If you want to teach youngsters about the value of vegetables, it helps to use something they can relate to. Like pizza.
So when 20 children at the Eisenberg Boys and Girls Club at 1207 W. Taylor St. assembled around a large conference table–a table over which plastic garbage bags had been carefully taped–there was excitement in the cacophony of young voices.
“Listen up,” commanded Susan Goss, chef and co-owner of Zinfandel restaurant, who was conducting the class recently along with Tom Breuler, a chef at Blackhawk Lodge. “We’re going to have some fun today. Do you know how?”
“Learn to make pizza,” blurted one youngster.
“Even more fun than that,” Goss said. “We’re going to learn about vegetables.”
Appetizing lessons
The kids and volunteer chefs were participating in a nutrition education program to teach children at risk of hunger some basic cooking skills and how to make healthful food choices. Called Kids Up Front, the program is sponsored by Share Our Strength (SOS), a worldwide anti-hunger organization, in partnership with Kraft Foods.
This summer 85 children ages 8 to 12 are attending a series of eight weekly classes conducted at four neighborhood locations and taught by chefs from the city’s restaurants.
Tufts University designed the classes to cover cooking and nutrition basics through games, recipes and some structured lesson plans. But when it comes to communicating with children on warm summer afternoons, “We sort of have to wing it,” Goss said. “We just try to get the underlying messages across. I figure if we can do that, the program will be a success.”
In this, the fourth session at the Eisenberg club, the youngsters already had absorbed some of the finer points, as illustrated when one asked, “Is a tomato a fruit?”
“A good question,” replied Breuler, who like Goss was dressed in kitchen whites.
The question created animated debate in the class.
“Tomatoes,” Breuler explained, “are the fruit of the tomato plant. They have the seeds.”
“But tomatoes are commonly thought of as a vegetable,” Goss quickly interjected. “You find them with the vegetables in the supermarket.”
“What’s a vegetable that’s big and round and purple?” Breuler went on.
“A plum?” one boy suggested.
“No! A plum is little,” a girl corrected. “Is it an eggplant?”
“Yes,” Breuler said, “and, yes, it is also a fruit.”
Goss persisted:
“If some vegetables are fruits of the plants they grow on, what is spinach or lettuce?”
After one youngster finally answered, “a leaf,” she moved on, asking them about radishes, carrots and turnips.
“I love turnips,” someone blurted out.
So it went for a surprisingly long while, considering the closeness of the room and the shortness of the attention span of a typical 10-year-old.
Main course
The vegetable banter was only a preface to the main event: making pizza. But first there was one more ritual: hand-washing.
One girl held the liquid soap and pumped generous dollops onto the hands of others.
“Soap monitor is a coveted position,” said Nicole Weber, the operations director for SOS, as the students went out in groups to the washroom.
“This usually takes about 15 minutes. It could take an hour if we let it,” Weber said. “But it’s an important practice before handling food.”
Back at the table 40 small hands were floured and each youngster was issued a ball of whole-wheat dough about the size of a plum.
The frustration of a determined father trying to assemble a computer system on Christmas morning is nothing compared to 20 kids trying to flatten dough into pizza crusts.
That’s the reason for the garbage bags.
It took a lot of patience and a lot of time, but somehow the small pizzas came together with tomato sauce, vegetables and cheese.
“You have to use at least one vegetable,” Goss insisted during the assembly, but that was no problem: The kids competed for the available zucchini, onions, broccoli, tomatoes and peppers.
With the exception of one plate bearing a Velveeta logo, there was no mention of Kraft. Even the cheese was another supermarket brand.
“This program is strictly for the kids to learn,” said Wanda Goin, manager of community affairs for Kraft Foods, who was keeping an eye on the proceedings.
For Goss it also was a learning experience. “No other venue I have is as interactive,” she said. “Most of the time we are making $25- or $50-a-plate dinners, but this is an opportunity to return something to the community.
“And I learn every time I come here: There are people struggling to just get by and many of them aren’t aware of the choices they have and what they can do with simple foods.”
The pizzas, by the way, took an inordinately long time to cook, because the center’s oven doesn’t get very hot. When the pies finally were done, they were beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but no one went home hungry.
