November 22, 2006--KONOS activity

I am trying to stay out of the kitchen. My kids are doing a KONOS activity in there for school.

This is the activity they are doing:

Corn was the main grain in the Pilgrim's diet. One man said, "My bones are made of corn" because he had eaten so much corn. Eat corn as your mainstay for a week. What can you cook with corn and how many variations can you create? Remember, you do not have eggs, milk, wheat flour, sugar, etc. You have salt, salt pork, water, fat, molasses, beans, squash, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes. Don't consult any cookbooks. Let your children discover ways to cook the corn and cornmeal--boil, bake, fry, fresh, pop, ectc. Let them experiment in the kitchen. "Are too cups of salt too much in the corn mush?" Try it and see. You can bet that mistake won't be made again!
Well, we aren't going to it for a week by any means, and I didn't let them cook with beans and squash, etc., but I am letting them make their own recipes with corn meal and molasses and oil and salt. So far they've made corn meal pudding, corn meal pancakes, and corn meal muffins. They are now trying to clean up the kitchen. It's been interesting, to say the least. I hope they didn't use all of my corn meal and molasses. They actually liked the pancakes they made, and ate them with maple syrup without my knowledge or consent. I didn't try any. The muffins have an odd texture--they used yeast in them. I didn't tell them they could have yeast, either.

I remember doing one of those "experiment in the kitchen" KONOS activites growing up. It was about the Congo, I think. I remember adding food coloring to everything and Mom telling me that I wasn't supposed to have done that.