Wk 10 - Day 46

today was all about food, certain preservation techniques, and the role of culture in the making/preserving of the food...AND the role of bacteria. the lesson went well...the students seemed a little interested until i started talking about how sugar was used in the creation of wine and beer. i realize that the students may be a little young, but i didn't think it was an inappropriate conversation. we talked about the history of beer with the early colonists, how certain cultures worship it, that Europe drinks more alcohol than the states, but we have more alcoholics, etc. once i got them hooked with the making of alcohol it spun into different foods and i still had their attention. i don't like the fact that, generally speaking, many adults treat alcohol around teens a taboo subject. perhaps that's why europe has far fewer alcoholics...it's part of everyday life and NOT treated as a taboo subject. we also found out many interesting facts on cheese, soy sauce, dried meats, pickling, sour dough bread and a few more.

after our conversations, i had the students grab a laptop and research of food of their choice that used salt, sugar, or vinegar and the history/culture behind it. i would teach this lesson again as long as i knew i could hook them and capture their interest. prior to bringing up wine and beer... i was a little worried on how interested they would be. in the long run it worked quite well. we found out...students shared what they found with the class and we talked for about 10 minutes... that cheese was accidentally made by an arabic merchant who was crossing the desert with milk in a bladder bag that ended up curdling, beef jerky went as far back as the inca culture, soy sauce has been around since 500 a.d. and is still generally made the same way...and many more.