The Taste of Sweet by Joanne Chen

Author:Joanne Chen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2008-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

AT PRECISELY 11:30 A.M., the doors to Esther Cook’s kitchen fling open and twenty-one seventh-graders burst into the room, their sneakers, damp from the puddles outside, squeaking on the blue linoleum floor. They are noisy and spirited, but not unruly. Without any prodding, they expeditiously drop off their backpacks and jackets in the back of the room, tie on their blue aprons, and pull up stools around the middle table, awaiting the day’s instructions.

There are no groans or protests with the announcement of today’s vegetable-laden dish. I wonder if it’s because they know, subconsciously, that this late-morning session isn’t so much about a recipe for making soup as for living a decent life. She tells one boy to throw out his gum. (“I hate gum,” she had told me earlier. “It’s all this mindless chewing. I don’t let it in my class.”) She reminds another to wash his hands after sneezing. And then she declares that something wonderful happened the night before. “Does anyone know what it was?” she asks. And to my surprise a few hands shoot up. “It rained,” someone says.

Yes, it rained, and because of the rain, the plants are able to use the water from the sky, along with carbon dioxide from the air, and sunlight, to make sugar, thereby growing large and bright and delicious. Cook introduces each ingredient to her class, showing them how a snap pea makes a snapping noise when you break it, and how the bright purple liquid from beets makes a great stock. She holds up the big, flamboyant leaves of rainbow chard, and explains how it should be torn into smaller pieces. “It only makes sense, right?” she says. “Otherwise it won’t fit on a spoon.”

It occurs to me that her lessons are like the home-economic classes taught in schools back in the seventies and eighties. But packaged and updated for the twenty-first century as enlightened eating programs, these rather retro classes in cookery suddenly seem to be exactly what’s needed to slow us down in these modern times.

Cook goes on to explain how to cut up the vegetables and how long they should be heated on the stove. The knives, neatly stored with other cooking gear in the center of each table, are not a child-safe version. They’re professional-grade and sharp, and they need careful handling. The children, it turns out, are up for the challenge and no one gets hurt. Not just mere kitchen tools, the knives demonstrate to them that they are trusted.

When people talk about the Edible Schoolyard program, the discussion often turns to the garden, where the children grow and harvest vegetables and fruit, and where they learn what goes into a good meal. But in speaking to Cook, it becomes clear to me that the fresh produce is merely a platform for what’s really being learned. By eating what they grow, the kids spend time at the table with an adult. She imparts to them her wisdom; she gives them her trust, and they give her theirs.

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