Hill chef teaches English through meal prep at Edible Alphabet classes

Posted 10/3/19

Cake chef Jameson O'Donnell teaches the Edible Alphabet class at the Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central branch. (Photo by April Lisante) by April Lisante Their languages may all be …

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Hill chef teaches English through meal prep at Edible Alphabet classes

Posted

Cake chef Jameson O'Donnell teaches the Edible Alphabet class at the Free Library of Philadelphia Parkway Central branch. (Photo by April Lisante)

by April Lisante

Their languages may all be different, but on this particular Wednesday, in a sun-drenched rooftop kitchen at the Free Library of Philadelphia in Center City, their language is universal: food.

Some are from Japan, others from Taiwan, Brazil or China, but as Cake chef Jameson O’Donnell talks about what they will be cooking on this day, they all recognize the word pasta.

“Today we will be making macaroni and cheese,” he tells the class of 14, as they sit around a U-shaped metal table, red aprons around their waists.

Every Wednesday this fall, O’Donnell has come to the Parkway Central branch of the Free Library to teach Edible Alphabet, a culinary English class for those learning English as a second language. Part of the library’s commitment to serving the literacy needs of Philadelphians, the Culinary Literacy Center on the fourth floor of the branch serves as a language classroom, cultural education center and cooking school all wrapped into one.

The class, which runs in six-week sessions, is free for those who register, and teaches six different American meals, like jambalaya, apple crisp or tomato soup, while delivering heaping servings of culinary vocabulary, from whisking to melting – words that quickly help immerse students in the language. The program is funded through private donations, corporate giving and grants.

O’Donnell, who has been executive chef at Chestnut Hill’s gustatory greenhouse Cake for the past eight years, has been with Edible Alphabet since its inception in 2015, when the library built a state-of-the-art kitchen and culinary room to meet the needs of the class.

“It is just great to be here,” O’Donnell said, as he prepped vegetables prior to the class. “It’s so nice to see students learning English and becoming a part of the library community and to watch their skills improve.”

O’Donnell, whose wife is a librarian at the Chestnut Hill branch of the Free Library, began the program after working as an intern in the literacy center while attending Temple University. The first pilot program launched that year and it’s been a hit ever since.

“Some students now come back for another class,” he said. “It’s just a wonderful space to be in.”

The classroom sits on the rooftop, with a sunny, open deck and a spacious kitchen. On this particular day, 14 ESL students filed in, each from a different country, each with different culinary skills. One loved to bake at home, another was taking a class to learn to cook. Most had an intermediate grasp of the English language.

Student Amy Liu is a big fan of O’Donnell. She took a class last year and is now back for more.

“We learned soup last week and I went home and made the soup,” said Liu. “My husband said ‘You never did this and now you are making American soup’. If we learn something, we go home and try it.”

Volunteers buzzed around the classroom, readying precut foods, textbooks and aprons. Wilda Hayward is a retired Philadelphia public school teacher who taught social studies and ESL. She jumped at the chance to volunteer for the class.

“I come every week,” Hayward said. “Some people start out very shy, but then, I see they are learning words like chop and drizzle. They are having experiences with literacy that you wouldn’t normally have in a classroom.”

The class began with a lesson on different types and shapes of pasta. Though they would be using elbow macaroni, O’Donnell and volunteer instructor Sally MacKenzie showed students a dozen different bowls of uncooked pasta labeled with everything from lasagna to fusilli. Students then practiced verbs they would be using, as well as all of the ingredients they would need. After making the mac and cheese, they answered questions about the experience, from ‘how did it taste?’ to ‘what did you learn today?’

“The idea is to practice cooking and learning,” said Lindsay Southworth, the program manager. “English is the focus, but cooking is the context. Food is universal. It’s a comforting thing and it helps people to open up.”

Southworth, who wrote the curriculum for the class, created a textbook that uses pictures of foods, speaking activities, skits and written questions to guide students through each two-and-a-half hour class, from a discussion about the foods to the hands-on experience of cooking a particular dish. Students who enter the class shy or hesitant without a doubt gain confidence and a greater vocabulary by the end of the six weeks, she said.

Edible Alphabet is one of several courses the library offers in four different city branches to expand on the idea of cooking to learn English. Courses are offered at libraries in the Northeast, in North Philly and in Chinatown. The library also uses the Culinary Literacy Center kitchen for school groups and families who learn something while they cook together.

“We also do about 100 classes for kindergarten to high school,” Southworth said. “Sometimes it’s a science lesson, like learning preservation through pickling.”

Visit FreeLibrary.org/cook to learn more about Edible Alphabet, or to donate to the program.

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