Name: ____________________________________ Date: ______________ Period: ______
Print pages 1 to 4 for every student. Page 5 is the research packet reading option for classes without devices. Page 6 is the grade 8 stretch card.
Our class agreement on food talk
Read it before you write anything.
- Curious, not disgusted. "I have not tried that" is a sentence. "That is gross" is not.
- Ask, do not assume. If you want to know why a food is made a certain way, ask the question instead of guessing the answer.
- No ranking. No best cuisine, no worst, no "weird." Different climates and different crops made different food. That is the whole explanation.
- Nobody has to be the expert on their own background. You may share a family dish if you want to, and you may say nothing, and neither one gets a follow-up question.
- * *
Part 1. The five factors that shape a cuisine
| Factor | What it means | One example from today |
|---|---|---|
| Climate | ||
| Crops | ||
| Trade | ||
| Migration | ||
| Religion |
Which factor do you think matters most? ______________________ Why?
Part 2. Pick your form and your three cultures
Circle one form. Your group takes all three dishes inside it, one per person.
| Form | Culture 1 | Culture 2 | Culture 3 | Fourth option |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Filled dough | Empanada (Latin America and Spain) | Pierogi (Poland) | Samosa (South Asia) | Jiaozi (China) or ravioli (Italy) |
| Rice and beans plate | Rice and peas (Jamaica) | Gallo pinto (Costa Rica and Nicaragua) | Red beans and rice (Louisiana) | Hoppin' john (the Carolinas) |
| Flatbread | Pita (eastern Mediterranean) | Roti or chapati (South Asia) | Tortilla (Mexico and Central America) | Injera (Ethiopia and Eritrea) or lavash (Armenia and Turkey) |
My form: ______________________ My dish: ______________________
Part 3. My research card
Fill in all five boxes. You need two sources and one of them must be a library source or a reference source, not a search result summary.
| Box | My answer |
|---|---|
| 1. Region and country or countries | |
| 2. Main ingredients (four or five) | |
| 3. Cooking method (from the Lesson 6.6 list: bake, roast, broil, toast, sauté, boil, simmer, steam, poach) | |
| 4. Why here? Name a crop, a climate, a trade route, a migration, or a religious practice that explains why this dish exists in this place. "Because it is their tradition" does not answer this. | |
| 5. One thing that will surprise the class |
My two sources
| # | Source title | Author or publisher | Type (book, encyclopedia, museum, university, news, other) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
| 2 |
My ninety-second presentation, in order
- My dish is ____________ from ____________.
- The main ingredients are ______________________________________________.
- It is cooked by ____________________.
- It exists there because _______________________________________________.
- The thing that surprised me is _________________________________________.
- * *
Part 4. The comparison
Fill this in as you hear the other two dishes in your form.
| Dish 1: ____________ | Dish 2: ____________ | Dish 3: ____________ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Region | |||
| Main ingredients | |||
| Cooking method | |||
| What makes it different from the other two |
What is the same across all three?
What is different?
Why is it different? Name at least two of the five factors.
Factor 1: ____________ How it explains a difference: ________________________
Factor 2: ____________ How it explains a difference: ________________________
The last line
One thing I would try: ______________________________________________________
One question I still have: __________________________________________________
Exit card, Day 1
The factor that explains my dish best is ______________________ because _______
If we are not tasting: the extension task
Pick a fourth everyday form that shows up in at least three cultures. Name the form and the three versions. You may not use one of the three on the list above.
My fourth form: ______________________________
| Culture | The name of the dish there | One ingredient that makes it local |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | ||
| 2. | ||
| 3. |
One sentence on why this form shows up everywhere:
Page 5: Research packet reading option
For classes without devices. Print two short paragraphs and one photo per dish from a library source. Below is what each paragraph needs to contain so students can complete the card.
| Each printed paragraph must give | Because the card asks for |
|---|---|
| The country or region, and whether the dish travels beyond it | Box 1 |
| Four or five main ingredients by name | Box 2 |
| How it is cooked, in words a student can match to the nine methods | Box 3 |
| One fact about the local crop, the climate, a trade route, a migration, or a religious practice | Box 4 |
| The source title, author or publisher, and date, printed at the bottom of the page | The two source lines |
[Sal: your school librarian can pull these in twenty minutes and will probably enjoy being asked. A print encyclopedia food entry, a university extension page, or a museum exhibit page all work. Print the source line at the bottom of every sheet so the citation task is real and not a guess.]
Page 6: Grade 8 stretch card
Three sources, one of them printed. Then answer this.
Pick one ingredient in your dish. Trace it back to where the plant actually came from, and explain how it got to your dish's region.
| Question | My answer |
|---|---|
| The ingredient | |
| Where the plant originally came from | |
| How it got to my dish's region (trade, colonization, migration, or deliberate planting) | |
| About when | |
| My source for this |
The hard question: based on what you found, is there such a thing as a pure traditional cuisine? Answer in three or four sentences, using your ingredient as the evidence.
Teacher key
Part 1, the five factors:
| Factor | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Climate | Heat, cold, rainfall, and growing season decide what can be grown and how food has to be preserved | Rice needs standing water and heat, so rice cultures sit in monsoon and river regions. Cold northern regions preserve with salt, smoke, and fermentation |
| Crops | Whatever grows well nearby becomes the staple, and the staple shapes every meal | Corn in Mesoamerica, wheat in the Fertile Crescent and Europe, rice in Asia, potatoes in the Andes, teff in Ethiopia, cassava in West Africa |
| Trade | Ingredients moved along routes and rewrote whole cuisines, often recently | Chilies came from the Americas to Asia and Africa after 1500. Tomatoes came from the Americas to Italy. Black pepper moved from India to Europe. Sugar moved everywhere |
| Migration | People carry recipes and adapt them to what the new place sells | Red beans and rice in Louisiana carries West African and Caribbean cooking into a Gulf Coast pantry. Pizza in New York is not pizza in Naples |
| Religion | Permitted and forbidden foods, fasting days, and feast dishes shape the everyday menu | Halal and kosher rules on meat and slaughter; Lent and Ramadan fasting; vegetarian practice in Hindu and Jain and Buddhist traditions; feast breads across many faiths |
Part 2 and 3, what a correct card looks like for each dish, at the level students can reach:
| Dish | Region | Main ingredients | Method | Why here |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Empanada | Latin America and Spain | Wheat or corn flour, fat, meat or cheese or vegetables, onion, spices | Baked or fried | Spanish wheat pastry carried to the Americas, filled with whatever was local; a sealed hand pie travels to a field, which matters for farm and mine work |
| Pierogi | Poland and neighboring countries | Wheat flour, egg, potato, cheese, cabbage, mushrooms, onion | Boiled, sometimes then sautéed | Cool climate crops: potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, and dairy. Boiling needs only water and a pot, not an oven, which most homes did not have |
| Samosa | South Asia, and earlier Central Asia and the Middle East | Wheat flour, potato, peas, onion, cumin, coriander, chili | Fried, sometimes baked | Traveled along trade routes from Central Asia; filled with local potatoes (themselves an import from the Americas) and local spices; a fried hand pie keeps and travels |
| Rice and peas | Jamaica | Rice, kidney beans or pigeon peas, coconut milk, thyme, scallion, allspice | Simmered | Rice and beans together make a complete protein and both store well; coconut and allspice are local; the pairing came with West African cooking |
| Gallo pinto | Costa Rica and Nicaragua | Rice, black beans, onion, sweet pepper, cilantro | Simmered then sautéed | Same complete protein logic; black beans and rice are the two cheapest staples grown and traded locally, and yesterday's beans become today's breakfast |
| Red beans and rice | Louisiana, United States | Red kidney beans, rice, onion, celery, bell pepper, sausage, bay | Simmered | West African and Caribbean cooking carried by migration into a Gulf pantry; traditionally cooked Mondays because it simmers unattended on wash day |
| Pita | Eastern Mediterranean | Wheat flour, water, yeast, salt | Baked at very high heat | Wheat region; high-heat baking makes the steam pocket that gives pita its pocket |
| Roti or chapati | South Asia | Whole wheat flour, water, salt | Cooked on a dry hot griddle (a dry heat method) | Wheat in the north of the region; a griddle needs no oven and very little fuel, which matters where fuel is expensive |
| Tortilla | Mexico and Central America | Corn treated with lime (nixtamal) or wheat flour, water, salt | Cooked on a dry hot griddle | Corn is the region's staple; the lime treatment makes the corn's niacin available, which is a real nutritional reason and a great "surprise the class" fact |
| Injera | Ethiopia and Eritrea | Teff flour, water, wild yeast, fermented for days | Cooked on a large flat griddle | Teff grows in the highlands where wheat struggles; fermentation adds flavor and keeps the batter usable, and the bread doubles as the plate and the utensil |
| Jiaozi | China | Wheat flour, water, pork or vegetables, cabbage, ginger, scallion | Boiled, steamed, or pan fried | Northern wheat region; boiled and steamed dumplings need no oven, and they are the New Year dish because their shape resembles old money |
| Ravioli | Italy | Wheat flour, egg, cheese or meat or greens | Boiled | Durum and soft wheat region; a filled pasta stretches a small amount of expensive filling across a cheap starch |
| Hoppin' john | the Carolinas | Black-eyed peas, rice, pork, onion | Simmered | Black-eyed peas came from West Africa; rice cultivation in the Low Country was built on West African knowledge and labor |
| Lavash | Armenia and Turkey | Wheat flour, water, salt | Baked against the wall of a hot clay oven | Wheat region; a very thin bread bakes in a minute on almost no fuel and stores dry for weeks |
Box 4 is the box to check. "Because it is their tradition" answers nothing. The redirect is one question: what grew there, who moved there, or what got traded there?
Part 4, the answer for each form:
- Filled dough: all three are dough sealed around filling and cooked, which makes a portable, self-contained meal that does not need a plate. What differs is the dough (wheat, wheat, wheat, but rolled thick or thin), the filling (whatever is cheap and local), and the method (fried, boiled, fried). Factors: crops and climate explain the filling, and fuel and equipment explain the method.
- Rice and beans: all three pair a grain with a legume, which together make a complete protein, both store dry for months, and both are cheap. What differs is the bean, the seasoning, and the fat (coconut milk, sofrito, pork). Factors: crops, trade, and migration.
- Flatbread: all three are flour, water, and salt cooked fast on high heat with little or no leavening, which means little fuel and no oven needed. What differs is the grain (wheat, wheat, corn, teff) and the surface (oven, griddle, clay wall). Factors: crops and climate, plus what fuel costs.
The two errors to watch for:
- "Because it is their culture" in box 4. See above.
- Writing about a dish as if it were frozen in time. Push with the tomato and chili facts: both of those plants arrived in their famous cuisines in the last five hundred years.
Scoring: the research card and the comparison page are daily work, complete, partial, or missing, with the source line required. The comparison must name two of the five factors. Objective 3 is assessed here and again on the Cooking Methods Check, item 12, and on the Unit 6 test.