Food doesn’t just appear! It travels a long way to get to you. Did you ever ask yourself where your food’s journey started and the places it visited before it ended up on the table? This challenge asks you to tell a story of a place through which your food traveled. It could be a farm where it was produced, a barn where it was stored or prepared, a factory where it was canned, a grocery store or a food pantry where it was distributed. You can write about a truck that transported it and the kitchen pantry where it was stored. But wait! There is more. The recipe that created this dish traveled from the past! It was taught by your grandparents to your parents, or perhaps it was a cultural tradition and passed down over generations. Maybe the recipe came from a well known chef or a culinary book.
Production
Your students might:
- Research a farm and its ecology. Interview someone who grows food.
- Find a community garden and tell a story of a garden bed.
- Explore flora, fauna, and the ecology.
Distribution
Your students might:
- Research a place where food is distributed. It could be a grocery store, a food pantry, a food bank, or a farmers market.
- Interview the people who run these places.
- Write a history of these places
Consumption
Your students might:
- Explore a place where food is consumed.
- Interview a restaurant owner or a chef.
- Talk to the person who cooks for you.
- Find family recipes and food traditions and write about them.
Rational
Food speaks to us in profound ways. It evokes memories, reflects human relationships, conveys histories, upholds cultural traditions, and symbolizes life itself. Food is the result of labor—someone grows it, distributes it, and prepares it. This labor extends beyond human effort to include the crucial roles of birds, bees, and insects that pollinate plants, as well as the critters that enrich the soil.
Food not only communicates nourishment and love but can also signify hunger and disease. Access to food, or the lack thereof, can reveal much about politics, power dynamics, food justice, and food deserts.
Find a location where food is present and explore its story. You can use narrative text and photographs, record interviews on your smartphone, or utilize online tools such as pixstoriplus.com to create short multimedia documents.
Remember, your stories don’t have to be limited to the past and present. Feel free to include aspirations for the future. What could food and food-related spaces strive to become?
Your students stories can help us all understand who we are as a community and where we should aim to go.
Be Part of the Storytelling
Want to get your students involved/learn more? Add your name here. We’ll organize support and opportunities to collaborate that align with the needs and goals of participating educators.
