TEACHING TO EMPOWER

• Our goal in every lesson of this Debate Plate lesson series is to support our students’ development as critical, informed, and self-reflective eaters. We want to inspire in them a sense of empowerment around the potential impacts of their food choices.
• We make every effort to avoid framing our discussions in ways that could shame or overwhelm them. We want to recognize and honor the areas in which our students have agency over their food choices, as well as the areas they don’t have agency or don’t have agency yet.

VISUAL AID 

• All the components of the "How Much Water Made My Frittata?" visual aid are drawings that we laminated and attached to the poster with a piece of tape on the back.
• We interact with the visual aid in the Chef Meeting almost like a game show. When students arrive, the image of the frittata is in the center with the ingredients in a circle around it. The different water amounts are jumbled up and attached to the sides of the visual aid. During the Chef Meeting, we ask for students to match the ingredients to their corresponding water amounts.
• We always start by prompting students to consider the two largest water amounts and ask which two ingredients they think they correspond to and why (cheese and eggs). This helps them to understand that animal products are more water-intensive to produce than vegetable products.
• From there, sometimes we prompt more guessing, and sometimes we just match the amounts for them. Sometimes we’ll also start the lesson with a couple matched to give them some reference points. At the end, we reveal the total amount of water in one frittata and hold up the cast-iron skillet we’ll be using to cook it in so they can get a sense of the size.
• We find that having an interactive board is a great way to garner student interest, and makes a lasting impression on students. One of the major takeaways at the end of the week for many students is how much water it takes to grow food.

RECIPE NOTES 

• What’s a frittata? For students who are unfamiliar with frittatas, we describe them as a baked omelette, or like a quiche without crust.
• Eggs: The Frittata recipe calls for 8 to 20 eggs. When making this recipe with a class, we always use eight eggs because that way it cooks a little bit faster.
• Cheese inside and on top: We encourage students to put some of the cheese in the egg mixture and reserve some to sprinkle on top before putting the frittata in the oven.
• Cracking an egg: We like to demonstrate how to crack an egg while the students are working. Most students know how, but for the few who are unfamiliar with the skill, it can feel embarrassing and vulnerable to admit that to their group-mates.
• Raw egg: Show students how to work next to the compost bucket while cracking the eggs so they don’t drip raw egg everywhere.
• Eggs and cheese: Some students can be hesitant about the combination at first, but even those who profess to hate eggs and cheese together tend to love the frittata.
• Cooking rates: The recipe says to add the vegetables and herbs at the same time, but this is a good lesson to prompt students to recall the idea of cooking rates and add them to the pan at different times (aromatics, then crunchy, then leafy).
• Onions: We used bulb onion for this lesson, but when making frittata with sixth graders we often use spring onions instead because it is less irritating to the eyes.
• Salad dressing: Because there are so many options for dressing, this is an excellent opportunity to encourage students to really use their senses as their guide. We like to show students how to put a little bit of vinegar on their palm to taste so that they can compare the flavors of different vinegars. We also show them how to use a piece of lettuce to dip into the dressing as they work so they can get a better sense of how the dressing will taste on the salad without creating more dirty dishes.
• Toasted seeds: Toasted pepitas or sunflower seeds are super popular to snack on and include in salad
• Allergies: For students who are allergic to dairy, we reserve all the cheese to sprinkle on top and leave a piece of the frittata cheese-free. For students who are allergic to eggs, we always provide an alternative such as fruit, cheese, or toast.
• Browning: This lesson is a good opportunity to show students how a little bit of browning on the bottom of the pan can add a lot of flavor.
• Herbs: We use a variety of herbs in this lesson so that students can taste them and choose which to include in their frittata. Encourage students to use all their senses when choosing the herbs.
• Testing for doneness: You know the frittata is done when the egg looks solid and doesn’t shake when you shake the pan.

OTHER NOTES 

• Hot sauce and culture: We made multiple hot sauces available to our students during this lesson (Crystal, Tapatío, Cholula, Sriracha). Students often identified very strongly with one or two hot sauces and were very happy to see their own hot sauce because it was an opportunity for them to see their culture represented in the space.
• Fairness: Sometimes students become anxious when we start cutting the frittata for serving. We find it helps to name that you’re trying to slice the frittata as evenly as you can and that it is very difficult to make it perfect, so please be understanding of that.
• Frittata for everyone: This year we made frittatas with the sixth and eighth graders. With the sixth graders, we made the lesson more simple by cooking just the frittata without the salad.
• Table discussion: We’ve found the best conversations around this topic happen when we ask about people students know who have specific practices or habits around waste. Almost every student will have a story about at least one person in their life who hates to waste something—whether it is food, water, clothes, or other things.