One of my favorite units of the year in Spanish 4 is Huellas 1.6, Recipe Talks. We do most Huellas 1 units in Spanish 3, but this one helps me stave off senioritis and works as a great incentive for kids who—after taking the STAMP test for the first time as juniors—dread the five-day testing marathon at the end of February.

One of the things I love most about this unit is introducing students to native Spanish speakers who have taken the time to share a recipe and explain what it means to them or to their country. In the past, we have started the unit with centers to learn some cooking vocabulary, talked about our favorite foods as children and now, and then jumped into our “recipe talks.”

What is a recipe talk? If you’re familiar with picture talks or movie talks, you already have a basic idea. If not, it simply means that instead of cooking just for the sake of cooking, we discuss the history of the recipe and its ingredients in the target language while we prepare it.

In early February, when I already knew this unit would follow testing, I noticed a session on the schedule for our tri-county workshop day. The session was presented by a Spanish teacher, Brian James, and a special education teacher, Amanda Fruend, and it described their partnership throughout the school year as students prepared recipes from around the Spanish-speaking world. I attended the session thinking it might be a great way to enrich the Recipe Talks unit I already do.

Brian integrates cooking throughout the year, incorporating recipes into different units of study. This gives him the opportunity to use the home economics kitchens at his school about once each quarter. His students translate recipes into English and then cook side by side with the students in Amanda’s classroom, who use the experience to develop both life and social skills while working alongside the general education students.

In Brian and Amanda’s case, Amanda’s classroom is located inside the home economics kitchens, which are no longer used for classes in their district. In my school, the kitchens are used every hour of the day because we have a very strong CTE (Career and Technical Education) program. I knew I would need to work closely with that department if I wanted to bring the project to my own school.

Until now, I had always cooked with my students in my own classroom using griddles or a single electric burner that I bought at Walmart. We would prepare ingredients and then return to our seats to watch a video about tortillas or see someone preparing gorditas dulces while the griddles heated up. I could talk about the recipes in Spanish and share some of the history of the dish, its ingredients, or the places where it is popular.

There were definitely some advantages to doing it this way, but there were also plenty of challenges. The dishes were a huge challenge. I had nowhere to wash them, so I had to bring dishes from home and haul them back again to clean them on my own time. The griddles didn’t heat evenly and never got as hot as a real stove, so cooking often stretched until the very end of the class period. Space was also limited. Finding places to set up several griddles was tricky, and if you plugged in too many, you risked blowing the fuse for the entire floor—which definitely doesn’t make you popular with your colleagues.

By moving to the foods room, I gave up the ability to really talk about the recipes on the day we prepared them, but I gained a lot of extra space, access to sinks for dishes, and room to invite our school’s TLC (Special Ed) class to join us. It was a trade-off that turned out to be well worth it.

We have already completed three cooking days, with two more to go, and it has been one of the most joyful experiences of my career. Elizabeth Smith, our TLC instructor, has been working with her students on life and social skills, so working with my students gave them an opportunity to put those lessons into practice. For my students, collaborating with Mrs. Smith’s class allowed them to become teachers, friends, and supporters of students they had never interacted with in a classroom setting before. They have shown incredible maturity, kindness, and encouragement as they helped the TLC students feel independent, included, and valued.

But the impact didn’t stop with the students. It has affected me as well in ways I didn’t expect. I knew my students and Mrs. Smith’s students would enjoy working together. What I didn’t anticipate was how deeply it would move me to witness these moments of pride, success, and pure joy. I don’t think I’ve received this many hugs in my 32 years of teaching. I am so grateful to the TLC students for sharing their affection with me as well.

Yesterday, two of the young ladies who have been working with my students saw me in the hallway after I finished cleaning the kitchens at the end of the day. They shouted my name. One ran over to give me a hug, and the other invited me to her grandma’s house to spend the night. I told her I already had plans, but that it meant the world to me that she wanted to include me.

After our final two cooking days this week, we will return to the classroom to learn more about the recipes we made. At first, it felt like I was sacrificing an important part of the unit by not discussing the cultural and historical background during the cooking days. But as the week went on, watching the TLC students admire my students as they translated recipes with me or spoke Spanish during class reminded me that the academic learning can always happen later. Sharing this experience with our new friends and allowing them to see what Spanish class can be like was worth the delay.

I give full credit for this idea to Brian and Amanda. If you are already using Recipe Talks, whether as part of Huellas or as a standalone activity, I hope you might consider adapting the idea for your own school. And if you have never tried Recipe Talks before, I hope you will give it a try. Some of the most meaningful learning we’ve done this year didn’t even happen in our classroom.

Find the Recipe Talks unit on: TPT: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Intermediate-CI-Spanish-3-Unit-Food-Recipes-Cooking-Huellas-16-5812060 and on Somewhere to Share: https://somewheretoshare.com/product/huellas-1-6-recipe-talks/ 

See the Recipe Talks preview file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UW1gFla0v_6RgHsiGmibriAXXOee-41I/view?usp=sharing 

Follow our adventures on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somewhere.to.share/