KidsFoodJourney Week 6: A Tea Party; Herbs; Nettles (Seasonal Spring Activity)
Week 6
P2 - 4 (Year 1 - 3) Home Lesson Plan
A Tea Party; Herbs; Nettles (Seasonal Spring Activity)
Before starting these activities please read this introduction to KidsFoodJourney, and also the course aims & core concepts outlined in Week 1’s lesson plan.
Lesson Outline
Tiny Tastes
Snacktivity: tea party - amazeballs, cucumber sandwiches and mint tea
Historical nettles, oatcakes
Story time
Tiny Tastes
We start the lesson with our no-pressure Tiny Tastes experiment: a repetition of the food we tried in week 1. Whether the children want to simply smell it, just lick it, or are happy to eat (any quantity of) the food – that’s fine. Whatever they go for, can they describe what it’s like this time? How does it smell? If they taste it, do they like it better than last time? Does it taste different to them this time? Does it taste more familiar?
A Tea Party
The ‘catering’ at this tea party has been designed to spark the children’s imagination; introduce them to a range of new tastes; get them thinking about how their food grows; and about preparing food for other people (and by extension, what it means for other people to put care and attention into preparing their food for them, i.e. at home).
If you’re doing this at home, you might want to invent an occasion to be having the tea party for – a toy’s birthday, for example.
Set up three tea party stations, with 15 minutes per table (set a timer). We’re going to make the party food.
Station 1: Amazeballs.
You can choose one of the two recipes below, or there are loads of different amazeballs recipes online. Some people call these energy bites, I think ‘amazeballs’ is so bad it’s good. I use these two as I can’t use nuts in our workshops (coconut isn’t a nut, so isn’t generally banned in nut-free zones), but they’re both delicious.
You will need:
A Magimix-style food processor
A plate to roll the balls on
A portion of these is two or three walnut-sized small balls. Don’t forget that dried fruit is generally over 50% sugar; you may want to keep the rest for after meals to protect teeth. They will last for up to a week in an airtight container.
As we’re making them I like to give the children little bits of the ingredients to try: a bit of chopped dried fruit, some coconut, or dip their finger in the bitter cocoa. Get them to smell the cinnamon, mixed spice and vanilla before putting it in. Fun fact about cinnamon and vanilla – tried by themselves they are both bitter, but if you add them to a food they trick our brains into thinking that what you’re eating is sweeter than it really is.
Shaping amazeballs
Chocolate Coconut Amazeballs
Makes c.30
150g pitted dates
75g dried apricots
75g dried figs
100g rolled oats
15g unsweetened cocoa
150g desiccated coconut, or your grated coconut from Week 5 (it’s even better toasted)
2 - 4 tablespoons water
1. Pull off the hard stalks from the figs.
2. Blend all the ingredients except the water and 50g coconut.
3. Add water slowly until it comes together.
4. Remove blade attachment and use a teaspoon to scoop and roll into walnut-sized balls.
5. Place extra coconut in a large plate or baking tray, drop the rolled balls in and roll to coat.
Carrot Cake Amazeballs
Keep in an airtight container in the fridge once made, and eat within three days.
Makes 30
150g pitted dates
200g carrot (about 2 medium)
150g rolled oats
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon mixed spice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
40g desiccated coconut (plus more for rolling)
1. Blend all ingredients except carrots.
2. Add coarse grater attachment and grate in carrots.
3. Add blade attachment back in and pulse to incorporate.
4. Use a teaspoon to scoop out portions and roll into 30 balls.
5. Place extra coconut in a large plate or baking tray, drop the rolled balls in and roll to coat.
Officially these are rolled into balls, but we encourage the children to make whatever shapes they want. We’ve had some great little models! Most children enjoy both recipes, but I’m always surprised how many aren’t keen on the dried fruits the first time they try them.
Station 2: Cucumber Sandwiches
Set up a chopping board and help them to:
Thinly slice cucumber
Spread butter on their bread (you could use the butter you made in week 4). Make sure it’s softened for easy spreading.
Assemble the sandwich
Cut it in squares, with crusts removed
Station 3: Herbs and Mint Tea
In advance, so it has time to steep and cool a bit, prepare little cups of fresh mint tea for the children to drink while they do this activity (just boiled water poured over mint leaves). You could do this pre-set-up and keep it warm in a thermos. Lemon balm and lemon verbena also make lovely teas.
This is a lovely sensory table, for the children to explore the beautiful smells of herbs that make our foods taste delicious. Choose around five little bunches of herbs, ideally fresh: e.g. mint, basil, lemon balm, thyme, rosemary, dill, tarragon, lemon verbena, curry leaf. Write name labels for each and see if the children can smell the herbs and match up the labels. Do they remind them of any foods? Basil goes into pizza sauce, for example. Do they want to try little nibbles of the herbs?
Herbs and a thermos of mint tea, alongside our Tiny Taste for the session: rye bread, with a side of seasonal toasted pumpkin seeds from Halloween Jack o’lanterns.
Nettles
The idea for this station came from my archaeologist colleague Jamie. What is the most important plant in human history? Wheat, cacao, corn or potatoes? Arguably it’s nettles.
Though supermarkets give the appearance of broad choice, our diets have become increasingly restricted to staple crops in modern times. A varied diet is key to good health as well as for the pleasure we can take in exploring and enjoying a wide range of foods. This activity encourages the children to think about why we eat the foods we eat, and the many foods out there that we don’t usually eat but could.
Nettles are highly nutritious. The leaves can be blanched in boiling water to neutralise the stings, and then used as leafy greens – the classic is nettle soup, but they can also be added to stews, curries, bolognaise and even cakes. They don’t have a strong flavour, so can be added to foods for their nutrients without dominating the taste.
Nettles have historically been used as food and for medicinal purposes. Their fibres can be made into paper and cloth: in World War 1, the German army started using nettle cloth to make uniforms due to a shortage of cotton, and there has been a revived interest in nettle fibres recently as an environmentally-friendly alternative to the damaging cotton industry. The Romans even used to deliberately whack themselves with bunches of nettles to stimulate the circulation, and soothe tired, painful legs on long marches (it doesn’t sound very soothing!). The process of flogging oneself with nettles is called urtification, and has been known to many cultures for thousands of years.
“In Scotland, I have eaten nettles, I have slept in nettle sheets, and I have dined off a nettle tablecloth. The young and tender nettle is an excellent potherb. The stalks of the old nettle are as good as flax for making cloth. I have heard my mother say that she thought nettle cloth more durable than any other species of linen.” Scottish poet Thomas Campbell
The leaves are best when they are young and tender in spring. You could make nettle soup together – recipe here - or Jamie made nettle oatcakes that every child in the class plucked up the courage to try. Try this recipe at home – personally I would blanch the nettles to neutralise the stings, then squeeze as much water out as possible before finely chopping them and mixing them in when you add the melted butter and water. You will likely need a bit less water if you do that. Nothing would put a kid off trying new foods like getting stung for making the effort!
Jostling for nettle oatcakes
A story to finish
We are so lucky at KFJ to have a professional storyteller among our staff. Chris ends every session with an energetic, sometimes musical, always hilarious story about food. Here he is telling the story of the three wishes and the sausage.
We have found the children don’t grow out of loving this – if anything the older ones are even more engaged. We tell a story at the end of KFJ sessions from ages 4 – 11, and they all love them. You don’t have to be a professional to tell the story, just make sure it’s ‘on message’, and not one that teaches children that sweets and cakes are great fun while broccoli is a chore! Be careful also about stories that focus on weight, or sort foods into black and white ‘healthy/unhealthy’ categories. We never talk about weight in KFJ, and avoid telling children that certain foods are better or worse than others. We’re trying to widen their tasting horizons and place a range of foods on a more level playing field for children to learn to genuinely enjoy eating a varied diet.
Kit List:
Amazeballs ingredients
5 x fresh herbs e.g. mint, basil, lemon balm, thyme, rosemary, dill
Bread
Cucumber
Butter
Mint tea in thermos
Labels for the herbs
Plate to roll amazeballs on
Food processor
Nettle soup ingredients
Nettle oatcake ingredients