FUN FRENCH CREATIONS
Boys serve up sophisticated dishes that would surprise many adults, teacher says
A hand mixer whirrs at one table as children butter madeleine pans, roll pastry and pipe langues de chat (cat tongue cookies) at three others.
Microscopes, beakers, petri dishes, scales and biology books line the shelves. Baking sheets and mixing bowls share counter space with gas valves in this science lab/ kitchen at a private boys’ school in Toronto.
For nearly a decade, French teacher and author Mardi Michels has been leading Les Petits Chefs cooking club at Royal St. George’s College.
Twice a week, boys aged 7 to 14 don aprons in the converted lab and make food that most adults would be proud to produce. The day I attended, 12 boys made four mini desserts in just over an hour: jam tarts, madeleines, langues de chat and coeur à la crème. The selection of traditional French sweets was a lesson in café gourmand, mignardises or petits fours typically served with espresso.
As they worked together, measuring, folding and separating eggs, one thing was abundantly clear. Kids can cook. And they can cook far more sophisticated dishes than many adults give them credit for. “It’s great eating the food that you cook. You can really appreciate it when you take your time and effort to make food, and it’s nice and fresh and healthy,” says 13-yearold Sam Case, who has been part of the cooking club for six years. “I like that we get to take home what we make. And we get the recipes, too, so we can make whatever we made at home,” adds Aidan Arabzadeh, 10. “Eating the food that we make (is my favourite thing about cooking).” Depending on the focus of the week or the expertise of guest chefs, Michels’ club could be a lesson in sustainable seafood, homemade pasta, Persian cuisine or French food culture.
The boys share tasks, provide feedback (“This smells delicious! Who made this?”) and apply creative problem solving (in making the café gourmand, inadvertently browned butter became “brown butter madeleines”). “What you’re teaching them isn’t just how to make a recipe. Cooking is a life skill but (it’s also) mathematics, science and reading comprehension. In my class, it’s teamwork and collaboration,” says Michels. “(These) aren’t tangible things, but they’re so worthwhile.”
In her debut cookbook, In the French Kitchen with Kids (Appetite by Random House, 2018), Michels translated her work with Les Petits Chefs into a collection of kid-tested, family recipes. From a classic omelette and croque monsieur ( grilled ham and cheese sandwich) to traditional macarons and ratatouille three ways, the focus is on real, achievable food.
“Children come to a recipe, cooking or any task with this openness to just do it. Nobody ’s said to them, ‘You can’t make a choux puff tower,’ so they’re like, ‘Well, we’re making this’ and they just expect it to work,” says Michels. “For kids, maybe … they ’ve eaten a croissant at countless places and been like, ‘We can make that? Of course we can.’ They like to come to recipes that are supposed to be difficult and feel really proud.” Recipes excerpted from In the French Kitchen with Kids by Mardi Michels (Appetite by Random House, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited)