Sharing Recipes to Celebrate Culture

Sharing recipes and foods specific to a particular culture is a great way to explore diversity. The Irish may not seem very diverse, but there was a time in our history when we made up nearly half of the people immigrating to America. In 1845, a terrible potato famine caused mass starvation throughout Ireland. By 1850, a million people had died. Others chose to leave Ireland looking for a better life. They brought with them their religion, their culture, and their foods.

Saint Patrick's Day started as a religious holiday honoring the patron saint of Ireland in the Feast of Saint Patrick. He is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and explaining the mystery of the Holy Trinity by using a three-leaf clover. Over the years, the religious meaning faded, but the shamrock remained and people still celebrate March 17 as a time to honor Irish culture, mostly through food and green beer.

On the subject of food, when I was a speech-language pathologist serving in public schools, I often used cooking to work on all kinds of receptive and expressive language objectives like following and giving directions. It's also a great activity for working on social language, perspective-taking, and executive function skills planning, sequencing, and problem-solving. The young chef must practice inhibition and impulse control. You have to let the cookies cool down before you eat them after all. Focused attention is required while measuring or while counting the number of eggs in a recipe as an adult is talking to another student. Working memory is needed to hold the entire sequence in mind while following individual directions. How often have we as adults left out an important step in the middle? 

I often partnered with the school's occupational therapist who simultaneously worked on fine motor skills like gathering and combing the ingredients and writing down directions. 

I don't know about you, but I have never come across a recipe I have not immediately changed in some way. This practice has become more common over the years as I strive to accommodate the gluten and dairy-free diets of family members. Collecting a variety of recipes for a specific type of food while comparing and contrasting the type and amount of ingredients in each version is a great way to get kids thinking about the practical uses of research. Altering the measurements to make more or less of a dish is a wonderful way to work on fractions and math. 

Considering how ingredients work together brings in science and a bit of art. For instance, if you use honey as a substitute for sugar, you may need more dry ingredients to balance the extra liquid. Writing out the directions, step-by-step requires Theory of Mind which is the ability to take another person's perspective by considering what they do or do not understand. 

I recently came across a wonderful Irish potato pancake called boxty. The recipe is below. This one has been adapted to be dairy and gluten-free. It would be fairly easy to make at home, with a classroom, or in a therapy session. The parent, teacher, or therapist could talk through the directions with the kids while students wrote them down. Many special education classrooms are equipped with kitchens because of the value of cooking as a practical life skill and multi-sensory learning experience. Use special safety precautions when cooking with young children and people with disabilities, or save the sharp and hot parts of the process for the instructor.

Older students could make boxty or another cultural dish of their choice at home and write down the recipe to share with peers. You could have a potato cook-off focusing on how different cultures use potatoes in everything from gnocchi to latkes, patatas bravas, and kartoffelpuffers. Students could write down a brief description of the food and how it relates to their culture and share the experience with the class. For parents and homeschoolers, you might try a potato recipe from a different culture and read about that culture to learn more about it. Finally, assessing what ingredients are needed for a recipe and making a grocery list is another authentic writing opportunity. 

Whatever way you slice it, cooking can be a powerful literacy experience. 

RECIPE FOR BOXTY

Ingredients:

1 cup mashed potatoes

1 cup grated raw potatoes

1 cup gluten-free flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 1/2 cups almond milk

1 egg

cooking oil 

Directions:

1. Prepare the mashed potatoes ahead of time and put in the refrigerator. Use russet potatoes. They are more starchy than other types of potatoes.

2. Grate one medium potato, approximately one cup. Squeeze out the excess water. You can use your hands or a cheesecloth.

3. Combine the flour salt and garlic powder. Mix together with a whisk to distribute the salt. 

4. Add the mashed potatoes and shredded potatoes. Stir.

5. Whisk together the milk and egg in a separate bowl.

6. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir. The batter should be a little bit thicker than pancake batter. If it's too thick, add more milk. If it's too thin, add more flour.

7. Heat two tablespoons of oil in a skillet.

8. Spoon the batter into the hot skillet and press it down to make it into a flat 3-inch pancake. You can probably fit four pancakes on a skillet.

9. Cook for about 3-4 minutes on one side. Flip the pancake. Cook for another 3-4 minutes. If it is not golden brown, then cook a bit longer. 

After you have tried my recipe, make your own variation. For a savory pancake add cheese, bacon bits, or green onions. For a sweeter pancake, add applesauce.

Enjoy!

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