The distance most food travels from farm soil to our dinner plate is usually measured in miles. Recently the seventh graders from OJA reduced that journey to mere feet. With a portable hot plate, folding table and a few basic tools the students were able to prepare a delicious recipe in the garden using ingredients from the garden. Our Long Bean vines have been quite vigorous this year and have yeilded a hefty bounty of burgendy snake-like beans. This was the perfect time to try sauteeing them with a lemon tahini sauce. The discussion topic for the morning was "foraging". Though we weren't prepared to eat any of the wild foods that inhabit the campus at OJA, we used the garden harvest to contrast how much of our food (both plants and animals) has been domesticated for our preferences in taste and for convenience in industrial production. Picking the beans and digging for fresh ginger for the sauce added enthusiasm to the cooking process and the tasting concluded with a near unanimous thumbs up.
