Classroom Cookery with a Side of Crazy

I almost didn't pick up Cook and Learn (Beverly Veitch and Thelma Harms, illustrations and calligraphy by Gerry and Tia Wallace, 1981) because it's just a bit too new to hit my sweet spot of 1970s and earlier. However, the book took a while to create-- the preface says it started in 1972 as a collection of 14 mimeographed(!) recipes, plus there was an earlier 1976 edition. I decided not to be too particular and just pick it up, and I am soooo glad I did!

Inspecting the cover might give you a hint about the madness within. The pictorial instructions suggest that the book is intended for children young enough to have shaky reading skills. Still, the cover features both a knife and a flour mill. The recipes look like they're going to be a little more complicated (and dangerous!) than making ants on a log with precut celery sticks or mixing a tablespoon of chocolate syrup into a cup of milk.

As for structure, the book offers 100+ single-serving recipes with step-by-step pictorial directions. It advises teachers to enlarge the directions on the copier, set up a station for each step, and send the entire class through the steps so each student makes their own individual portion. The back of the book even gives ideas about how and where to get small kitchenware (like tiny loaf pans) at a discount. I can understand in theory why a teacher would want to get each student involved and allow them to make their own snack. In practice, though... I was skeptical. Expecting kids to wait in line and go through a whole series of steps (even simple and straightforward ones) before they can eat just sounds like a recipe for chaos.

Some recipes seem odd but maybe workable. The Ironed Sandwich is at least pretty simple-- just a basic grilled cheese...

...well, a basic cheese sandwich "grilled" by being wrapped in foil and ironed on both sides. I guess it's a pseudo-panini? It's sure to be pretty flat with the kids ironing it. How safe is it to let kids handle a heavy, hot iron anyway? Even the one that seems moderately sensible is still pretty scary if you think about it for more than half a second.

And as I read further and further into the book, I realized that the authors must be out of their goddamn minds. Granted, I tend to think that of anyone who willingly works with any age group younger than high school, but this book takes it to a new level. Students can't just make pancakes, for instance. It's not enough to measure out a premade flour mixture, some buttermilk, egg, and oil, before stirring and baking on a griddle. 

No-- before all those other steps, the kid has to triple grind a tablespoon of wheatberries in a flour mill to make two teaspoons of wheatberry flour. (I'm sure it will be interesting to see the kids try to flip the pancakes, too! And the kids are definitely supposed to flip them, as the book advises using a "hand rest card" to remind "the child to lean on the 'other hand' far from the hot pan while he or she is turning the pancake.")

The book even offers multiple recipes for a type of food that many adults are reluctant to try to make: yeasted bread. One example is Milk and Honey Bread.

I just chose this one because it would require the teacher to have a full classroom's worth of tiny loaf pans, but the book also offers plenty of other yeasted breads, including pitas, cloverleaf rolls, English muffins, and pizza dough-- all requiring students to try to knead absurdly tiny balls of dough (with hands that with any luck mostly have the Play Doh, sand from the sandbox, etc. washed off), wait through a rising, and wait through the baking before they can have a bready snack.

Some of the recipes are so tiny that I can't imagine them even working. The Barley Soup initially seems like it would be much easier than the yeasted breads or the pancakes that require grinding the flour first. (Especially if the teacher cheats and precuts the onion, carrot, and celery rather than making the kids try to chop up hard and slippery vegetables themselves.)

Even if I could imagine a classroom with a stove that could easily accommodate a small class's worth of tiny cooking pots full of soup and a class of small children willing to wait an hour for their snack, I still don't see how this would work. The soup starts with a half cup of broth. Wouldn't it boil dry well before the hour was up? The only thing worse than a classroom full of cranky kids waiting an hour for a soup they're unlikely to be overly enthusiastic about anyway is a classroom full of kids suffering from smoke inhalation.

I appreciate the thought that went into this recipe book. Trying to teach kids about food, cooking, and nutrition has to be a difficult job under any circumstances. It just seems like this book would make it harder rather than easier...