Edamame, Pirates and Kohlrabi

I don’t know when I first ate edamame, but I do remember when a Vietnamese restaurant opened two blocks from my high school and I could run down there for lunch and order a bag of steaming edamame that was never big enough.

This week we served the soybean snack during lunchtime, where a majority of students had never heard of it before. This happened on national ‘Talk like a Pirate’ day, and students endured my enthusiastic prodding to try it punctuated with “argh!” and ‘ahoy, matey!” During breaks in the lunch line, I grabbed a handful of pods and wandered the cafeteria, prodding kids to taste it and showing them how to suck the beans out of the shells. About half of the students who tried it said that they liked it, and one first-grader returned for third and fourth helpings. Between my pre-lunch snacking and demonstrations, I practically ate my body weight in edamame and am not sure I will ever touch the stuff again.

The next day we had a taste-test of kohlrabi with lunch, which I advertised as a “space vegetable,” and every student received a single raw slice of the vegetable whether they wanted it or not. Despite its bizarre appearance, kohlrabi has an incredibly benign taste, and it was more favorably received than the edamame. Pizza was the entrée of the day, and when students came back for seconds I made many of them take a bite of kohlrabi. I had a show-down with one first-grader who desperately wanted more applesauce, but I said he could only have more if he took one bite of the new vegetable. Grinning, he vehemently protested, and in the end agreed if I took a bite at the same time he would try it. The bite was followed with grimaces and complaints of how sour and nasty it was, but he earned his applesauce.

Although I’d like to take credit for introducing both of these foods to the menu, my supervisor is the one responsible for these awesome ideas. Completely opposite from last year, I am running to keep up with the amazing ideas and innovations this school has. Next week my time is completely booked helping introduce a new garden and nutrition curriculum to 5^th and 6^th graders, making salsa with 4^th graders and fruit smoothies with 1^st graders, hosting the Oregon FoodCorps state orientation and finalizing plans for introducing chickens to the school.

I apologize for my lack of original pictures this week, but my new camera just came in the mail today (thanks, Grandma!) and I will start documenting the overwhelming enthusiasm and excitement I’ve encountered here!