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Food Literacy Programs Teach More Than Cooking and Nutrition
School
Library Journal: 9.28.2019 by Kelley R. Taylor
Food—growing,
preparing, sharing, and eating it—can create a sense of community, promote
cultural understanding, and teach literacy. It can be an easy and accessible
entry point to learning.
“Food
provides a really universal context,” says Liz Fitzgerald, director of the
Culinary Literacy Center at the Free Library of Philadelphia.
The
Parkway Central branch, located downtown, is home to rare collections, research
publications, and a grand marble staircase. The building, which opened in 1927,
is as much a city landmark and architectural marvel as it is a learning center.
It is also where kindergartners create a meal from scratch and middle schoolers
shell garbanzo beans destined to become part of a burrito as part of the
Nourishing Literacy program.
And
English language learners laugh and attempt conversation amid the clinking of
silverware during the library’s Edible Alphabet program, where participants
learn to speak, read, and write in English while cooking and sharing a meal
together.
The
Culinary Literacy Center,
which runs these programs and more, is a kitchen classroom that puts food at
the center of the education—children and adults learn to cook and learn through
cooking. This is not a library simply providing snacks or meals to hungry
patrons.
“Libraries
are spaces for lifelong learning in nontraditional learning spaces, and I think
that’s what the kitchen is, too,” says Fitzgerald. “It just provides another
vehicle for learning. Everyone eats and everyone has this universal experience
of food and identity around food.
“Kitchens
are the heart of your home much in the same way libraries are the heart of the
communities that they serve.”
Since
opening in 2014, the center has served about 30,000 people and partnered with
schools to run approximately 100 classes for Philadelphia students each year.
While this was the first such space of its kind in a U.S. library, Fitzgerald
notes they are not the first library to develop and run food literacy programs.
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Bringing
food to a desert
The
city of Camden is a community of about 77,000 residents—with only one real
grocery store.
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In
2010, the U.S.
Department of Agriculture designated Camden a “food
desert”—essentially, a part of the country void of healthful whole foods
typically due to a lack of grocery stores and healthy food providers. To help
the community gain a vital understanding of cooking and healthy eating, Camden
County Library created a culinary literacy program called Books and Cooks,
which operates from a mobile kitchen with iPads and mobile hotspot access.
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In
Washington State, food-related public health challenges inspired Philip Lee to
advocate food literacy through books.
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Lee
started pop-up bookstores with titles about food for children and adults at
farmers markets in Washington. Following that success, Lee launched Readers to Eaters, a publishing
program promoting literacy about and through food.
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For
example, the nonprofit Charlie Cart Project,
combines a mobile kitchen classroom with a rigorous curriculum spanning math,
English, language arts, science, and social studies.
“Charlie
Cart has enabled us to offer fun cooking programs for kids that are run by
staff,” says Oakland (CA) Public
Library (OPL) acting director Lana Adlawan.
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In
addition to cooking, data show that gardening is an effective, hands-on way to
enhance food literacy. Gardening can also help reduce food insecurity by
providing communities ready access to fresh, nutritious foods.
Toward
these ends, several schools have embraced in-school gardening and farm-to-table
education to help educate students about agriculture and sources of good food. READ
MORE >>
Food Literacy Center (California)
Food
Tank (International)
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