Getting Creative with Auntie Oye!

Written by Intern Jessica Hulse-Dillon

After six months of teaching Brainfood students how to chop, measure, and serve to one another, we decided they were ready for a new challenge: a guest chef!  Last week Auntie Oye came to class to help our students learn how to make West African food. Recipes included Fufu, a smashed plantain dish, Jollof rice, a traditional dish with tomatoes and vegetables, and Egusi stew, with chicken, goat, and smoked fish.

This class was new and exciting for our students. Instead of splitting them into groups

and assigning specific recipes, they all worked as one unit, completing tasks as needed to make the dishes.  It was absolutely amazing to see them all take a minute or two to adjust to the structure for the day and then begin to ask for more and more to do.  They even volunteered to do the dishes!  One student who was familiar with the West African dishes took on teaching her classmates how to make the Fufu, as she makes it with her family every week.

Watching the students interact with Auntie Oye was so much fun. She would ask one of them to do a task, like blanch some veggies, their first step was to ask her what that meant, and seconds later they realized they knew exactly how to do it and off they went!

It was a new experience for them as the recipes we used were only followed loosely. Instead of our usual measuring and lining up of ingredients precisely, they added ingredients when Auntie Oye told them to, and they got creative with omitting ingredients we did not have and substituting what we did.

I am so excited to see the rest of the year continue with the students being willing and enthusiastic to experiment with recipes, tweak them, and make them all their own!