Cultural Feast
My favorite activity of all is Cultural Feast. I have done it before in past years and I am planning to do it again as the end of the year party for my class. It has been a very successful, productive, and happy experience so far. In the past it used to be a potluck party, which every family would bring their favorite dish and the parents and other close family were invited as well as the students. Everybody would get to try the different dishes from different cultures and everybody absolutely loved it. I have noticed that some parents would exchange recipes with each other but I have never done the formal recipe exchange. This year I am going to use the idea that I got from York pg.194 and officially ask families to give me the recipe that they are going to make ahead of time and I will make a cookbook out of those recipes and at the day of the party, I will give one to each family as gift to remember.
This activity is most proper for ages three and four. At this age young children notice differences in culture and they start verbalizing their opinions. At the same time food and eating together is one of their favorite activities, so Cultural Feast would be a perfect activity for them. Young children are naturally curious about the world and want to know about themselves and others. They also love to ask What and Why questions. This activity is a good step towards recognition of differences in culture and daily life styles of different families and since most of the time they love the new food that they try, it gives them a positive opinion about other cultures (York pg.17).
Cultural Feast supports Anti-Bias concepts in so many different ways. The main three supportive concepts are : 1) It is important to try new experiences (by having children try new and different food), 2) We can learn about the daily life of people we know (by experiencing their daily diet), 3) Many different people live in our community (by showing the children the differences between the food coming from different homes).
Cultural Feast activity meets the Anti-Bias goals in various ways. The most noticeable goals that I have achieved with this activity are :1) Teach children about their own culture (by having them talk about the food that they bring to the class), 2) Introduce children to other cultures (by them listening to other children talking about their food), 3) Provide children with a positive experience exploring similarities and differences (by having children try different food from different cultures).
For this activity the preparation starts at least two weeks ahead. I send a note home with each child that explains about the activity, asking the parents to provide a recipe of their choice (one of their traditional food), possibly along with a picture of the prepared dish. It needs to be the food that they will be bringing to the potluck party. After gathering the recipes I will type them and make enough copies for everybody. I will make a cookbook out of the recipes and use the child's name to name the recipe (for example Diya's tandoori chicken). These cookbooks will be given to each family as my end of the year present to them. At the day of the activity I will need a long table, big enough for all of the dishes, paper plates and cups along with utensils and napkins. If possible preparation is needed ahead of time to rent the proper amount of chairs and tables to seat the family members, if not (because of financial shortage !) we could ask them to bring their own folding chairs for convenience. The party will be held in the school yard (let's hope for a nice weather !). Before the families arrive I will put labels on the long table so that they will know where to put their dishes and also everybody will know whose dish they are trying. When families arrive they will be guided to the table to put their dish next to their name then we will do a brief introduction about each dish by the child or the family who brought it, limited to saying the name of the food and which country the food originally came from. Then everybody will be invited to help themselves and the rest is mostly done by the guests. I would be going around and make sure that everybody is enjoying the party and encourage children to try different food if needed. At the end I will give each family a cookbook that I made from their recipes.
It is a good idea to prepare the children's minds for this activity and excite them about different food from different cultures ahead of the time. One of the best ways to do so is familiarize them with food diversity by reading proper books about it. Two of my favorite ones are:
What the World Eats written by Faith D'lauisio and photographed by Peter Menzel
This book has real great photographs from people of different parts of the world and their diet.
Good Enough to Eat by Lizzy Rockwell
This book introduces healthy and nutritious food and encourages children to try new and different kinds of food.
It is always fun and interesting if the children and their families dress in their traditional clothing to go along with their traditional food. Also having traditional music from different cultures playing in the background adds to the multicultural atmosphere. Another fun idea is to make little flags, of the different countries that the children come from and place them on the dishes or next to their names.
Doing Cultural Feast activity is a fun and delicious way to introduce young children to different cultures by trying different foods. It brings them closer together in so many ways, for example by going over the ingredients they will learn that food that looks and tastes so different, they do have common ingredients. In the same concept they will learn that different cultures use the similar ingredients and make it taste different. Every child is actively involved in this activity and best of all they enjoy participation of their families. Also they feel so special and important when everybody is listening to them, talking about their food. It is a very satisfying, positive activity that they all enjoy.
