One day after the rains had passed and I was able to take off my thick layers and take a walk, I met a group of young children on a walk with their day care helper who were delivering pamphlets.
It was a notice about their day care center's bake sale. A bake sale is when a group of people bake cakes and cookies and so on, and in the case of school children, use the monies raised to buy books or something for their school.
I myself have taken part in a bake sale to raise money for my department at university but I was surprised to see children so young starting this and one day I decided to visit the day care centre in my neighborhood.
The class was full of 5 year olds all sitting at tiny tables kneading something that didn't look like clay. It was cookie dough. The children had made it themselves!
They are overseen by their teacher while they mix the butter and a small amount of sugar and then the flour. Children love to knead. But not clay! Not pottery. Once baked they are real, delicious cookies!
After kneading, and while covered in flour they would grab a handful of dough, shape it and place in on a tray. The typical American cookie has a high proportion of butter, sugar and flour and the dough ends up very soft - usually not able to be cut with cookie cutters, in fact they are not able to be cut with cookie cutters!
The teacher places the cookies in the oven. They are not allowed to use sharp objects and the ovens are covered so that they are not hot to the touch. The children even work hard to clean up.
And in the middle of all the sweet smells of the baking cookies, the children play and draw pictures. Once the cookies are baked a few disappear into the children's stomachs, with the rest to be sold at the bake sale. The monies raised will be spent on new coloring pens and books as well as toys.
What the children learn is not just labor and rewards, they learn how to make nature's treasures into delicious things with their own hands, and translate that into energy once they eat them. Cooking reminds me of contentment, just like those children's happiness.
|
Back to Top