1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 3

In the classroom this week the first grade chefs watched a video from PBS Wisconsin, Manoomin: Food That Grows on the Water, about the sacred role wild rice plays in Indigenous Anishinaabe culture.

In the kitchen we made a manoomin salad featuring wild rice produced by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, winter squash, cranberries, and pumpkin seeds—all foods native to North America. We also enjoyed an iced strawberry leaf tea, which some chefs loved and others found bitter, but everyone tried something they had never tried before!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 3

We read two books together in the classroom this week: Time to Make Art by Jeff Mack and The Artivist by Nikkolas Smith. We discussed how almost anything can be a medium for art, including food, and how the art we make can help to change the world.

In the kitchen classroom, the kindergarten chefs made salad art with cutting boards as their canvas. First we prepped all of our ingredients, then we got to work. The artists were challenged to use at least six ingredients and to try a food they might not have tried before. No two works ended up looking or feeling the same! In our closing circle, we each shared our favorite ingredient; the fusilli pasta, the strawberries, and the golden beets got the most love.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 2

In the classroom this week we read Sandra L. Richards’ and Megan Kayleigh Sullivan’s book Rice & Rocks about a child named Giovanni who feels unsure about including his friends in his family’s Sunday night tradition of eating Jamaican rice and beans. After a ride around the world with his magical parrot Jasper, Giovanni discovers that rice and beans are a beloved pairing in many food cultures in addition to his own.

In the kitchen, the first grade chefs made Jamaican rice and peas, a recipe Ms. Francis told us she learned how to cook from her Jamaican mother-in-law! Our recipe uses kidney beans, but Gungo or pigeon peas are also traditional. The rice and peas were seasoned with green onion, thyme, allspice, ginger, bay leaf, and coconut milk. We enjoyed the dish with a refreshing Jamaican drink, sorrel tea, made from hibiscus flowers.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 2

In the classroom this week we read Tomie dePaola’s The Popcorn Book and learned that Indigenous peoples all across the Americas have eaten popcorn for thousands of years. We learned that “rainbow” or “calico” popcorn has red, white, yellow, and blue kernels. We also learned a story about little people who live inside the kernels and get so mad when their house is heated that they blow up!

In the kitchen, the kindergarten chefs made rainbow popcorn from scratch and ground their own spice blend to accompany it. They used a tool, the mortar and pestle, that human beings have used to make food for centuries. We enjoyed our freshly popped popcorn with optional melted butter and a Peruvian drink made from purple corn, fruit, and spices called chicha morada. Many chefs who were hesitant to try the spice blend ended up loving it and adding more to their bowls.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 1

In the classroom this week we read Anna Kim’s book Danbi Leads the School Parade about a child who bonds with her new classmates at school in a new language at lunchtime.

In the kitchen we made kimbap, a rice dish rolled in seaweed filled with cooked ingredients like carrots, spinach, braised burdock root, cucumber, egg, and pickled daikon radish. The first grade chefs had a lot of fun spreading the rice (“bap” in Korean), filling their individual rolls, brushing the seaweed (“kim” in Korean) with sesame oil, and slicing the kimbap to reveal their colorful centers.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 1

For our first week of classes, we read the book Rainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell and learned that eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables makes our bodies strong! Deeply colored edible plants are filled with phytonutrients that help us stay healthy. They’re also fun to eat.

In the kitchen, the kindergarten chefs made a rainbow fruit salad featuring strawberries, tango tangerines, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, and blackberries. They tried out culinary tools like the crinkle cutter and y-peeler. The best part was tossing all the fruit together and enjoying the salad in community.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

For our final lesson this year, we talked about the concept of legacy and watched a short film from the Oakland Museum of California featuring four generations of Ohlone women. We heard Ruth Orta and her descendants discuss the importance of the oak tree and their cultural traditions around the preparation of acorn as food. Mr. Orlando wondered how Indigenous peoples originally learned to leach the toxins from the acorn so the plant could provide nourishment for thousands of years. We all stand on the shoulders of ancestors who have figured a lot of stuff out for us!

In the kitchen classroom, we made acorn brownies using hand-processed acorn flour from Grass Valley and an Ohlone tea from native plants. Because white sage has been overharvested and poached in California in recent years, we supplemented with yarrow, another native plant with many medicinal properties.

While we waited for our tea to steep, we played the Ohlone game of staves, a simple yet very engaging game of chance played with sticks. The first chef at each table to get to five points won the game—students were deeply invested in the outcome. It was a great privilege to spend the past 10 weeks with all the second and third graders studying the history of San Francisco and to look towards our collective future at the end. We can’t wait to cook again with you all next year!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 9

We read a book this week called The Rainbow Flag: Bold, Bright, and Beautiful written by Michelle Millar Fisher and illustrated by Kat Kuang. It tells the story of how Harvey Milk, Gilbert Baker, and their friends created the pride flag in 1978 for the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Many of us learned a new word, vexillology: the study of flags.

In the kitchen classroom, with two neighborhood rainbow flags flying in sight, we made edible versions of the Philadelphia Pride flag that debuted in 2017. We learned what Gilbert Baker meant for each stripe to symbolize: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, blue for peace, and violet for spirit. We learned that the black and brown stripes represent Black and brown members of the LGBTQ+ community.

This was such a fun culmination of all that students have learned over the years. A lot of fine-motor skills were involved in creating a strikingly colorful buffet. The season we used strawberries, tangerines, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, purple sweet potato, candied ginger, crushed chocolate cookies, and fresh whipped cream to construct our rainbow pride parfaits. They were so pretty and equally as tasty—a toast to a brilliant, enduring symbol of the Castro District and the city of San Francisco.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 8

In class this week, we read a book by the artist Jacob Lawrence called The Great Migration: An American Story featuring his paintings about the movement of millions of African Americans in the twentieth century from the American South to cities in the North and later to cities in the West. In San Francisco specifically, many African Americans arrived from the South to work at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. We discussed some of the conditions of the Jim Crow laws and why Black families chose to move in search of better economic opportunities and lives free from prejudice. Lawrence’s book talks about how many African American families met different but no less devastating forms of discrimination in their new homes. Our lesson happened to fall on the same week that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors formally apologized to its African American community for “decades of systemic and structural discrimination, targeted acts of violence, atrocities.”

In the kitchen, the chefs made a truly American dish, collard greens, with a vegetable originally from Europe, a cooking method originally from the African continent, and a recipe that tells the story of African American ingenuity, survival, and thriving. We learned that the highly nutritious juices left over from the cooking process are called potlikker. The second and third graders enjoyed the collards and potlikker with cornbread. Some choose to eat the bread separately; others chose to mix it in with the liquid to sop up all the flavor.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 7

In the classroom this week we read Katie Yamasaki’s book Fish for Jimmy, which was based on her family’s experiences during the incarceration of people of Japanese descent during World War II. Students shared strong feelings about this chapter in California history and we had an interesting discussion about reparations and whether what the American government did in the aftermath of what happened was enough. One thing we learned was that Japanese incarceration fundamentally altered Japantown in San Francisco: the neighborhood today remains significantly smaller than it was before the forced removal of its citizens in the 1940s.

In the kitchen, we learned to make a sushi hand roll, temaki. We filled the temaki with a number of colorful, vegan ingredients, like oshinko (pickled daikon), pea shoots, and Hodo braised tofu. We love to see all the smiling faces of chefs who love sushi!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 6

In the classroom this week we learned about the great earthquake and fires of 1906 in San Francisco. Several students talked about the golden fire hydrant only a few blocks from Harvey Milk that played a role in saving the Mission neighborhood at that time. We watched a PBS video about the Italian American community in North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf and how a banker named Amadeo Giannini helped his community and city rise from the ashes after the devastation. (San Francisco public middle school A.P. Giannini is named after him.) His legacy, now called the Bank of America, has a branch that, like the golden fire hydrant, is just a few blocks from our school.

In the kitchen we made minestrone, a vegetable and bean soup with roots that date back to ancient Rome. Everyone did an incredible job of getting a lot of different ingredients prepped and simmering in our pots. The pasta we used is called orecchiette, which means “little ears” in Italian. A perfect meal for a cold winter’s meal outdoors!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 5

After the Gold Rush, many Irish and Chinese immigrants found work building the Transcontinental Railroad, which connected the Pacific Coast with existing tracks in the eastern United States. In the classroom this week, we watched a short PBS film focused on the experience of the Chinese railroad workers. Students were amazed to see photos and footage of the process, which was largely done by hand, and discussed why the famous photo of the railroad’s completion did not include the Chinese people who had helped to build it.

In the kitchen, we made lo mein, just in time for Lunar New Year celebrations. We learned that in Chinese culture, noodles symbolize long life, and are eaten during the new year for luck and good fortune. Ours is a simple but satisfying recipe that even the stubbornest anti-vegetable chefs tried! Everyone also had the opportunity to practice using chopstick, which added to the fun of the class. Happy Year of the Dragon to all!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 4

In the classroom we watched a short Brittanica video about the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-19th century and learned how a million Irish people died and how others fled the country. Many arrived in California right as the Gold Rush began. SFUSD has an elementary school named after Frank McCoppin, the first Irish-born mayor of San Francisco. By 1880, a third of San Francisco’s population was Irish.

In the kitchen we made colcannon, a delicious potato and cabbage dish with loads of Irish butter! We enjoyed the meal with some local, seasonal fruit gifted to us by the produce company we use for many of our ingredients. I brought in mini Irish soda breads—a new taste for a number of students. The weather was quite rainy, which only added to our celebration of Irish culture.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 3

In the classroom this week, we learned that after the Mexican War of Independence, California became a part of the First Mexican Empire. The Spanish diet featured wheat; wheat was the grain of the Bible. The Mesoamerican and Mexican diets, on the other hand, featured corn; corn was a literal god. Students watched a short Eater Forklore film about corn and its role in both Indigenous and modern cultures.

In the kitchen we made tortillas from scratch and got to work with wooden tortilla presses. We have traditionally taught this lesson in the fall, when California tomato season is at its peak, but no one let the winter weather or produce get in the way of our enjoying fresh, warm tortillas and a simple pico de gallo together.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 2

In the 1700s, the Spanish arrived to spread Catholicism and brought with them an entirely new food system, one that required the clearing of Ohlone land for the raising of livestock and the planting of crops. In the classroom, we read the picture book California’s Missions: From A to Z by local third grade teacher Matt Weber. The second and third graders made connections with the architecture of Mission High School a few blocks away; the palm trees in Dolores Park (which we learned came from the Spanish, who planted palms in order to harvest palm fronds for Palm Sunday); the current name of our city, San Francisco; the names of California baseball teams such as the Padres and the Angels; and agricultural products California is now famous for such as olives and citrus—plants the Spanish brought with them that thrived in our similar Mediterranean climate. We discussed one of the recently canonized Spanish padres, Junípero Serra, and the toppling of his statue in Golden Gate Park in 2020, making the case that events from 250 years ago are still relevant today.

In the kitchen, we made a wheatberry salad featuring the grain the Spanish introduced that continues to dominate our diets in the 21st century. To the wheatberries, students added Valencia and Cara Cara orange segments, olives, grapes, parsley, green onions, and manchego. They made a simple dressing with sherry vinegar, fresh lemon juice, olive oil, and mustard, a plant we learned took over the landscape after Spanish padres scattered mustard seeds while walking between the missions. The paths ultimately became lined with the bright yellow flowers, which you can continue to see as you travel through California now. We had some very fine looking salad dressing emulsions this week, which shows that the chefs are building on their skills from grade to grade. They’re such pros!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 1

We kicked off our exploration of the history of San Francisco with a meal celebrating Indigenous foodways. In the classroom, the second and third graders watched a short film featuring the Ohlone chefs and activists Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino. We discussed what a hunter-gatherer food system is and learned that the Ohlone, the Indigenous peoples of what is now known as the San Francisco Bay Area, are still here and still thriving. I shared that I ate at the Cafe Ohlone space in the back of the University Press bookstore depicted in the film and shared a photo of Harvey Milk fourth and fifth graders eating at a new Cafe Ohlone space on the land that is now the UC Berkeley campus in January 2023. Harvey Milk students got to meet Vincent and Louis in person, and I hope our current second and third graders will have this experience in the future, too. You can read more about Vincent and Louis’s organization, mak—’hamham, and their current project, Ohlone Land, here.

In the kitchen, we made a salad inspired by native plants and animals. Most of the produce and eggs we eat now are sourced from farms, but we captured the spirit of the bounty of our local environment. The chefs had a chance to use the mortar and pestle, the salad spinner, and the mezzaluna knife, and worked with ingredients such as quail eggs, edible flowers, and elderberry juice that may not play a regular part in our home pantries. It’s going to be a great unit—their energy is infectious!

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

We’ve spent ten weeks exploring the climate crisis through the lens of the food system and ended with a celebration of healthy soil, the most important resource we must figure out how to protect! In the classroom, the fourth and fifth graders watched a short film from the Center for Food Safety narrated by Michael Pollan called Soil Solutions to Climate Problems. We revisited the idea that carbon captured in the soil leads to healthier plants and that carbon released into the atmosphere warms the planet.

In the kitchen, we made edible “soil” cups with chocolate chia pudding, chocolate cookie dirt, pomegranate rocks, and candied citrus peel worms topped with edible flowers. It was a sweet way to end the unit in all respects.

Room 202 paired the activity with a field trip to the Recology transfer station. We played several games designed to help us learn what items get sorted into what bins and the difference between what happens to a milk carton when we throw it into the black bin (headed to landfill) versus the blue bin (recycled to make more milk cartons). Students got to meet a couple of artists in residence who are using things they find at “the dump” for inspiration. Then they braved the smell of the huge pit where the contents of San Francisco’s black bins are collected before being taken to the landfill and the area where all of San Francisco’s green waste is combined before being taken to be made into compost that then goes back into farmland to make… healthy soil!

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

In the classroom this week we learned about local restaurant Shuggie’s Trash Pie and how chefs are using their expertise to turn food waste like whey from the cheese-making process and spent oats from the oat-milk-making process into desirable menu items like a sausage pizza.

In the classroom we made vegetable pancakes inspired by Korean yachaejeon. This recipe is designed to accommodate any vegetables you have on hand, though we always recommend including some kind of allium (leeks, onions, shallots, etc.) for flavor. The end result is crispy and savory - they were a big hit!

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

We will spend the next couple of weeks learning about the role food waste plays in the climate crisis. In the classroom, the fourth and fifth graders watched a video laying out the magnitude of the problem—40% of the food produced in the United States is wasted. We discussed some of the psychological contributions (e.g. consumers prefer perfect produce and grocery store displays overflowing with abundance), market forces (e.g. farmers won’t pay for labor to tend and harvest crops when they can’t recoup the cost), structural barriers (e.g. there is no federal regulation of sell by, best by, and expiration dates, which are set by producers), and scientific differences between food that is thrown into the landfill (where in the absence of oxygen it produces methane, a harmful greenhouse gas) and food that is composted (where it can go back into the system to help produce more food).

In the kitchen classroom we learned a simple, affordable recipe to turn leftovers and odds and ends from the refrigerator into a colorful, delicious meal. These buffet-style lessons are very popular because after all their hard work, the chefs get to make their own salad rolls, filled with variations of vegetables, fruit, tofu, herbs, and, of course, rice noodles. Everyone did a wonderful job working together and sharing the sriracha!

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

This week we learned about new research on how tweaking cows’ diets can affect the amount of methane they burp into the atmosphere. In the classroom we watched a video about how the cow stomach works and how researcher Ermias Kebreab and his team at UC Davis found that the red seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis, when added to cows’ feed, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by a significant, measurable amount.

In the kitchen we made a seaweed soba salad, featuring wakame, dulse, nori, and furikake, a Japanese seasoning that contains bit of chopped seaweed. The finished result was bright and colorful from carrots, cucumbers, watermelon radish, and green onions, with a savory and tangy dressing made from soy, rice vinegar, ginger, sesame oil, and fresh lime juice. Many students tried something new this week and loved it! We will all be keeping tabs on how well this particular climate change solution will transition from the pilot phase to wider adoption by the people who raise cows for food.