What does writing about food for children have in common with an open bottle of Prosecco, a beautiful baguette and a batch of buttercream frosting? It can be woefully flat, stale or just a little too sweet.
Food writers constantly need to find ways to make things new and different for their readers. While there may be a myriad of ways to top pancakes, there are relatively fewer variations on making what goes under the topping. Flour, eggs, milk — the script is familiar and rote. When writing for a young audience there is the additional challenge of understanding the purpose of writing about food and describing the process in ways that avoid the flat, stale and saccharine. Cooking and food literacy can align with what educators and politicians consider the most urgent educational need children have today: mastering STEM.
An acronym encompassing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, STEM is currently in the spotlight, an effort to draw together knowledge and skills from all four disciplines. In the elementary school classroom, cooking can demonstrate concepts integral to early STEM education. Like nursery school sand and water tables that connect the relationship between play and learning, cooking can be a deliberate and complex way to extend children’s natural curiosity. Cooking is accessible, relatable and memorable, and, most importantly, continues in the home on a regular basis. This makes cooking a wonderful vehicle for introducing and illustrating principles of science.
Almost every aspect of modern life intersects somehow with science. This is especially true when it comes to producing, preparing and eating food. Consider an ingredient as seemingly simple as flour. A farmer growing wheat, who is an expert in agricultural science, relies on meteorologists who study weather and environmental scientists who study everything from soil to climate change to pollution. The wheat is harvested and milled using machines invented and improved by mechanical engineers. The flour is tested by inspectors and food scientists to meet food safety standards, and chemists determine what additives will preserve the flour as it travels from factory to store.
Consider the science involved in baking bread. Knowledge of biology is required to treat the yeast so it ferments correctly. A complex ratio of ingredients is needed for the dough to rise and bake, in an oven powered by electricity or natural gas and on and on and on. Without science, food as we know it would not exist.
Writing about food from a scientific perspective allows authors to submit pieces to a wide variety of publications. Forums for food writers include blogging and the writing of books, articles, and curricula and educational materials. Adopting a science-positive approach to writing about food really does serve to inspire young cooks — who are future microbiologists, chemists, farmers, and teachers.
Chicken Noodle Soup
The Science of Chicken Soup
Every substance that has weight (sometimes called mass) and occupies space (sometimes called volume) is called matter. In this recipe, we’ll explore this scientific question: How do ingredients combine to become a new food?
Matter can undergo physical changes and chemical changes.
A physical change means that the matter has not essentially changed. For example, cutting an onion in half would be a physical change—it is different, but it is still an onion, even if you chopped it into tiny bits.
A chemical change occurs when a substance changes into something new. For example, baking a cake is a chemical reaction. Several different ingredients are combined, exposed to heat and become something new, not really resembling the ingredients that went into making it.
Can you combine ingredients and not create a chemical reaction? Yes. The scientific term is mixture: two or more substances together but not chemically combined. A heterogeneous mixture has distinguishable components. In our soup, that would be the broth, noodles, chicken and vegetables. It also has a different composition throughout the mixture. For example, the vegetables are solid, but the broth is liquid.
Ingredients
- •1 tablespoon butter
- •½ cup yellow onion, chopped
- •½ cup celery, chopped
- •1 cup carrots, sliced 1” thick
- •8 ounces cooked chicken breast meat, pulled into bite-sized pieces
- •3 (14.5 ounces) cans chicken stock
- •2 (14.5 ounces) cans vegetable stock
- •½ teaspoon dried oregano
- •½ teaspoon dried basil
- •2 bay leaves
- •¼ teaspoon garlic powder
- •6 ounces uncooked egg noodles
Preparation
Place a pot over medium heat and melt the butter slowly. Add the onion to the butter and cook for a minute, then add celery and carrots and cook until the vegetables are slightly translucent, about 4 more minutes.
Add the chicken, and stir in with the vegetables for 2 minutes, so the flavors mix together.
Add the chicken stock, vegetable stock, oregano, basil, bay leaves, and garlic powder. Allow soup to simmer for 20 minutes at medium heat.
Ten minutes before serving, adjust the heat to medium-high and bring soup to a boil. Add uncooked noodles and cook for ten minutes or according to package instructions.
