Discovering, Stirring, Chopping

In our first introductory class in Preparing Simple Cuisine, a room of seven kindergarten children all discovered nutmeg for the first time. They all examined its smell, its look, and its taste. It was as if they were related to merchants in the 1700s and the spice had only been recently discovered. They all loved how easy nutmeg was to stir into vanilla yogurt. In fact, the act of stirring was the biggest joy of the evening. But the biggest discovery was the chopping board. Everyone chopped a banana their own way. Some cut their banana into large segments, others cut theirs into slices, others cut theirs into quarters. When they were all cut up, it was time to combine the knife with the spoon in order to get the chopped banana into the bowl. For the whole thirty minutes they all knew they were progressively making something, and not just playing around.

Author: Karl Gorman.