One of my all-time favorite things to find at thrift stores are vintage cookbooks. Although I love the recipes themselves (I've found some really delicious cookie recipes in vintage cookbooks), what I really love about vintage cookbooks are the photographs. Let's look at a few photographs from my most recent cookbook find,
Joys of Jell-O, so you can see why vintage food photographs are so amazing.
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| Delicious Jell-O Desserts |
The picture above, from the
Tips and Tricks section of the cookbook, features some of the prettiest Jell-O I've ever seen in my life. As a hostess, I would be proud to serve these desserts. As a guest, I would be stoked to eat one. I mean, come on! The one on the top left with the chopped strawberries looks too pretty to even eat!
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| Disgusting Jell-O Salads |
Let's look at our next picture, from the
Salads section of the cookbook. Apparently, vintage chefs put substances into Jell-O that should never have been gelatinized. Would you like some shrimp with your Jell-O? How about some vegetables?
A vintage cookbook, or even just a few pictures from the cookbook, would be a great way to introduce the topic of food into the ESL/EFL classroom. More specifically, it could introduce the idea of what is
appetizing. Students could discuss what makes something appetizing, such as the ingredients used in the recipe and its presentation, versus what makes something unappetizing, which could again involve the ingredients used and presentation. Since food is very cultural, and the idea of what is appetizing can very by culture, this topic would be a great way to encourage an exchange of cultural information in the classroom. The culmination of this class could be a potluck in which students make appetizing foods from their homelands for their classmates. This would be a great way for students to share their cuisine and culture, while also learning about the cuisines and cultures of their peers. Brave students could even choose to bring unappetizing foods from their homelands, but they would do so at the risk of having a lot of leftovers to take home with them after class.
I love your posts! I love vintage things, even if it's just a picture of it. Very cool!
ReplyDeleteHey! I like your idea of using vintage cookbooks in the ESL/EFL classroom. Especially visual learners will enjoy looking at the colorful pictures inside the books and at the same time they can expand their vocabulary knowledge. As a warm-up activity/icebreaker students could look at the title/ cover of a vintage cookbook and do a brainstorming activity on the board. Another meaningful activity would be to tell your students that they are going to create their own cookbook based on their most favorite dish.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys! Katharina, I love the idea of making a cookbook based on their favorite dish! That would be a really cool and creative way for students to share their own cultures and what they value in the classroom.
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