A Cookbook for Summer Reading? Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
A few years ago, I became personally enthralled with Samin Nosrat’s cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat. Then her Netflix series of the same title came out and I was equally charmed. I had been forming a unit loosely in my head around food and literature, or food and language: I hadn’t decided yet. With the support of a very open minded department head, I decided to assign Nosrat’s cookbook as my summer reading for my IB Language and Literature SL class as they transitioned from Year 1 to Year 2. When I first told them, I do think they thought I was a bit crazy.
I really wanted a genuinely non-literary text that had a very practical function yet also possessed an artistry that we could explore and enjoy together. The book is not only full of extremely useful cooking information but also humor, grace, and gorgeous illustrations. It became the launching point for a 5-week unit where we explored a variety of mostly non-literary texts (the post where these are listed is linked below).
In order to encourage the students to put their new cooking knowledge to use, I coupled the reading of the cookbook with blogging or vlogging about three cooking or dining experiences over the summer. I was thrilled to hear about their culinary adventures, victories, and even failures when we reunited in August.
The unit culminated in a Socratic seminar asking students to dive into difficult questions about the line between cultural appreciation and appropriation, where the food industry may be complicit in cultural biases or racism, and how our school community can do better to appreciate all cultures, their food included.
Assessment Resources
Image by Дарья Яковлева from Pixabay