April 29, 2008
Little Wisdoms From the Edible Schoolyard
My personal and professional lives reflect an intersection between food and education. I have worked in restaurants and public education for nine years. For most of those years, my two occupations were separate—until I began volunteering at the Edible Schoolyard in 2006. Being at the nexus of what Alice Waters calls the “Delicious Revolution” is rich with lessons about healthy eating, ecology, agriculture and fostering community. Not only do I see students learn about these subjects, but I walk away with deeper knowledge about food, where it comes from and how to utilize and appreciate it with others. All of this comes from spending two hours a week at King Jr. High School, volunteering in the Edible Schoolyard kitchen. Every week, I walk away with new knowledge—some is quantifiable, while the rest affirms previously held assumptions or reveals unexpected discoveries. I want to convey the little wisdoms I learn every time I go to the classroom. Many of which can best be described through short narratives.
The quantifiable lessons are the easiest to note, document and discuss. A common example is when a student begins the class saying he or she does not like a certain food, and comes to adore that same food by the end of the day or semester. A few weeks ago the students were given mushrooms, grown in their very own garden, to be used as the filling for potstickers. At the beginning of class, many students were saying “eew, that’s gross,” it stinks,” and “that’s disgusting.” While negative comments such as these are strongly discouraged in the kitchen classroom, they do happen from time to time. When mushrooms came to the table, they happened more than usual. However, once the mushrooms were cleaned, diced and sautéed by the students, the comments ceased. By the time the mushrooms were folded together with ginger, garlic and scallions, stuffed inside the potsticker skins and pan-fried, the students couldn’t eat enough of them. There was not a drop of food left on the plates and students who began the class with negative views of mushrooms changed their opinion entirely. The majority of the students in the class went from not liking to loving mushrooms in one class period.
Beyond the observations around food and the changes students undergo in their perceptions of fruits, vegetables and grains of all kinds, my experience at the Edible Schoolyard is a window into student’s personal relationships between eating, identity, and cultural history. Recently, I asked a sixth grade student what she generally eats for dinner. She responded, “I eat Black folks food.” Her response illuminates something I suspect is true–that food is deeply connected to our identities and cultural backgrounds on multiple levels. According to Professor Engelhardt, “All kinds of stories are hiding in our food. Breaking the codes of food begins with its uses, preparations and costs but ends with the social histories of race, class, gender and place that hide in the recipes, ingredients and food practices we embrace.” Each student has a story in the recipes and dining traditions they experience and follow. The edible schoolyard gives me the opportunity to hear those stories. When the student said, “I eat Black folks food,” I asked her to tell me some examples, she then listed foods like fried chicken and greens. The foods she mentioned are quintessential components of Soul Food. Fried chicken, collard greens and black-eyed peas are iconic parts of southern African American cuisine. After slavery ended, the culture and traditions of that cooking spread to the cities across the United States. One hundred and forty six years after emancipation, a student in the Edible Schoolyard put race, history, culture and identity in one short sentence. She self identifies as Black and associates her customary diet as Black food. Race sits right inside the letters of the word Black, while the history is in the fact that the “Black folks food” she is referring to (fried chicken and collard greens) was typical among the slaves and over time became an essential part of community and comfort, now known as soul food. She spoke her identity by proudly stating and affirming her African American culture through the foods she eats. Within that identity, that of a young African American woman, she is among others, and makes that clear with the use of the word folks, a plural reference to others who eat the same foods. A whole story was hiding the space between her words, in a place made available to her by the Edible Schoolyard kitchen and garden program. Moreover, her story is a poignant example of the food dialogue enabled by the Edible Schoolyard, a dialogue not easily charted or quantified with numbers.
I continue to be amazed by the depth and breadth of lessons covered while students gather around the subject of food. An essential part of existence on both a physical and psychological level, food, when cushioned in thoughtful curriculum can be the catalyst for powerful discoveries about new tastes as well as race, history, culture, community and identity. The “Delicious Revolution” Alice Waters speaks about begins with the seeds of the plants students grow and ends with a myriad of unexpected lessons, all while sitting around a table sharing stories and freshly prepared seasonal food. The Edible Schoolyard is educating the next generation about the importance of responsible, sustainable, and intelligent food choices. The magnitude of this is paramount. If school is about teaching young people to be good, smart citizens, knowing how to grow and prepare ones own food while being ecologically sensitive is essential. If we don’t, the number of obese, diabetic, and otherwise unhealthy children is likely to rise. If we do teach our students what is being taught at the edible schoolyard, they will learn to grow, eat and consume sustainably, while helping preserve this planets resources for generations to come.









Photographs by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio from the book “Hungry Planet”