I've already discussed the impossibly high expectations Cook and Learn (Beverly Veitch and Thelma Harms, illustrations and calligraphy by Gerry and Tia Wallace, 1981) set for teachers of small children, but that post overlooked another aspect of the book that I can't resist: its attraction to '70s-style health food cookery. The book has a wide selection of "burgers" (plus "steak" and "chops") for kids to make out of a mishmash of "health" food.
A few have the distinction of supposedly helping young cooks learn about other cultures. Rice-Nut Steak is equated to Finland's Pahkina-Paisti. Is this authentically Finnish? I have no idea. A search of "Finnish Rice-Nut Steak" gets a lot of meat pie results, and a search of "Pahkina-Paisti" gets a lot of results I am unable to read. The nearest I've gotten is a translation of the phrase as "Nut Roast."
So feed the kids brown rice and hand-ground nuts bound with cheese and egg and seasoned with chili powder and onion. Tell 'em it's Finnish and make them feel like they've learned something about the world. Maybe they will learn a pretty-accurate-for-1981 recreation of a Finnish recipe? Maybe they will just learn that grownups are liars and that this is neither Finnish nor what a 1981 kid is likely to consider a steak? In any case, it's EDUCATIONAL.
Other recipes are just the standard earth-mother '70s health food stuff, like Soy Burgers.
Soy beans? Check! Wheat germ? Check! Soy sauce? Check! Veggies? Check! Even additional soy, in the form of soy nuts! It's like a greatest-hits of the '70s health food movement.
Well, except for brown rice, but there's a whole other burger for that.
I'm just glad that the burgers start with precooked soybeans and brown rice! This book is unhinged enough that I could picture the recipes starting with children measuring out tiny portions of brown rice or soybeans and water, then being instructed to boil them for an hour or more, cool them, and then mix them with everything else. This book is not generally one to worry too much about simplifying logistics or catering to short attention spans.
If the kids are really not into brown rice and soy, a teacher might try to tempt them with peanut butter.
Well, with Peanut Butter Chops-- which have no actual chops and enough brown rice and wheat germ to make them more similar to the other recipes than different from them. I imagine these will be less well-loved than simple peanut butter and jelly, but on the other hand, they are way more work.
The biggest surprise may have been that not all of the alternative-protein patties are vegetarian. The Tofu Burgers surprised me in this respect.
That's right-- the Tofu Burgers are made with tuna (or can sub in ground meat as an alternative to the fish).
Once the kids are all fake-burgered-out, they might feel like having a sweet. Maybe some nice Brownies? (If you're familiar with 1970s health food trends, you can probably guess what's coming.)
Yep! Carob. Nobody gets to enjoy real chocolate when carob can make baked goods deep brown so they look like they should be chocolatey. At least the little muffin-shaped brownies should be easy to launch at the teacher, classmates, the ceiling, etc., so kids can get some enjoyment out of them. After all, a food fight is likely the most fun one can have with '70s-style health food.
I'm still trying to figure out how fine of a mince you need to do to measure 1/8 tsp of onion. These children will also learn that all of these health food concoctions do not make nice patties like the recipe claims.
ReplyDeleteGood point. You'd pretty much need onion paste to be able to accurately measure 1/8 tsp.
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