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.

4th/5th Grade Edible Social Studies

It felt so good to be back in the kitchen classroom with our fourth and fifth graders this fall after a long delay! We will spend the semester exploring Indigenous foodways, and our first class was all about the acorn, an important food staple for many Native peoples on the land we now call California.

In the classroom, we passed out a variety of acorns that were gathered on a recent hike in the East Bay so students could examine them with their hands. Some were big and the color of coffee; others were slender and pale green; most of them had caps that easily fell off, indicating their ripeness. September and October is acorn season; it’s a wonderful time to forage for them all over the Bay Area if you find yourself in the presence of oak trees. We watched a North Fork Mono cultural educator named Lois Conner Bohna share about the importance of acorn to her people and illustrate the labor-intensive process Indigenous people use to transform the hard, tannic fruit into a source of sustenance and nourishment.

In the kitchen, we made strawberry acorn pancakes using local, handmade acorn flour. Everyone got right to work slicing strawberries and mixing the batter as a team. The chefs were excellent at flipping the pancakes at just the right moment when one side was nicely browned. When both sides of each pancake were golden and cooked, we stacked them up and served them warm and topped with maple syrup. The acorn has a deep, nutty flavor most of us had never tasted before. It is truly an ancient, special treat.

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 1

This fall, the third graders will be exploring the history of San Francisco in 10 meals. We started at the very beginning, with the Ohlone, the Indigenous people who have thrived off this land since time immemorial. In the classroom, students watched a short film about two Ohlone cultural leaders and chefs, Vincent Medina and Louis Trevino, and their project, Cafe Ohlone, in the East Bay. We learned that Ohlone foodways involve foraging from the abundance of edible plants, fish, waterfowl, and land animals that make what we now call the Bay Area one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

In the kitchen, we made an Ohlone salad—not a recreation of the Ohlone diet as most of our ingredients were sourced from Northern California farms, but rather an attempt to honor native plants and the spirit of eating locally and seasonally. We washed and dried watercress, chopped blackberries, picked edible flower petals, diced hard-boiled duck egg, and made a simple dressing featuring elderberry juice. Everyone worked as a team and it was a great way to introduce our new third grade teaching team to our program as the third grade chefs showed off their accumulated knowledge and how to prepare food and enjoy it together in community.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 8

Our final class of the year was all about the power of food and how food can change the world. In the classroom, we read Pies from Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott written by Dee Romito and illustrated by Laura Freeman.

In the kitchen, we made our own no-bake pies celebrating first-of-the-season cherries! The kindergarten chefs made a simple pie crust with crushed graham crackers, butter, salt, and sugar; filled mini pie tins; filled the crusts with a mixture of cream cheese and whipped cream and marinated cherries; and added a final topping of whipped cream, edible flowers, and sprigs of peppermint from our school kitchen garden.

Because the pies need time to chill in the fridge, Ms. Vashti’s class ate pies started by Ms. Joyce, Ms. Vee’s class ate pies made by Ms. Vashti’s class, and Ms. Vee’s class made pies that were then shared with the Harvey Milk staff. You can take this recipe and use whatever fruit you have on hand. It was a sweet end to our time together this year, and a reminder that all of us can make a difference in the world. We can’t wait for more culinary adventures next year!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 7

Our theme this week was foodways - what people eat and how they eat. In the classroom, we read the book My Food, Your Food, Our Food written by Emma Carlson Berne and illustrated by Sharon Sordo, which explores how our food traditions are alike and how they are different. The more exposure we have to foods from around the world, the more we discover new tastes and textures we love, the more we notice there isn’t only one way to be healthy. You can listen to or download the song version of the book here.

In the kitchen, the kindergarten chefs worked with fonio, an ancient grain from West Africa. Students cooked the fonio with onions, ginger, greens, curry, and tomato paste in coconut oil, then added the fonio and vegetable stock, brought the mixture to a boil, and let the grains cook by simply steaming in the hot pot with the lid on and the heat turned off for five minutes. Chopped tomatoes, yams, black-eyed peas, and peppers topped off our brightly colored grain bowls. Most of us tried a new food today, and liked it!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 6

Hooray, it’s May! This week the kindergarteners talked about the seasons. In the classroom, we read our first non-fiction book of the unit, The Reason for the Seasons by Ellie Peterson, and learned that we have seasons because of the tilt of the Earth.

In the kitchen, we celebrated all things spring by making a salad with baby spinach, spring onion, asparagus, English peas, strawberries, and a cider-pumpkin seed dressing. We couldn’t find any flax seed oil at our local grocery stores in time for class, so we had a good conversation about how to substitute what you have on hand when you’re working with recipes.

Nowadays it’s easy to forget that many edible plants have seasons. Our global supply chain ensures that produce is available all year round at the store. But eating with the seasons can often help support local farmers; allows us to maximize on ripeness, taste, and even nutrients; and can often be better for the environment because the food doesn’t have to travel as far to get to our plates. If you compare a strawberry from Mexico you eat in December versus a strawberry from Davis you eat in May, you can definitely tell the difference!

In addition to eating with the seasons, human beings have long created rituals and celebrations related to the specific time of year. We discussed some of our favorite holidays and how they’re connected to what’s growing (for example, pumpkins at Halloween, or evergreens for the winter solstice). In short, the seasons are awesome, and we want to learn more!