Growing, cooking and sharing their food is all in a day’s work for the children of Martinborough School. The trestles are up, the serving hatch is open, the cooks are finishing off today’s “Special” and the aroma of pumpkin, apple and cinnamon wafts out over the school playground.It’s Canteen Day at Martinborough School but this is no ordinary school kitchen. Here the ingredients come from the school vegetable garden, there’s a nutritious menu on offer and pupils help to prepare the meal. The school is at the forefront of a school “garden to table” movement gaining momentum in New Zealand which encourages children to grow, harvest, prepare and share food in a learning environment.
Today parent Katherine Jacobs is the head chef, I am her sous chef and four of the senior kids complete the brigade. The children explain how it’s a privilege to help out and not just a chance to skip lessons. Any doubts I have about this disappear when I see them enthusiastically peeling, coring and finely chopping a bag of apples. They go so far as to reject my roughly sliced offerings.
Parents have a roster to run the canteen every Wednesday. Canteen duty includes designing the menu following Ministry of Health nutritional guidelines.
“It’s important to make the menu appealing as well as nutritious,” says Catherine. “Today it’s Perky Pumpkin and Kumara Soup with a bun and cheese, followed by Apple Crumble and Ice Cream.” The schoolchildren have pre ordered and the meal is cheap at $2.50 for two courses. If the garden can’t provide all ingredients, they are bought in or donated by the community.
The school set up its kitchen garden five years ago, the brainchild of two horticulturally-minded parents, Annabel Stanley and Vicky Read. The children help grow vegetables, make compost and run a worm farm. Two years ago Vicky suggested a canteen one day a week involving the children in cooking and sharing the school’s garden produce on site. She had visited Collingwood College in Melbourne where a similar concept set up by an Australian celebrity chef was running successfully. Stephanie Alexander had felt that for too many children food comes in bottles, packets and jars and is nothing to do with soil, sunshine, ripeness and satisfying activity. “The Martinborough kids really loved it,” said Vicky of the first Canteen days. “Especially the naughty kids! Some had never tried a red pepper. They didn’t know what it was or what to do with it.”
But I don’t need any convincing about this project’s benefits. Today we’ve touched on maths (multiply the recipe by how much to feed sixty?), history (was it Captain Cook who stopped his crew getting scurvy by giving them lemons?) and language skills (how do we convince the kids parsley’s good for them?).
The novice chefs have displayed team work and leadership skills and learnt tips on hygiene, nutrition and of course cooking. It’s time for the taste test and Catherine leaves the final say to the children. All but one declare the soup “yummy”. So with the crumble in the oven and the soup simmering, the children head to the garden for the garnish. Whether parsley will be a winner with the five year olds causes some debate but they search it out and pose for a picture with their prize pumpkin.
One of the kids is more marketing savvy and they decide he’ll take the orders and push parsley’s nutritional benefits on the front line. The bell rings, kids tear in and the serving line swings into action. Most of the children tuck in with gusto. One or two grimace at the first mouthful. But the verdict on the whole is positive.
“I wished I’d ordered it,” says a nine year old wistfully as he opens his lunchbox. “Sam’s lunch smells sooo delicious!”
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