its own kind of artistry
a wednesday wander
Rachel wrote with a question:
I am the leader of Agatha’s Girl Scout troop, a bunch of 8 year old girls. Some meetings we have only three people, but it can be up to eight if everyone shows up to a meeting. Agatha tells me they enjoy the cooking projects we have done best and they want to do more. Here’s what I’ve done: they made cinnamon swirl bread from a box mix; they decorated graham crackers with royal icing (an unmitigated disaster in my opinion, but they had a great time eating graham crackets sandwiched together with about a half cup of icing - there was no artistry here, just a lot of sugar); and we mixed trail mix. I’m currently noodling on what “cooking” activity can be learned by a group of girls with a range of fine motor skills in a 90 minute meeting. I have considered teaching them to put a turkey in the oven. I have considered teaching them to make chowder. I considered Chinese dumplings. Part of the problem is that the girls really like to be able to take their work home with them, so a group project is hard. Let me know if you have any ideas.
Dear Rachel:
A lot of sugar is its own kind of artistry.
There are so many things you could cook with a group of 8-year old girls. You could bake any number of things from scratch that would tax neither their patience nor their motor skills, and introduce them to the joys of measurement and process. Muffins are dead simple, and from muffins you can get any number of quick cakes that need no more than measuring and a stir. The same goes for cookies, though the stirring is harder because the butter is often solid. Above all – from scratch – they need to see that they're starting with simple, unhelpful objects (which are in truth already convenience foods in their own way) and making magic from them.
You could conjure transformations for them – whip cream with them, or make meringue for pavlova. Watch their eyes widen. Have them take a turn with the whisk, so they understand this is work. Teach them to wash the berries if you don’t want to risk their fingers cutting fruit. Make the pavlovas in individual dollops instead of a roll and let them all pack their own.
If they’ve had too much sugar already, consider croquettes – if you have the potatoes boiled and peeled, then it’s all action – mashing, stirring, mixing, shaping. If you fry in non-stick pans, without oil, they will be less delicious but you won’t have to worry about spattering oil. Dumplings sound grand. If you buy wonton skins at the store, this could hardly be simpler. The dumplings won't match, what of it? They’ll learn not to trust their eyes, or their judgment, both valuable lessons to learn at 8.
I’m sure I can come up with more unsuitable ideas.
My mother taught cooking to my Girl Scout troops every year from when we were ten up through age 14, in our home kitchen. The favorite was always when we made pizza from scratch, because pizza seems like a very magical food and yet so very taken for granted (this was in New Jersey in the 1980s, before there were any Domino's in the area, because every town already had 2-3 competing pizzerias doing New York style pies for delivery or take-out). You mix up the dough and then while it's rising a bit do the shredding of the cheese or prepping other ingredients. (There isn't time for making the sauce from scratch so it came from a jar.) When I was in kindergarten, our first baking project in school was to make dinner rolls and butter. I'm not sure why our teacher thought this was a good idea but she had us do it in the school cafeteria one day. We churned the butter ourselves from cream, which seemed magical on its own, and then made the kind of rolls that are supposed to be three balls that bake together into a roll. None of them glommed together so we ended up with dozens of small baked bread balls that were nonetheless delicious with fresh-churned butter.
If you're ok with getting messy, pasta also seems like a fun thing to do with a group because it's like working with play-dough you can eat! (Or, perhaps, just plain "dough"?) There's no wrong shape for pasta, except maybe a huge ball, and you can use all sorts of household implements to form, add colors or herbs, etc.
For a younger audience, H has really liked this book: https://shop.americastestkitchen.com/stir-crack-whisk-bake.html