Flashback to high school – close your eyes and recall the evil tale spoken by the dreaded math teacher:
Sam and Jolene want to make pumpkin pies. Each pie shell consists of 3 ounces of flour. If they want to make 20 pies, how many pound of flour will they need?
Back in the day I hated word problems. I especially hated the wording. I’m sure it didn’t help that my math skills were subpar, but man, did I despise translating scenarios into workable equations. Fast forward a decade and here I am, intentionally surrounding myself with word problems. Though, to the hobby home-cook, the desire to multiply a recipe or alter the measurement of ingredients is actually sought after. Somehow or other, I now enjoy reading word problems and calculating the outcomes on a daily basis.
Aside from the basic reading skills, reading a recipe requires a solid understanding of pre-algebra. Beyond the adding and subtracting of whole numbers, I can also comprehend ratios, percentages and fractions. The last concept – fractions – seems to be of utmost importance in the kitchen. If you can’t double a 1/2 cup of milk or divide 4.5 into 2.25, then you are surely up shits creek. Though there is always the possibility that intuition will trump the precision of a given recipe. But I find it hard to teach intuition. It’s far easier to explain terms of measurement, the role of fractions and the importance of understanding word problems to the students who wants to cook.
It is with this train of thought that leads me to “culinary math.” In a couple weeks I will be teaching high school kids how to cook. Along with the general kitchen literacy knowledge (i.e. the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, or a pot and a pan,) there is a lot to be said for basic math skills. Thus, I have spent the better part of the last several days writing up lesson plans that combine math and cooking. Like you might expect, the connection between the two is perfect. As a social studies teacher who fears math, I think this may be the easiest thing I could teach (in the world of math.)
For those who still don’t know:
A dash or pinch = less than 1/4 teaspoon
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup
16 tablespoons = 1 cup
2 cups = 1 pint
2 pints = 1 quart
4 quarts = 1 gallon
And this is just the tip of the measurement iceberg!
Related posts:
- A Successful Cooking Class
- The Food Curriculum Project (part V) “Lesson Plan 3″
- School Gardens are All the Rage – Resources to Join the Movement
- Critical Food Literacy and a Sustainable Food Movement
- Seasonal and then some (weekly menu 4)
Tags: cooking, education, food literacy