What is the edible school?

The edible school is a non-profit association, which aims to bring food education into classes. It is a philosophy as much as an educational project that allows children to learn to eat better. Besides that, we have an almost lobbyist action, to establish best practices in school canteens, jointly with associations that are already working on these issues.

How did the idea germinate? 

The more I avoided in my work as a culinary journalist, the more I realized that it interested me less and less to speak only of the content of the plates; We had to link what you eat with its provenance. This reflection coincided with an inventory, that of a food crisis and a climate crisis which for me are linked. So I asked myself the question of how, at my level, with what I can do-that is to say write, transmit and cook-I could change the situation.

Thinking about it, we always fall back on education. If some adults eat badly, it is certainly due to a problem of means, but it is also a question of education. People no longer know where their food comes from, how it grows, how it turns and how to do something good, healthy, and completely affordable with raw products (especially vegetables). It is therefore necessary to reinstate edible education, and from an early age. 

I must also mention the great influence of the American chef Alice Waters, who is a friend of my family, my godmother and the godmother of the association, and who set up the Edible Schoolyard Project 20 years ago - literally the edible school courtyard - an educational vegetable garden project with adjoining cuisine, within a Californian school.  The goal is to invite teachers and students to contribute to the sustainability of this garden but also to weave their teachings around it. I wanted to do something to an extension of these ideas, adapting it to the French centralized system. 

What is the functioning of the edible school? 

We want to spread food education from earth to belly, adapting it to the needs of children, the conditions of the French system and the urban constraints of our country.  To do this, we imagined an almost organic deployment, which develops as a plant disseminating its seeds. 

We develop educational tools and sheets organized in themes, which constitute the primary and secondary programs, that is to say that certain workshops will be compulsory when others are complementary. 

Besides, we have deployed a societal approach methodology to support project leaders: who first tackle, how to contact elected officials, how to diagnose the needs of the school and those of teachers, those of parents, etc. We must also be able to understand its local territory and soil, identify the craftsmen, producers and other associations that could intervene. 

Who can be a project carrier? 

Project leaders can be school directors, teachers, parents, even cooks who want to spread the idea. We are in a logic of support, that is to say that if this person wants to do everything on your own we let him do it, if there is a need to find additional volunteers, contacts or other means, we are there! 

The goal is that everyone can be independent, because we are very ambitious and want to reach as many children as possible and be present in all schools in France. This must be transmitted from individuals to individuals, groups in a group, from locality to locality, thanks to a pedagogy that makes you want and allows better possible dissemination of the project. 

What does programs look like? 

We built a complete program of 36 workshops, one workshop per week over a school year. The idea is not to do them all, and it can also be distributed over several years or cycles. It is possible to draw what you want, as long as there is an educational progression and that all the modules are discussed: discoveries of the senses and products, vegetable garden, cooking, meetings with craftsmen and producers, then slightly more theoretical knowledge for older children.

You can choose to simply do six workshops, as Justine did, a member of our board of directors who carried the project in her daughter's class. The children notably made a "cagette workshop", where one of our partners - the peasant grocery store Le Zingam - came with a seasonal crate and told the history of vegetables. The children then cooked with Giovanni Passerini, they also made faisses with a Parisian cheese maker, and finally visited the Aligre market where they managed to identify almost all the vegetables !!! Four weeks before, they had no idea ... Proof of what these small seeds planted are super fertile!

The other strong point is that through these workshops we can unroll a lot of things that are already in school programs. When you meet an open -minded teacher, that's what's going on. Example with Valérie, a mistress of large kindergarten section. She woven all her educational project around our workshops, extrapolated and built her lessons according to the workshops. It could range from food drawings to writing ingredients, up to pollination lessons because we talked about honey before. 

What has surprised you the most since the start of this adventure?

We have seen an incredible evolution in children. They were excited about the idea of ​​finding us, showed great curiosity and great concentration; They were patiently waiting to put their hands in the dough, to do tastings, etc.  These discoveries were then brought home, so that children can teach their parents to make pestos and not throw the tops. 

In the best of worlds, what does the school of the future look like? 

In the best of worlds, in 20 years the national education has noticed what we were doing. We came to type at their door; Teachers, school directors, inspectors told them about our actions. We are approved by academies of various regions and therefore recognized by national education.

Ideally all of the elements that are proposed are implemented in the programs, otherwise, we want teachers, from kindergarten to high school, have the obligation to include food education in programs! 

Whether it is done with the values ​​we carry, which are those of food and agriculture that do good to men and earth. Who teaches children to take care of themselves, but also others and their environment. Loking food education for all these values ​​is a real ethical message, because it is these children who will make the future. You have to give them arms to create a world standing standing and where they can be happy and healthy. 

A souvenir in jar? 

Magnificent beans, bought on a producer market in Berkeley, the city where Alice Waters lives and where I was born. I gave one to my daughter, who was five years old at the time. She sowed her, took care of it, until he was tall like her, gives nine beans and exclaims "mom is fantastic life". She understood everything with a single seed. A beautiful illustration of the importance of learning through practice, however simple it is. The rest of the beans, I kept them in a jar Le Parfait, Like all my seeds! This is what preserves them best and then it is beautiful to see, this collection, through the glass.