Traveling and Learning Through Food with Common Threads
Vanessa was shocked to hear the package of chips she was eating is not healthy. "I bought it in the healthy section of my school cafeteria," she exclaimed. Many children try to make healthy choices, but have a different idea of what is healthy. Others don't have access to many fresh, healthy products because they are so expensive. Many of these aspects have led to increased numbers of obese children in the United States. There are ways of making good, nutritious food on a low budget. Common Threads, a non-profit organization founded by Chef Art Smith, sets out to teach children about what foods they should eat, improving their physical well-being, cultural diversity, and how to work and socialize with others. All of this happens while teaching them how to cook.
With the dedication of many world-renowned chefs who make up part of the Chef Advisory Board, recipes were developed to teach low-income children between the ages of 8 and 12 about eating healthy. Students "travel" the world through food. Each lesson, introduces them to the culture of a different country through foods from that region. These classes allow the kids to learn hands on. They cut up their own ingredients and do most of the cooking. They use 8- inch chef knives, and other tools to prepare their food. This happens with the assistance of volunteers who dedicate their time and commit to a semester (12 weeks) of supervising and guiding children through the cooking process.
I began volunteering with Common Threads for the first time two weeks ago. The class I volunteer with meets every Tuesday from 3:30pm through 5:30pm. Every week, I work with the same four children. We have visited the United States and Turkey in the past two weeks and the students made their own jelly and were introduced to hummus, tabbouleh, and turkey kefta kebabs. Many were asking for seconds and others were already planning to go home and make it with their parents. Some compared it to the school cafeteria food, wondering, if it's so easy to make, why can't they serve food like that at their school.
"Turkey is a country?' some children asked as we told them last week that this past Tuesday we would be making food from a country that many didn't know existed. "Hummus sounds like humans," exclaimed a 10-year old boy as we began preparing the dish. They took turns smashing the chickpeas into a paste and wanted to show me their strength as they juiced lemons. Most of them had never had Hummus and Tabbouleh. The kids were shown how the dish is normally eaten in Turkey and were taught how to say "cook" and "good" in Turkish, which many recited over and over as they ate the food leaving most plates completely clean.
The kids take home copies of the recipes and one of the children in my group told me yesterday, she and her mother had made the blueberry jelly we prepared last week in class. "We wanted it a little sweeter," she said, "so we added more honey because last week we learned that it is better than sugar, and it was delicious!" She was excited to go home yesterday and show her mother what we made in class so they can go to the store and buy ingredients to cook it together. Another student watched very carefully as they were taught how to use a knife. When we walked into the kitchen she asked me to show her again, "...just to make sure I remember how to do it because my mother told me I have to teach her what I learn," she said.
The children look forward to coming every week, as do the volunteers. There are six more volunteers working on Tuesdays. We look forward to sitting down to eat with the kids and seeing their reaction, as they taste the food they just prepared. A Le Cordon Bleu Miami alumnus and current Le Cordon Bleu Miami students are also volunteers. We were all excited to get a hug from the children as they got ready to go home. I can't wait for next week. We're going to Thailand!
For more information on Common Threads, please visit their website www.commonthreads.org