acorn pancakes recipe) at school. )

Mr. Vincent gave a powerful example for students of not only how it would feel to be colonized and have your land and culture taken away but also how the very existence of the restaurant is a testament to how strong the Ohlone people have been in the face of adversity and that their beautiful culture continues to thrive. He asked us to help spread the message that the Ohlone have always been here and will always be here. We’re so grateful for the experience and hope our connection with the work of ‘mak-amham can only continue to grow.

2nd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 2

Last week, the second graders learned that California is a major producer of fruits and vegetables. This week, we learned that a majority of California’s farmworkers are Mexican, men, undocumented, and range in age from teenagers to people in their 60s. We also learned that there are an estimated 400,000 children who work in American fields. In the classroom, we read the book Before We Eat: From Farm to Table and discussed all the many people who contribute to our food system and allow us to eat. They are essential workers and heroes, but most of them aren’t named in our history books or raised in our daily consciousness.

In the classroom, we celebrated the close relationship between Californian and Mexican food cultures and made guacamole with Haas and Bacon (named for their first cultivator, not their flavor!) avocados. There was great teamwork as students mashed avocado, snipped onions, squeezed limes, and minced cilantro. We enjoyed the guacamole with local tortilla chips from Sabor Mexicano.

At the end of class, each student planted a fava bean into a small cup of soil. Over the next few weeks, the second graders will watch their fava starts emerge indoors and we will then transfer the baby plants to the planters by the lunch picnic tables and hope to be able to harvest fresh fava beans together before school gets out in the spring!

2nd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 1

The second graders kicked off our farmworkers unit with a celebration of California’s agricultural bounty. In the classroom, we learned that California produces much of the fruit, vegetables, and nuts for the rest of the country and even the world.

In the kitchen, we made a California-grown winter salad featuring butter lettuce from Pescadero, fennel from Aromas, yellow carrots from the Santa Rita Hills, watermelon radish from San Juan Bautista, Moro blood orange and Marisol clementine and Meyer lemons from Orosi, Medjool dates from the Coachella Valley, shallots from San Martin, and, of course, 100% California extra-virgin olive oil. Students used a mortar and pestle to make a simple salad dressing to flavor all the beautiful colors of the local produce. It was fun to reconnect with each other and have the opportunity to use many different culinary tools in the outdoor classroom.

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

In the classroom this week we finished watching the episode of Tending the Wild called Decolonizing the Diet: How Native Peoples are Reclaiming Traditional Foods that we started in our first week of the unit. We learned about the Chia Café Collective, a group in Southern California working to preserve Indigenous foodways, including native chia, which is no longer accessible in large enough quantities for people to eat.

In the kitchen we made a Cafe Ohlone recipe for chia porridge, a simple and energizing way to start your day. We garnished the porridge with a wild huckleberry sauce, bee pollen, pumpkin seeds, and the edible flowers of a pineapple sage we are growing in the school garden.

While we waited for the porridge to set, we played an Ohlone game that is traditionally played with elderberry or willow sticks. One side of each stick is decorated. Each player throws the sticks down and points are awarded depending on how the sticks land (all blank or all decorated = 2 points; half blank/half decorated = 1 point; all other configurations = 0 points). The first player to get to 5 points is the game of staves champion.

In our closing circle, we each shared our favorite recipe from the unit this semester and an appreciation. It’s been a wonderful nine weeks and we look forward to our field trip in January and one last class in the spring!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week, we watched a short documentary film about Gilbert Baker and his creation of the rainbow pride flag in 1978 at Harvey Milk’s request. We learned that the original flag was eight stripes but that Baker soon ran out of pink fabric because his flags were so popular so he switched to a six-stripe version, which now flies over the Castro MUNI station and we can see out the windows from Room 212!

Baker conceived of the colors as symbols: Red for Life, Orange for Healing, Yellow for Sunlight, Green for Nature, Indigo for Serenity, and Violet for Spirit. In the kitchen, we recreated the flag in a parfait using pomegranate for red, Fuyu persimmons for orange, pineapple for yellow, kiwi for green, blueberries for indigo, and ube (purple yam) for violet.

In 2017, the city of Philadelphia redesigned the flag to include brown and black stripes to celebrate the contributions of Brown and Black LGBTQ+ leaders to the movement for equality and to highlight the specific challenges faced by Black and Brown members of the LGBTQ+ community. We represented the brown stripe with shaved milk chocolate and the black strip with blackberries.

Our parfaits were topped with fresh whipped cream and a sprig of peppermint from our school garden. So beautiful and so delicious! On Friday we walked down to 18th Street and got a chance to view a segment of Baker’s original flag on display at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. Baker dyed the fabric himself to create the first eight colors and we were all taken aback by how vibrant they remain nearly 50 years later.

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

In the classroom this week, we read an excerpt from Kathleen Rose Smith’s book Enough for All: Foods of My Dry Creek Pomo and Bodega Miwuk People about the importance of knowledge of and respect for what to eat in nature. Without this ancient wisdom, we can get lost. We followed the book with a short video from local educator Mystery Doug on how to tell the difference between poisonous and edible mushrooms. (Hint: expertise trumps distinctive shapes or flashy colors.)

In the kitchen, students worked with seven different types of (edible!) mushrooms, some foraged and other farmed: cremini, tree oyster, shiitake, lion’s mane, chanterelle, hen of the woods, and king trumpet. We dry seared the sliced mushrooms, then made a ragout with layers of flavor, lots of fresh herbs, and enjoyed it over penne pasta. This recipe was incredibly popular, far beyond our wildest imagination, and a good reminder to never shy away from trying something you thought you didn’t like because today could be the day you discover a new taste that you love.

At the end of Ms. Kirman’s class, a student shared their set of mushroom identification cards and we learned that eating lion’s mane mushrooms helps us grow new neurons so this lesson literally made us all smarter!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 8

In the classroom this week we learned about the Second Great Migration, which occurred during and after World War II. Millions of African Americans left the Jim Crow South and took jobs in cities in the North and the West. In San Francisco specifically, many African American families moved into neighborhoods (for example, the Western Addition) that had been recently vacated when the government interned Japanese Americans or where there were opportunities to work in the defense industry (for example, at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard). We watched a video of two chefs, Michael Twitty and BJ Dennis, cooking collard greens and talking about the food traditions of the Lowcountry. The dish, a blend of a West African cooking tradition and a base ingredient native to Europe, tells the story of America and the ingenuity and continued survival of the enslaved peoples who built it.

In the kitchen, we made a vegan version of collard greens, flavored with smoked paprika, smoked salt, and hot sauce. We learned that many slave plantation owners thought of the liquid left after the process of cooking collards, known as potlikker, as something to be thrown out, but that African American cooks knew how nutritious and delicious it was, the perfect complement for a cornbread muffin.

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

This week we learned about a traditional companion planting method, the three sisters, that was developed by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and has been practiced all over the North American continent for centuries.

In the classroom we watched a video from the USDA National Laboratory for Genetic Preservation explaining the three sisters planting: the corn provides structure and support, the beans fix nitrogen and feed the soil, and the squash ward off pests, prevent weeds, and help the soil retain moisture.

In the kitchen the fourth and fifth graders made a sumptuous three sisters stew featuring yellow sweet corn, cranberry beans, zucchini, and red kuri squash. Our recipe comes from the Chickasaw Nation and includes tomatoes, potatoes, and barley. Some of our students had five bowls of stew!

In our closing circle we went around and shared what we are grateful for. Some of our favorite appreciations were for “shelter and warmth,” “friends and family,” “getting to cook together at school,” and “cat memes.”

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 7

This week the third graders learned about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, the orders for which were signed at the Presidio in San Francisco in 1942. In the classroom, we watched a TEDEd video that tells the story of Aki Kurose from Seattle and gives an overview of what happened to thousands of families like hers along the West Coast. We followed with an interview of a survivor of the internment camps, Shokichi Tokita, by several children, some of whom are the same age as our students.

In the kitchen we learned to make sushi hand rolls, temaki, and filled them with rice, carrots, cucumbers, braised tofu, shiso, oshinko, sunflower sprouts, green onion, furikake, and pickled ginger. Many of us had previous experiences of sushi, but very few in our community had heard of Japanese American incarceration before our class. We talked about the importance of not only appreciating a diversity of foods with origins from around the world but also the people and stories behind cultural products we love.

In the closing circle we reflected on the legacy of Japanese American incarceration and shared ways we can make others feel included.

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

In the classroom this week, the fourth and fifth graders watched a short film narrated by Mohave elders in which they speak about their relationship with the mesquite tree and the Colorado River. Some of us had heard of mesquite wood, prized for the flavor it imparts during the barbecuing process. Most of us had never tasted mesquite powder, which is ground from the tree’s dried legumes. The Mohave use mesquite to make cradles for newborns, to dye their hair, to keep warm, to provide shade, for food, and as part of their cremation ceremonies.

In the kitchen we made mesquite sweet potato and pepper tacos. The mesquite has a sweet, chocolatey taste and the flavor of the finished taco filling was reminiscent of Mexican mole. The photos below show just how capable our students are with all things culinary! No taco was the same as the next but all were devoured.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 6

This week we discussed the intersection of immigration and food businesses and focused on the neighborhood of Little Russia in San Francisco. In the classroom we viewed a local news segment about the experiences of immigrant business owners in Little Russia during the current Russo-Ukrainian War.

In the kitchen the third graders made pirozhki, Russian and Ukrainian hand pies that are traditionally filled with ground meat, mashed potato, hard-boiled eggs, cabbage, or fruit. The yeasted dough had to be made before our class to allow it to rise, but when students arrived they rolled out dough, chopped eggs and dill and mashed potato to add to the cabbage filling, filled and pinched the pirozhki, then fried them until beautifully golden brown. These were very popular treats and beloved by all.

In our closing circle everyone shared what food business they would have if given the opportunity.

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

In the classroom this week we watched a longer film called History of Native California from Humboldt State University. Much of the material was a review of what we discussed in third grade Edible Social Studies and a reminder of both the historical trauma faced by Indigenous peoples in the past and their resilience and hope for the future today. Many of the people featured in the film are Hupa, Yurok, and Wiyot.

In the kitchen, we celebrated the strong, ancient connection between humans and the water. We made a seaweed salad with kombu, wakame, furinori, and hijiki. The fourth and fifth graders then rolled their own sushi filled with the seaweed salad. Many sprinkled the maki with furikake, a Japanese rice seasoning that contains seaweed, and dulse, a red alga that has a salty taste.

Our closing circle asked, “What do humans get from the sea?” Students responded with love of seafood, happiness, salt, and peace.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 5

The same week as a 5.1 earthquake hit the Bay Area, the third graders learned about the Great Earthquake and subsequent fires of 1906 that destroyed more than 80% of the city of San Francisco. In the classroom, we watched a clip called Up from Ashes from the PBS special The Italian Americans that tells the story of the earthquake from the perspective of the Italian American fishermen and their families living and working in North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf. We learned that Bay Area-born Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy and helped his community recover from the catastrophe, that the Bank of Italy eventually became the Bank of America (a branch of which is just two blocks from our school), and that there is now a SFUSD middle school named after Giannini.

In the kitchen, students prepared minestrone, an Italian soup with ancient origins. Minestrone is a wonderful recipe we hope the third graders will keep with them into adulthood as it can accommodate whatever vegetables you have on hand. Our version featured zucchini, fingerling potatoes, Christmas lima beans, and lumache (meaning “snails” for the curved shape of the pasta). Everyone had a chance to grate authentic Parmiggiano-Reggiano over their soup before digging in.

For our closing circle, students shared what they could do to help their community in a time of great need. In our community, we have people who could feed neighbors, build and rebuild structures, help take babies to the hospital, and care for pets.

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

Our topic this week was plant medicine. In the classroom, we watched a short film from KCET called Tracing Indigenous Medicine to Patent Medicines. Students learned that drugs like aspirin and cocaine originated from plants Indigenous peoples have used for thousands of years. We also watched a short film called Indigenous Plant Healing where two Indigenous elders from the First Nations of present-day Canada talked about their relationship to plants like stinging nettle, dandelion, the Sitka spruce tree, and Devil’s club.

In the kitchen, we worked with foraged stinging nettle from Mendocino County and made a bright green potato and nettle soup. The fourth and fifth graders blanched the nettle before chopping it (hot water neutralizes the chemicals produced by the fine white hairs on the nettle leaves), and added it to leeks, celery, potato, garlic, herbs, and vegetable stock. We also made fresh butter from heavy cream and blended the butter with edible flower petals.

The soup has a strong vegetal taste and is loaded with vitamins. Even those who didn’t love the soup had a chance to try an ingredient that is rare if not impossible to find in the grocery store, though there is small nettle growing wild in the planters along Collingwood Street right outside our school! The Kawaiisu people view nettles as a source of dream power and intentionally walk through the plants to get stung in preparation for visions.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 4

This week we explored the rapid change that occurred in mid-19th century California, with the discovery of gold, statehood, and the building of the transcontinental railroad. In the classroom, the third graders watched a short film from Newsy (now Scripps News) called Remembering Chinese Railroad Workers. Though Chinese people made up 90% of the workforce that built the railroad that helped build America, their contributions were largely erased from the narrative about the railroad. We discussed how the themes of unequal pay for equal work, fear of immigration and job insecurity, racial divides, forgotten history, and the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 continue to inform our current political climate.

In the kitchen, we celebrated the noodle (or mian in Mandarin), a Chinese culinary invention that has influenced foodways around the world, and made a simple stirred dish in the wok (a technique called lao in Mandarin) with carrots, bell pepper, bok choy, and baby broccoli. Noodles symbolize long life in Chinese culture, so we made sure not to break them while we practiced eating with chopsticks!

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

Our theme this week was the importance of young people in sustaining cultural legacies and specifically the importance of passing down knowledge of what to eat and what not to eat if your foodways center on the land. In the classroom, students watched a short film called Seeds of Our Ancestors: Native Youth Awakening to Foodways.

In the kitchen, we made a sunflower salad with five expressions of the sunflower, a plant native to North America: the seeds, the sprouts, the flower petals, the oil, and the tuber/root (also known as sunchoke or Jerusalem artichoke), which unfortunately we could not source so substituted with jicama, another root with a similar flavor and texture.

The salad was very popular, with some students having four servings! A key ingredient is certainly the paste made from the shallot, which gives the dressing a wonderful savory quality. In our closing circle, we went around the circle and each person shared a dish they would like to learn how to cook in the future.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 3

This week we discussed the Mexican War of Independence in the early 19th century, which led to San Francisco becoming a part of the Mexican Empire. In the classroom, we learned that Indigenous people like the Mayans worshipped corn as a god. The Spanish, who ate wheat, though of corn as food fit only for livestock and the poor. They didn’t understand the Mesoamerican tradition of nixtamalization and ate corn raw, leading some scholars to link the resulting disease of malnutrition with the birth of vampires in the cultural imagination.

In the kitchen, the third graders made corn tortillas from a simple masa dough and with wooden tortilla presses. We paired the fresh tortillas with a simple Mexican salsa. The meal was beautiful and delicious, and it was wonderful to see how well both classes are working together as a team toward a common goal.

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

This week we explored the foods of the desert, where water is life. In the classroom, the fourth and fifth graders watched a short film called Birdsong Guides A Tribe Home featuring modern Cahuilla people talking about preserving their Indigenous cultural traditions in what is now known as Palm Springs in Southern California. We learned that Indigenous peoples made chewing gum from prickly pears, dried the fruits for storage and sustenance during the winter, and used the spines for tattooing. In the film, we observed the traditional roasting of agave, a succulent some of us were familiar with in syrup form that is marketed as a natural sweetener.

In the kitchen, we made two recipes: a prickly pear soda and a cactus pad salsa. A friend of our program harvested the prickly pear fruits for us in Sonoma County before class, and we blowtorched the spines off as best we could before the students worked with them. Student cut the fruits in half, scooped out the flesh, then pressed it through a strainer to extract the juice and leave out the seeds. We added sparkling water and agave syrup to the resulting deep magenta puree to make a refreshing soda that tasted even better with a splash of lime added right before serving.

The fourth and fifth graders diced and blanched the nopales before mixing them with the other salsa ingredients: tomatoes, onion, garlic, lime, salt, pepper, ground cumin, oregano, and fresh cilantro harvested straight from our classroom garden. We enjoyed the salsa with corn chips from local food producer Sabor Mexicano.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 2

In the 1700s, the Spanish arrived in what is now called the San Francisco Bay Area and the Ohlone ways of life changed forever. Europeans brought the mission system; new foods such as wheat, sugar, and grapes; and animal husbandry, which required a different relationship to the land and produced dairy products that many Native peoples could not consume.

In the classroom, the third graders watched a news clip from the summer of 2020, when protestors in Golden Gate Park pulled down a statue of the Spanish priest Junípero Serra, who enslaved and murdered Ohlone people in the 18th century. Some students connected to the anger the protestors felt; others brainstormed different actions the protestors could have taken to express their dissent. We discussed how a community decides which people and whose stories to venerate and how many of us know at least a few Spanish names and words (for example, the city of “San Francisco”) but most of us do not know the corresponding names and words in Chochenyo, one of the Ohlone languages.

In the kitchen, we made a wheatberry salad featuring many of the ingredients California is now famous for that were introduced by the Spanish, including olives and citrus. Both hard and soft wheatberries work well for this recipe, as well as any cooked grains such as farro, barley, or rye berries.