Lesson Plan on Soul Food

(Note: Before administering this lesson the teacher needs to make sure that not one student in the class is allergic to peanuts in any way.)

 

Standard:

            K.1.1   Pose information questions; collect data; and record the results using                                    objects, pictures and picture graphs.

 

            K.2.5   Ask and answer question about essential elements of texts.

 

            K.6      Students understand that history relates to events, people, and places of  other times

Materials:

            Cooked Black-eyed Peas

            Dry Black-eyed Peas

            Peanuts

            Coffee Beans

            Chart Paper

            Glue

            Post-its

            Map of Continents

 Anticipatory Set:

-Teacher will call class to the carpet. Teacher asks students; “Does anyone know

what Black-eyed peas are? Coffee beans? And Peanuts?” Teacher will allow students to contribute to classroom discussion. Teacher should accept all answers.

-The class has a grand conversation on what they think black-eyed peas, coffee beans and peanuts are.

-Teacher then has the students taste a black-eyed pea, a coffee bean and a peanut. 

-Students make a graph. Each student puts a post-it by what they liked more; black-eyed pea, coffee bean or peanut. Class can talk about why they liked it and what the graph tells the class.

Objectives:

            Concept objective:

To help students recognize African and African American Contributions to American food culture.

            Skill objectives:

To build on the students oral language skills, math skills and knowledge of world geography.

Instructional Input:

            Introduce vocabulary:

1-Peanut: \Pea"nut\, n. (Bot.) The fruit of a trailing leguminous plant (Arachis hypog[ae]a);
       also, the plant itself, which is widely cultivated  for its fruit.

2-Black-eyed pea: Cowpeas: n 1: fruit or seed of the cowpea plant [syn:
       cowpea] eaten fresh as shell beans or dried [syn: cowpea]     

3-Coffee bean: \Cof"fee\, n. [Turk. qahveh, Ar. qahuah wine, offee, a decoction   of berries. Cf. Caf['e].]                                            1. The ``beans'' or  ``berries'' (pyrenes) obtained from the drupes of a small   
                                           evergreen tree of the genus  

                                            2. The coffee tree.

            Teacher will explain where they came from;

1-Peanuts: Peanuts came to North America by way of Africa, having been  transplanted there from the Portuguese and Spanish colonies in South America. The peanut is known by several names including groundnut,  earthnut and ground peas. Two other words of African origin for peanuts are pinder and goober. Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington called peanuts "peendar" and "Pindars" (1794, 1798), while the word  goober was used principally in the 19th century. Union soldiers fighting  on southern soil during the Civil War found southern peanuts both tasty   and filling. The Civil War song "Eating Goober Peas" was a popular ditty sung by Union soldiers, and, when the song was published its lyrics and  music, were attributed to the fictitious team of "A. Pindar" and P. Nutt."

 Peanut Oil: First introduced by enslaved Africans in the American South, especially in deep-fat frying, a cooking style that originated in western and central Africa  Enslaved Africans used the peanut to make peanut pie and peanut soup.  Often times, it was boiled in salt and spices, and consumed as a soggy,  strong tasting but good source of nutrition. Community "peanut boiling"    were common neighborhood events, and the practice of feeding pigs   massive amounts of peanuts to fatten them for show or sale was known as "hogging off."

 2-Black-eyed pea: Black-eyed peas, which are actually beans, also were used as food on the slave voyages, and enslaved Africans in the Caribbean  thereafter consumed these easily cultivated beans as a basic food. Sources  indicate that peas reached Florida around 1700 and then appeared in the fields and on the tables of whites and blacks in North Carolina in the  1730s. Although Virginians cultivated black-eyed peas in the 1600s, they  did not become common table food until after the American Revolution. George Washington wrote in a 1791 letter that "pease" (black-eyed peas)  were rarely grown in Virginia. He then brought 40 bushels of seeds for  planting on his plantation in 1792, referring to them as "cornfield peas,"  planted typically between the rows of field corn. Black-eyed peas were also called "cowpeas," because cows were allowed to eat their stems and   vines in the fields after the corn crops had been picked. Southerners liked  to boil greens and peas of the black-eyed type with strips of salted pork.

 3-Coffee bean: Coffee was first cultivated in Yemen, but the Arabica tree originated across the Red Sea in Ethiopia, on the mountain plateaus where tribes people still harvest the wild berries. Ethiopian coffees are now among the worlds most varied and distinctive, and at least one,Yirgacheffe, ranks among the best.

The Harrar coffees are the most widely available of fancy Ethiopian coffees. They are grown on small peasant plots and farms in the Eastern  part of the country near the old capital of Harrar, at about 5,000 to 6,000 feet. You may see these coffees called long berry Harrar (large bean), short berry Harrar (smaller bean), or Mocha Harrar (pea berry, or single bean). The Harrar may become Harari, Harer, or Harar. In Great Britain, Harrar is sold as Mocha, adding to the confusion surrounding that abused term. Some retailers cover both bases by calling this coffee Mocha Harrar.  Like Yemen Mocha, Harrar is a "handmade" coffee, processed carefullyby the traditional dry method. It is grown on such a small scale and by such simple methods that it is almost certainly free of chemicals, and like Yemen Mocha a good choice for those who wish a traditional organically grown coffee

Although Kenya is only a few hundred miles south of Ethiopia andYemen, coffee growing came late here. The native Kenyans have taken up what the British started, and made their coffee industry even more modern  and efficient than the Colombian. The coffee is raised both on small  peasant plots and on larger plantations.

 

Modeling:

-Teacher shows the students a map of the continent Africa and North America.

-Teacher tells students that we live in North America.

-Teacher reiterates that black-eyes-bean, coffee beans and peanuts came from

Africa.

-Teacher demonstrates to the students to glue the beans and nuts on the

appropriate content (where they came from) and draw arrows to where they went. (Teacher glues the beans and nut on the continent of African and draws arrow to North America)

 

Checking for Understanding:

-Teacher has students go to there seats and complete the map by themselves. The

students are to glue the beans and nuts to the appropriate content (Africa) and then draw arrows to North America to represent that they originated from Africa.