Paddock to Plate held in September 2011
Leonie Shanahan
19 Sep 11
Its hard to think past our great celebration lunch – Paddock to
Plate held in September 2011.
The school is also part of a Agriculture program and therefore we
have the pleasure of having farm animals at school as well, since
the Edible School Garden program began 12months ago I have seen
the students care for cows, sheep and of course our
chickens. All the manure from these animals and their
bedding goes into our compost or new garden beds, so nothing gets
wasted. Food scraps go into our chickens.
Meat chickens were especially raised for our Paddock to Plate
Harvest event and extra garden beds were made in full winter sun
so that we would have extra fresh organic food to compliment what
was coming out of the main Edible Garden. While chicken,
salads, herbs and vegetables were all growing beautifully it was
time to do some planning. I contacted Max Porter a local
chef from Native Sun Cruisine to see if he would be part of
our harvest celebrations and cook with the students – Max didn’t
hesitate and cherished the idea of working with young
students. Max met with the year 6 teacher Lisa James
in the gardens and chicken pen to see what would be available to
cook with on our Harvest day.
Below you will see the menu that Max Porter came up with – there
was so much excitement at the thought of eating such an extensive
menu of such quality food and we were not to be
disappointed.
On harvest day students were broken into teams, some in the
garden to harvest food, others to start preparing in our kitchen
(our tuckshop/canteen room) and many tables outside as well to
work on. Baskets of fresh organic vegetables, herbs and
salads were picked and taken to our Kitchen. Our chickens
had been butchered earlier in the week. For hours we all
worked on preparing this incredible menu, the students engrossed
in their job and seeing all this food come together. In the
breaks, teachers and students came by to see our progress and
really wanted to help us as well. We had enough students in
the kitchen but we would have food for everyone at
lunchtime.
Just before lunch, Bevan McLeod from McLeods soil conditioner
arrived with Organic oranges and pineapples for the students to
juice and cut up for lunch.
Tables were set with real tablecloths, knives, forks and spoons,
cups etc and students set about decorating it with flowers from
our garden. This was also to be a minimal waste event. The
atmosphere was set for a very special lunch. Our prize
winning cow had even arrived for the event.
At 1.30pm all students had arrived to taste our banquet of food
and the year 6s were seated at their table eager to taste the
food they had been preparing all day, and nurturing for
months. It was a very special moment. Then everyone
started to eat – there wasn’t a bad word to be said for this meal
- soups, entree, many mains and some fruits for dessert (if you
still had any room in your stomach).
Max did an incredible job with the students bringing together
this extensive menu and the students learnt so much from this
experience. As for the rest of us, especially year 6
teachers Lisa James and garden teachers Di Harris and
myself, this was the best harvest day we had ever experienced –
so much food and every student and teacher just savouring every
mouthful and the students were involved in the whole process from
egg hatching, harvest cooking and
eating.
They weren’t so keen on washing the dishes though!
Harvest Day is one of the most important days of the Edible
School Gardens program it’s not just about growing food, but
learning to cook it and to experience new foods and without a big
footprint on our earth.
Downloadable "Mary Valley College Harvest Day
Menu" PDF
Downloadable "Max's Bio" PDF
Related Article "Classroom swap with the
kitchen"
A big thank you to Di Harris Photographer, for being our
photographer for the day, you captured some great images of the
kids that day.
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