morgan schatz blackrose

Danger Food: Protecting our Kids from the Bad Whiteys

Baked or Boiled: Innovating Food Traditions

When I was a kid we had rice two different ways. Baked or Boiled. Both were desserts.
To make baked rice, a cup of rice and a cup of sugar were put in a particular pudding dish. The same one was always used. Milk was then poured into the dish until it was three quarters full and then a fork was used to mix the ingredients. After that lashings of nutmeg were sprinkled over the top and it was placed in a moderate oven to cook. An hour or so later it was removed and left to cool. Straight after the main meal it was spooned into individual bowls and served up as pudding, usually with preserved peaches as an accompaniment. (Dessert wasn't a word that was used in our household. It was always pudding, even if the dessert was not a pudding as such.) The nutmeg formed a flaky, dark covering and added nothing to the pudding's appearance or taste. I believe it's primary purpose was to keep the top of the rice from drying out.
The latter rice dish was literally named. Boiled rice. When cooked it was served individually, with the requisite preserved peaches, and the desired amount of sugar and milk was added.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered that rice could be a savoury food. An excursion to a Chinese restaurant where I discovered fried rice, was the beginning of my food education. Although this mainly occurred after I left home, there were some exceptions.
I was eleven when a cousin from the city came to stay with us and she cooked spaghetti bolognese. Up until this time I believed that spaghetti came from a can and you ate it on toast. But she had a packet of spaghetti, which was long, hard and dry which she cooked in boiling water. It was nothing like the spaghetti in a can. It wasn't until after I left home that I learned about the many varieties of pasta.
In the first few years of living in the city, I learned many things about food and its preparation. Some of these insights I have listed here:
There are more herbs than parsley and mint, and parsley can be more than a garnish. Tabbouleh being the embodiment of this discovery.
There are more than two types of salad; coleslaw and the layered iceberg lettuce salad with boiled eggs, grated cheese and carrots and tomatoes.
Boiling vegetable into submission or baking them to a crisp are not the only ways of cooking them, in fact they're the least desirable ways of preparing vegetables.
Meat does not have to be served at every meal, or indeed any meal. There are people who are vegetarians!
There are alternatives to cooking with lard or rendered down fat, that are much healthier for your body.
Capsicums and chillies exist. Just because I hadn't seen them didn't mean they weren't there.
Pineapples and bananas aren't the only tropical fruits.
Baked beans and green beans aren't the only beans.
Garlic is not a sausage, like devon, but a vegetable that you can add to nearly any savoury meal.

When I see the shows on television about traditional recipes being handed on from one generation to another I am heartened, particularly in view of the globalisation of food (please read westernization and fast food invasion). I applaud all attempts to preserve cultural food traditions, which fulfil many functions, including the promotion of better health outcomes to communities. But are my family's food traditions worth championing? What have I embraced and what have I rejected as an adult feeding my own family?
My father knew the rudiments of cooking as he had been a bachelor until marrying my mother in his mid thirties. My mother was a nurse and many of her meals were cooked for her, as she lived in nursing home quarters and was used to institutionalised food. When they married, my mother did most of the cooking, although my father usually cooked his own breakfast; invariably meat, eggs, leftover vegetables, toast and tea. They were sheep farmers so 'grew' their own meat. They also had fruit trees and a garden on their farm. After their move to the outskirts of town when I was a teenager, they no longer grew their own fruit and vegetables and were much more dependant on grocery shopping.
The major difference between my family of origin's food traditions and my own family, is the actual food that is eaten.
We are still eating three meals a day with mid morning and mid afternoon snacks (what my parent's called morning and afternoon tea) and my husband and I both cook, although the number of meals cooked is more evenly weighted than my parents. We sit down at the kitchen table as a family to eat, as they did, and like them we don't buy take-away food, and rarely buy processed food.
But what are we eating?
Whereas my family of origin ate meat three times a day, we would probably eat meat three to four times a week. We have rice every day and cook with garlic, chillies and herbs. We often eat with chopsticks and alternate between presenting meals where people serve themselves, or whoever cooks serves. We cook food from different cultures and we enjoy feeding ourselves.
There is often a nostalgia for the food of our childhoods, because of what it represented. Today I indulged myself in cooking for my daughter and her friend my version of Baked Rice. For a start I didn't bake it. I put the rice in the rice cooker, with significantly less sugar than my mother would have used, milk, coconut milk and cinnamon. When it was cooked, I chopped up fresh strawberries and put them on top and voila. They ate it voraciously. Getting kids to eat is always a success. Getting them to eat well is the sweetest success.
I was surprised to realise that I have incorporated many of my parents' rituals around the consumption of food into my own life. Although we have completely different lifestyles from our parents, my husband and I have managed to take the best of what they had to offer, and integrate it into the way we feed our family. We didn't throw the baby out with the bath water.
We are innovating our family food traditions to suit both our lifestyle and the communities we live in. Our generation has more knowledge and resources about healthy eating and food production, than our parents did. Yet, for the first time in history we are faced with the global issues of diet related disease and famine, existing side by side.
We need to be passing on to our children much more than our favourite family recipes. They need to know about principled food production, best farming practices, environmental sustainability, optimum nutrition and how to be a conscientious consumer. In short, a family recipe for food ethics.

Photograph by Roman W. Schatz

Remember Troy Davis

Last night I didn't sleep very well. Was it because I was still thinking about the murder of Troy Davis by the State, or was it the moth that kept flying up against the window and making a sound as it's body hit the glass?
The moth has gone this morning and so has Troy Davis. But the memories of both are still present. The moth, through it's intermittent attempts to escape was able to disturb my sleep. Had it been tireless in it's pursuit of freedom, I may have been stirred to action and assisted it.
The plight of Troy Davis stirred many people to action to save his life. They banged relentlessly on the window, and the oxymoronically named 'justice system' was disturbed, but not enough to get up and open the window.
So what have I learned in the light of a new day? The most powerless of creatures can effect change; even if it only takes the form of making others aware of it's presence and keeping them awake. Troy Davis's death was not in vain. Supporters from all over the world rallied to demand his reprieve and even thought they were not successful, they will not go away. More and more will bang on the window until it is either opened or smashed. Either way the United States must abolish capital punishment for the most reprehensible, draconian expression of moral absolutism that it is.

How many adults have yelled at you today? Be Kind to Kids

I am not the perfect parent: they are a myth, and a good thing to. Fancy being the child of someone who was 'perfection embodied.' The expectations to emulate them would be enough to drive that kid to act out all over the place. So my kids have been extremely lucky to have such a flawed person as myself, to be their parent. One of these not so fatal flaws, which I'm sure my neighbours can testify to, is that I'm a yeller. If I wanted my kids to come inside, and they were within a hundred metre radius, they'd hear me. And arguments, particularly with my youngest who is also a yeller, they'd hear those too.

But what happens when I'm with quiet people. Am I still loud? I am strongly influenced by my environment and who I share it with. My private life and public life are different.

In my public life I am a storyteller, and work in classrooms, community venues and public spaces with intimate through to assembly sized audiences. I may be giving a concert, speaking with a child or teaching a rhyme to parents and teachers. I am acutely aware of the composition of my audience and the appropriateness of my presentation style. Loud noises and voices can frighten very young children. A level of trust must be established in the relationship between myself and my audience. I am not going to belittle, betray or berate them. As the storyteller or workshop presenter, I am in a powerful position and do not want to abuse that power through an imposing yell. Instead, I want to raise up my audience so that they feel empowered.

So what do I do when I see other professionals in their capacity as teachers yelling at kids?
The other day I was at a school with a class, first thing in the morning. The substitute teacher, who knew the kids, began by raising her voice loudly to say that she would be watching their behaviour, while the storytelling was happening. This soon escalated into a yell as one of the kids had not followed her direction to turn around and he was sent out of the classroom. I popped my head out the door to ask the boy if he would come back in as I knew he liked the stories, but he refused and remained there. I began storytelling and he, outside the door near the window looked in, and listened to the best of his ability.

It's not the first time I have been in a classroom and watched while a teacher yelled at the kids and then witnessed particular children being told to leave the room. And each time I thought, 'you need to hear the story I'm going to tell.' As I'm a guest, I don't have much right to intervene, and I'm conscious of not undermining a teacher's 'authority.' Although I think they've usually lost it when they start yelling at the kids. I also don't want to be seen as colluding in either the child's 'bad behaviour' or the teacher's negative response to it. But I do look at the kids being yelled at and wonder how many adults will yell at you today?

It is unfortunate that some teachers, for whatever reason, yell at their students. And if the kids yell back at them, then they are being rude and punished as a consequence. The word 'punishment' is rarely used in school communities, who adopt 'consequence' as the preferred term. Although conceptually different, I wonder whether the recipients of the 'consequence' perceive it as punishment? I believe there is no room for punishment, or the three B's (belittling, betraying or berating) in a learning environment.

As to exclusion, there is really only one valid reason to exclude a child from the classroom; protection. The child is excluded from a class to protect them from verbal or physical violence that could be inflicted upon them, or because he or she will inflict it on others.

If a child is a disruptive influence in the classroom, then this is a signal for some outside of class counselling. It is extremely difficult for a teacher to attend to the needs of every child particularly in overcrowded classrooms, and sometimes they perceive the exclusion of one or two 'troublemakers' as the easiest way to achieve an effective learning environment. However the kids that are routinely excluded from the classroom are often the kids most in need of positive role models, mentoring, learning support and love.

Of course all children deserve to have their lives blessed with adults who freely give these qualities. But for some children they don't get much at home or at school. While it is not the responsibility of teachers to fix the home life of a child, and there are teachers who give of their own time and resources beyond school time to improve the lives of their students, it is incumbent on them to be kind.

Really that's what it comes down to. Be kind to kids. Kindness doesn't raise your blood pressure, or alert the classrooms either side of you that you are angry with your students. (I've yet to hear a teacher yelling praise and encouragement to students, outside of the sports field). Yelling is an expression of anger, exasperation or power. Yelling abuse is a whole other issue and it goes without saying that verbal abuse enacted by either children or adults should not be condoned.

Here's a tip on how to not yell in the classroom: When you wish to express anger, disappointment or frustration with the behaviour of a student, address them as you would your colleague, another teacher. Communicate your feelings and information in a respectful and controlled way. Listen to their response and thank them for their participation in the conversation. If you feel that you will explode if you don't yell, then remove yourself from the classroom and get a punching bag for the staffroom.

I know that working with kids can be the most demanding and simultaneously rewarding work that anyone can do. Each time I am challenged by a child's behaviour I thank them for inspiring me to become a better human being. I've always believed that they will teach me more than I can ever impart to them. Next time you feel compelled to yell at kids, make it a yell of praise and affirmation.

©morgan schatz blackrose 2011

Photo By Roman W Schatz

An unfinished simile

I have been accused of being a fuddy duddy when it comes to my concerns about the contemporary use of the English language by Australians. But I can't help it. When I hear a young person say cool as... I have to respond. A cucumber. And in turn they look at me perplexed, and I explain; finish your similes.
Of course they could be assuming that I am one of those people who finish other people's sentences, but I'm not. I have enough trouble finishing my own. Word retrieval can be a problem for me in some conversations, and perhaps that's the issue here. Unfortunately its reached epidemic proportions in the under 30's with their hot as... thick as... quick as... silly as... sick as... Do they know the traditional endings to these similes? Hades, a brick, lightning, a wheel, a dog. (I have included them for those who want the satisfaction of simile completion) Even if they don't, there's nothing to stop them creating their own. But to consistently leave them hanging there for the listener to fill in the dots is not an example of being laconic or adapting language to suit a specific purpose; its apathy. People who don't finish their similes don't care about choosing the right words to express their meaning. This trend is an indicator of a limited vocabulary.
Generally speaking our vocabulary increases throughout our lives, most significantly from our early months through to early teens. As well as becoming familiar with existing words in the English language, new words are also being created and we incorporate them in our speech; language is not static. A prime example are those that express the functions and relationship we have with internet technology. As widespread users of internet technology young people embrace vocabulary expansion in this field to suit their purpose. The language of texting is an example of adapting language in this way.
However, many internet technology words are just given an additional meaning i.e. mouse (signifying both an animal and a computer component). It is the meaning of the words that change. This is also the case for other words in popular use in the English language. A prime example is the word 'gay'. This was once a word to sing about. Firstly by a generation of people who were happy, followed by a generation of people who were homosexual, but now young people use the term 'gay' as an insult. If something is 'gay' it is stupid.
Historically it is not a new phenomenon for words to change their meaning. But is the penchant for verbifying a new one? When you take a perfectly good noun and cast it as a verb; I'll action that. We gifted them. What's wrong with take action or give a gift? Too many words perhaps? Delete the existing verb and transform the noun into one. Who ideaed this? I know that there are words that are both nouns and verbs, depending on their context, for example 'run,' but I can't help but see the above words as pretentious. Perhaps I have only ever heard them spoken by middle managers in office jobs, not young people per se.
Continuing my concern about shrinking vocabularies, what follows after the void of the unfinished simile and the deletion of extraneous verbs is the overuse of particular words. This ultimately leads to their disempowerment. When I was a kid, we had a teacher who used to put overused words in 'cages,' so we weren't allowed to use them when writing or speaking in class. The two I remember were 'got' and 'nice.'
I think that English language's greatest expletive and it's conjugations should be in a cage. Not because 'fuck' is a 'bad' word. It's a word that has been so overused that it is at risk of being meaningless. How has this come to be? Quite simply a lack of vocabulary in the speaker. Fuck, fucked and fucking have become generic descriptions for just about anything. I lament the fact that they are no longer superlatives.
So come Saturday morning when my daughter sits down to breakfast and says fuck it's cold as... I will respond as any mother who cares about expanding her daughter's vocabulary would. I will take action. I will say ice. It's cold as ice, and then I will give her the Thesaurus to look for some more appropriate exclamations. Then I will tell her that in the old days parents would punish swearing children by washing their mouth's out with soap. And when she tells me that's gay. I'll respond by saying, no that's draconian. And when she says what's that? I'll explain the origins of the term. And when she says that she still thinks its gay, I'll say, who gives a... fig?