Garden to Table - Celebrating with Tongan Food and other delights!

 We have been celebrating food from around the world at Garden to Table this term - from the Cook Islands and Italy to, more recently, Tonga. 

Our menu for Tongan language week was: 

- chop suey

- keke Vai (Tongan pancakes) 

- coconut cookies (Masi Samoa) 

  

We have been using all our seasonal vegetables to create lots of delicious recipes - greens to make risotto and fritters and pizza, lemons to make muffins and bliss balls and carrots to add to our ANZAC biscuits or just eat raw! 

 

We tried using a purple carrot in the ANZAC biscuits recipe instead of the usual orange carrot - it had a fascinating effect! The mixture started off purple, then went blue, after cooking it went green! 

We've also been getting through our kumara stash and collecting bean seeds!

 

 

 

 

 

Food Trip Around the World!

 Over the last few weeks we have loved watched the FIFA Soccer World Cup. 

Next month is another great international sports event -  the Commonwealth Games. 

To coincide with this the whole school has been learning about different countries around the world. 

We decided going on a FOOD TRIP around the WORLD would be a great match with this topic! 

During the first lesson we talked about our own cultures and heritage - what countries we had an association with and what foods were special to these countries. Throughout the whole school we covered many, many different countries and foods! 

These included:

• Sri Lanka - 'hoppers'

• South African - milk tart

• England - Yorkshire puddings 

• Samoa - sapasui

• Spain - chorizo sausage

Do you know what county these foods are from? 

We drew food on a plate to represent a typical meal. We tried to think about food that was linked to our own unique cultures. 

We then chose 4 different countries to research. We had to find out what their flag looked like and some food that was typical to that country. 

To finish the session we went on a 'eating trip around the world' and tried food that are famous in 4 different parts of the world. 

Can you tell which countries they were from? 

We tried pita bread, hummus, pretzels and persimmon.

Kumara Season!

This week at Garden to Table we celebrated a milestone:

harvesting the first of our kumara for the season!

David and the senior students had worked hard creating an excellent

new kumara bed, and we are hoping for a great crop this year!

Before the harvest, we said a karakia (blessing). Following tradition, the first harvest of kumara is presented to a respected elder,

and this honour was given to Mrs Hurley.

This tradition reflects practices that many Māori growers still follow:

• Begin harvest with karakia

• Respect Rongo-mā-Tāne

• Keep first-fruit traditions in some form

• Emphasise careful handling and curing

Room 5 and Room 2 have been busy the last few weeks!

Other exciting activities they have been doing include:

• The great compost bucket race! 

• Building Bliss Ball snowmen

• Eating lots of juicy greens from the garden in our veggie pasta

• Getting a good dose of Vitamin C with the first of our lemons

• Discovering carrots can be RED!