Kids get tasty education at Farm to Table camp
SCHUYLERVILLE, N.Y. » Maureen Clancy retired Friday after 32 years as a culinary teacher.
Friday also marked the culmination of a Farm to Table culinary camp that Clancy and fellow WSWHE BOCES teacher Bruce Hoffman offered for the second straight year.
Twenty-five children picked zucchini, learned about meats and cooked plenty of meals at F. Donald Myer’s Educational center in Saratoga Springs.
Clancy and Hoffmann introduced the students to locally sourced food at farms throughout the region.
“We have a really great rapport with many farmers around,” said Clancy. “They’re opened to bring in young people and do this kind of thing. It’s pretty unique.”
At Featherbed Lane Farm earlier this week, kids marveled at a farmer doing all of his gardening with two plow horses, not using electric equipment. Clancy explained students love animal trips the best, like at King’s Dairy last year when campers saw calves and cows, and witnessed the plantation where farmers harvest and process the milk.
“Every year we try to do something different. Once the word gets out, people are contacting us, wanting us to come by,” said Clancy referencing the number of farms the group visits.
On Thursday, even with rain spitting off and on, the group filled buckets and buckets with blueberries at Winney’s Blueberry Farm.
“Mr. Whinney has been great. We’ve come out here a couple years in a row, and he’s always really supportive,” said Clancy. “Then we talk to the kids about sustainability and local farm to table kind of food.”
That’s part of the learning experience, hearing about the sustainability and the importance of locally sourced food.
“They buy blueberries in the market, but they don’t know that this is where and how blueberries are grown and harvested, so this is a good educational thing,” said Clancy.
Retired chef Paul Moyer runs Old World Farm in Stillwater, which is one of the farms the group visited this week.
“He has this beautiful organic farm. We picked basil, we pulled garlic,” said Clancy. “He had a tour of the tomatoes and all of the heirloom tomatoes. He talked about heirlooms, and how they get them and grow them.”
Each place the camp visits specializes in different things, and that’s by design. At one farm, farmers demonstrated the process of smoking meats and cutting the meats. At BJ’s Farm on Wednesday, kids picked zucchini, cucumbers, eggplants, peaches and green beans. On a visit to Nine Miles East children experienced processing being done right on the farm.
“They picked the stuff, they process it, they package it right there,” said Clancy. “We got to see that, and then they have a wood fire pizza. We all got pizza. They all picked herbs to add to the pizza.”
Students then bring back the sausages, pork chops and fresh produce, cooking on Friday as the camp wrapped up.
Abby Ernst, who will be a seventh-grader at Maple Avenue Middle School, said the camp has been so much fun. Ernst likes cooking sushi with her mom at home, but her favorite thing she’s made at camp has been cinnamon rolls.
In Clancy’s words, the camp introduced students to foods
that they probably have never eaten before. She hopes learning about new foods will spark an interest, possibly “get them fired up about cooking.”
For 32 years, Clancy has taught students who shared that same passion for cooking. Even though she’s retiring, Clancy wants to still help out.
“I’ll still be involved in some educational stuff,” said Clancy. “I like working with the kids.”