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

Our second grade Edible Social Studies unit introduces the fact that California grows much of the fresh fruits and vegetables for the rest of the United States and also played a major role in the birth of the farmworkers movement. This week, the fourth and fifth graders learned that California, and specifically the Bay Area, is now also playing a major role in new food technologies designed to help fight climate change.

In the classroom we watched a video from Wired called The Strange Science of the Impossible Burger. A lively discussion ensued about whether the access and cost issues, concerns about the health impacts of ultra-processed foods, and real or perceived differences in taste will ultimately relegate companies like Impossible Foods or Beyond Meat to just another passing food fad or mean they can convince enough consumers to adopt their products that it will translate into meaningful reductions in harmful emissions.

In the kitchen we made Impossible meat sliders with a seasonal side salad of Japanese cucumber, red cabbage, Sungold tomatoes, and parsley from our school garden. Many students had never tasted Impossible meat before and many were very impressed by how much it resembled hamburger in taste, texture, and smell.

We were joined this week by one of our Harvey Milk alums who is now in 8th grade. His class participated in our program when we were first piloting what has now become our K-5 Edible Social Studies curriculum. It was wonderful to be reminded of how far we’ve come and how special and wide-ranging our Harvey Milk family is!

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

We had originally planned this lesson for earlier in the fall in honor of the Rosh Hashanah table, but with the SFUSD contract delays, it’s now October! In the classroom, we watched a video of how couscous, a semolina-based product from North Africa, is made for mass consumption. We learned that many cultures have special foods for the new year, and that the tiny granules of couscous represent many blessings to come.

In the kitchen we made couscous with seven vegetables, a dish that is often served during Rosh Hashanah, especially in Morroco. Seven is a lucky number in many traditions around the world and a celebration of the bountiful fall harvest. The fourth and fifth graders really had the opportunity to show off their culinary skills with this recipe, dicing carrots, Corno di Toro peppers, buttercup squash, purple-top turnips, Early Girl tomatoes, and zucchini. Many of us were introduced to ras el hanout, a North African spice blend that contains rose petals, citrus peel, allspice, cardamom, coriander, saffron, and much more.

Our vegan meal showcases how many delicious, healthful dishes there are to explore all over the globe as we consider what a sustainable diet will look like in the future.

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

The fourth and fifth grade chefs viewed an animated explanation of why human behavior has caused climate change this week, which sparked lots of interesting discussion about why it’s so hard for people to act and why it will take all of us working together to solve the problem.

In the kitchen we made a Cobb salad, but with plant-based bacon instead of the traditional animal bacon. Everyone had a lot of fun putting together this composed salad, with all the different components displayed in rows and garnished with minced parsley from our school garden. Because we do not have an oven in our classroom, each class prepared the coconut bacon recipe, which was then baked for the next class to enjoy.

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

In the classroom this week we watched an episode of the science web series What If called What If Everyone Ate Beans Instead of Beef? The fourth and fifth graders encountered statistics on how much the beef industry contributes both to the U.S. economy and to greenhouse gas emissions, the cost of ground beef versus dried beans, the amount of water and land it takes to produce beef versus beans, and the health benefits of eating a diet rich in plants.

In the kitchen we made a vegan recipe of refried beans and enjoyed them with blue and yellow tortilla chips from Sabor Mexicano, queso fresco, cilantro and oregano from our school garden, red onion, radish, and fresh lime juice. Our closing circle question asked the chefs if they would choose beans over beef and a surprisingly high number of them responded “most of the time,” “definitely,” “maybe,” and “probably.” 

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

In the classroom this week we followed the young activist Genesis Butler (a grand niece of Cesar Chavez!) to the University of Oxford in England where she interviewed the food sustainability expert Dr. Joseph Poore. We learned that veganism (a plant-based diet/lifestyle) has the potential to drastically cut the level of harmful emissions that contribute to climate change.

In the kitchen we made a delicious vegan meal of parsley hummus and za’atar served with pita, cucumbers, and carrots for dipping. Chefs had fun grinding the spice mix by hand in the mortar and pestle, operating the food processor to make the hummus, cutting the pita into triangles, and making vegetable and fruit “coins” out of the produce. The finished hummus is piquant from garlic and lemon; one chef described it as having the same stimulating flavor as the popular snack Takis. If the fourth and fifth graders can get as excited for a handmade snack made from whole plants as for a processed and dyed food engineered to be highly addictive, they’ve truly mastered the art of cooking!

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

We started our unit with a classroom discussion about how big, system-level decisions have the greatest impact on our fight against climate change. As individuals, we can affect these decisions by running for office and voting when we are old enough! Another surprisingly impactful change we can make for the health of our environment as individuals at any age is through our diet.

We watched a short profile of local food producer Don Bugito and learned that though some of us might not have experience with edible insects, there are food cultures all over the world where insects have been an important source of protein for hundreds and thousands of years. Insects require far less water and energy to produce the same amount of protein as raising cattle, pigs, or chickens and produce far less waste.

In the kitchen we made strawberry pancakes using a similar recipe as the strawberry acorn pancakes the fifth graders made last year as part of our exploration of Indigenous foodways of present-day California. Instead of acorn flour, we used Don Bugito cricket flour. Don Bugito gifted us some toasted mealworms the chefs were able to try and use as a garnish if they wanted. Many of us agreed they taste like nuts and are delicious. This lesson reminds us that to combat climate change, we will need to access the wisdom and traditions of the past, apply new knowledge and new ways of being into the future, and that there will be many moments of discomfort as well as opportunities for delight and joy!

3rd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

We ended our third grade unit on the history of San Francisco with a final meal celebrating the future of Indigenous people and culture. In the classroom, we watched a video from the Oakland Museum of California featuring four generations of Ohlone women talking about their relationship to the oak tree, acorns, and how they are passing their traditions on. It’s so important for all of our students to see examples of Ohlone people in the present day not only surviving but thriving!

In the kitchen, the third graders worked with a special ingredient—acorn flour—ground by hand from acorns harvested in the East Bay. They also made a delicious tea with five native plants, including bay laurel from our Harvey Milk school garden. As we all waited for the tea to steep, we played an Ohlone game of chance called the game of staves. In lieu of willow or elderberry branches, our game pieces were made of popsicle sticks, but that didn’t stop us from connecting with the human instinct for play and building community that’s been around for thousands of years. Can’t wait to see all the chefs back in the outdoor classroom this fall!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 10

In the classroom for our final lesson we read Pies From Nowhere: How Georgia Gilmore Sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott and learned about the life of a hidden figure of the civil rights movement. We all felt inspired by Georgia’s commitment to justice and how she used her special talents and expertise to contribute to a cause larger than herself that ultimately changed the world.

In the kitchen we made seasonal pies from scratch in honor of Georgia Gilmore and her legacy and in celebration of each of our potential to contribute to a more just society in our own ways! It’s the start of the local cherry season, so the kindergarten chefs got to work pitting Rainier and Royal Tioga cherries, making a graham cracker crust, and whipping cream. This recipe is traditionally a refrigerator pie, meaning the ingredients should be chilled before serving, but nobody seemed to mind enjoying the pies right away. Thank you to all the kindergarteners for bringing open minds, open palates, and so much enthusiasm to the outdoor classroom this year. See you next spring!

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

We had a wonderful time welcoming our fourth and fifth grade chefs back to the kitchen classroom after a long break to celebrate Harvey Milk Day on May 22! Students shared what they knew about Harvey Milk, our school’s namesake, then recreated the 2017 Philadelphia pride flag with sesame seeds, candied ginger, strawberries, tangerines, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries, blackberries, and borage flowers.

They made whipped cream from scratch to top their colorful and symbolic rainbow pride parfaits: red for life, orange for healing, yellow for sunlight, green for nature, indigo for serenity, violet for spirit, and black and brown stripes to lift up the Black and brown LGBTQ+ activists who led and continue to lead the movement for justice and to highlight the specific challenges faced by BIPOC members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Congratulations to all our graduating fifth graders. It has been an honor to do this work with you and you will always be welcome in the kitchen classroom!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week we read Lunch From Home, a story inspired by the experiences of four professional chefs and the foods they brought to school when they were kids. We discussed the concept “don’t yuck my yum” and the importance of celebrating both what makes us different as well as our similarities.

It was fun to teach the kindergarteners how to make one of my favorite foods from my childhood, green onion pancakes, in the kitchen! Every chef rolled out dough, brushed on oil, seasoned with salt and green onions, twisted and coiled the dough, rolled it out again, and had the opportunity to pan fry a pancake. We enjoyed the pancakes with a final sprinkling of salt and a traditional Taiwanese cucumber salad.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 8

We will spend the next few weeks talking about global foodways and how important and fun it is to explore how and what people eat around the world. In the classroom, we read My Food, Your Food, Our Food, which is also a song.

In the kitchen, we worked with some ingredients native to the African continent: fonio, an indigenous West African grain; black-eyed peas; and yams. The kindergarten chefs made a fonio grain bowl with fava greens grown locally at Dearborn Community Garden. They prepped fresh ginger, bell peppers, tomatoes, and roasted yam, and seasoned the fonio with curry and sweet harissa. It was the first time eating fonio for most of us and a nice opportunity to try something new and different!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 7

Our theme this week was mindfulness! In the classroom, we read No Ordinary Apple by Sara Marlowe and Phil Pascuzzo, a book about what happens when we slow down and practice eating mindfully.

In the kitchen, we started off with an apple tasting of four varieties: Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, and Fuji. The kindergarten chefs used all their senses to take notice of the scents, textures, colors, flavors, and even sounds of each apple slice. Not only did the apples look different, they had different levels of sweetness and juiciness.

We then made carrot and spinach latkes and ate them with homemade applesauce made from the same four varieties of apples we tasted raw. In our closing circle, we each shared one thing we noticed about our meal by bringing mindfulness to the table with us.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 6

In the classroom this week we read Ellie Peterson’s book The Reason for the Seasons, which explains that the Earth’s tilt is why we experience differences in temperature, daylight, and the length of our shadows throughout the year.

In the kitchen we celebrated the current season, spring, by making a salad showcasing several local products that are bountiful in the Bay Area at this time of year. The kindergarten chefs first blanched shelling peas and asparagus, then cut up strawberries and made a simple dressing featuring thyme growing in our school garden. In the spring we have access to baby spinach and spring onions, crops that are harvested early in the growing season and have a lighter, less pronounced flavor than if the plants are left to mature into the summer.

Our unit explores not just what makes our bodies healthy (e.g. eating with the seasons helps us stay connected to our local food systems; local produce is fresher, riper, and more nutritious) but also what makes our communities healthy (marking the seasons with traditions and celebrations, in every culture, helps us stay connected and bonded to our communities). Spring has sprung!

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

For our final lesson, we read Meenal Patel’s book Priya Dreams of Marigolds and Masala. In the kitchen, we made rice kheer, a dish with origins in ancient India. Rice pudding requires a lot of passive time with some occasional stirring, so while the kheer was cooking, the first grade chefs worked with rice as their medium and made a work of art they could wear as jewelry or use as decoration.

Our palettes contained brown rice, white rice, saffron rice, jade rice (which is green from bamboo juice!), black rice ramen, forbidden rice, pho noodles, and brown rice spaghetti. Some students made their names; others made abstract designs or renderings of their favorite cartoon characters.

On Thursday we gathered for a field trip and celebration of our Everybody Cooks Rice unit. We took the train out to Ocean View Village shopping center and visited H Mart, where the first grade chefs went on a scavenger hunt to find rice in a snack, in something sweet, in a prepared food offering, and in the frozen section. After the market we ate lunch at Sisterhood Gardens, a beautiful community garden just across the street. What a great year - thank you to all who helped make it possible!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 5

In celebration of Earth Day, this week we learned that our food system and the health of the planet are intricately linked. In the classroom we read To Change A Planet by Christina Soontornvat and illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell and Maybe You Might by Imogen Fox and illustrated by Anna Cunha. Both books remind us that each of us has the power to change the world.

In the kitchen we worked with fava beans, a plant that grows easily in the San Francisco Bay Area at all times of year and fixes nitrogen into the soil as it grows. Instead of leaching all the soil’s nutrients, beans actually enrich and prepare the soil for future generations. Notorious for being fussy to prepare, fava beans are a wonderful legume to shell in a big group. We got through two pounds per table in no time, blanched them, and then popped the bright green beans out of their coats a second time.

We ate our hummus with local bread from Josey Baker Bread and carrot and cucumber coins. To make things a little fancy, we added some edible flower petals grown at Dearborn Community Garden just down 18th Street from Harvey Milk: borage, California poppy, calendula, and nasturtium. If you don’t have a food processor, you can mash the beans up with a fork and blend the hummus together in a bowl with a spatula. Plant protein for the win!

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 9

In the classroom this week we read Daniel Yaccariono’s account of his family’s immigration to the United States, All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel. The book opened up a discussion about the many ways immigrants arrive in America and pass down their traditions over the generations.

In the kitchen, we made a dish that orginated in Venice, Italy that truly showcases spring produce called risi e bisi (“rice and peas”). The first grade chefs shelled pounds and pounds of fresh peas, then worked with a special rice grown only in Italy called Vialone Nano. The finished dish was bright green, savory, and truly outstanding with a grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano on top.

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 4

Our theme for this lesson was cook together and eat together! In the classroom we read Marcia Brown’s retelling of the old European folktale Stone Soup. Students thought the story was about sharing, and making something bigger from lots of small parts.

In the kitchen we made our own version of stone soup, using a potato as our stone, and filled the pot with lots of fruits and vegetables and barley, which was one of the ingredients the villagers added in the book we read. The kindergarten chefs are getting super comfortable using all the tools and equipment in the outdoor classroom and it’s great to see their confidence grow.

1st Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 8

In the classroom this week we read Oge Mora’s book Thank You, Omu! about a grandmother who generously shares her thick red stew with all the people in her community. We learned that in West African cuisine, a base of tomatoes, onions, and peppers is frequently paired with spices and herbs like ginger and thyme.

In the kitchen we made a vegan, Nigerian-style version of Jollof rice by making a thick red stew of our own. We did not use the traditional Scotch bonnet pepper, but the dish is still piquant with the help of African curry powder. To complement the savory heat of the Jollof rice, the first grade chefs made a simple slaw that is commonly served as a side dish in Nigeria with shredded cabbage, grated carrots, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a dollop of mayonnaise. Some of us at the rice and the salad separately, while others mixed the rice and the salad all together!

2nd Grade Edible Social Studies: Week 10

For our final lesson of the unit, the second graders watched a short video from Foodwise Kids called What’s Cool About Farmers Markets? We talked about the many markets there are around the city of San Francisco and how what’s available changes with the seasons.

In the kitchen, we made our own California version of trifle, a traditional English dessert. Everyone got busy zesting Cara Cara oranges, blood oranges, and Tango tangerines. We mixed the freshly grated zest with California orange blossom honey and yogurt from Bellwether Farms in Petaluma. The chefs juiced some of the citrus and made a citrus salad with the rest. They also made whipped cream by hand. Each student got to assemble their own trifle, starting with a base of homemade olive oil cake, then fresh citrus juice and California extra-virgin olive oil, then the yogurt, then fruit, then more layers and a final topping of whipped cream and an edible flower garnish.

This was a super fun project to do on a beautiful, sunny day, and it really showcased the best of what California farmers and food producers have to offer. The grand finale of our time together this year was a field trip to the Thursday Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. We can’t wait to see this group again in third grade!

Kindergarten Edible Social Studies: Week 3

This week we talked about the importance of making art and being creative, both for our own health and for the health of our community. In the classroom we read a book by Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell called Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood.

In the kitchen, the kindergarten chefs made their own edible art. Their prompt was to make the likeness of a person using salad ingredients, but they were also free to create something different and inspiring. Students spent the first part of class prepping their medium, including sugar snap peas, Castelvetrano olives, Pink Lady apples, purple cabbage, lunchbox peppers, golden beets, carrots, cherry tomatoes, watermelon radish, cheddar cheese, and chives.

Everyone got to make their own salad art on a cutting board. We especially loved students’ use of edible flower petals, chickpea pasta, and raisins to add detail. At the end of class, we seasoned our art with salt, pepper, and extra-virgin olive oil, then enjoyed not only how the art we made looked, but also how it tasted!