feature stories

Learning on the menu

May 10, 2007 4:00 PM

Take a great idea, spice it up with two Latina teachers who cook a mean mofongo, add two dozen bright young minds, stir for 37.5 minutes, and you get a wildly popular, afterschool Spanish cooking class with a lot of learning on the menu.

“Spanish Cuisine,” as the course is called, is a loose term for the Euro-Carib-Mexi-Rican cooking taught by Julia Kary and Rosa Semidei at Brooklyn’s IS 187.

“We called it that for the sake of simplicity,” the two Spanish language teachers explain. They’re buddies in and out of school, can finish each other’s sentences, and have been carrying out a sort of lifelong friendly debate about how pan de budin — bread pudding — tastes best. With raisins, without raisins, made with fresh soft white bread or day-old Italian bread …

“It all depends on your family’s tradition,” says Kary. Both she and Semidei have deep roots in Brooklyn and Puerto Rico. Kary’s interest in cooking took off as she began teaching the class over a year ago. Semidei, on the other hand, has been at it since she was 11.

“Both parents worked and I would be hungry, go downstairs to my aunt and say, ‘You’ve got to teach me how to cook!’” Semidei recalls. “Well, I did this for a very long time until finally she did, with my great grandmother’s recipes.”

Semidei practically swoons at the thought of her grandmother’s mofongo, a sumptuous plantain dish, and her sanacocho, a hearty soup of meat and vegetables. Kary is rhapsodic over her mother’s everyday rice and beans and her special Christmas dish, the labor-intensive pasteles, a type of meat pastry cooked in banana leaves or sometimes in tin foil — the leaves can be hard to find at markets and banana trees, alas, do not grow in Brooklyn.

Now their fond Brooklorican memories have come to life for kids of different nationalities, many of them children of immigrants who settled in the Bensonhurst neighborhood.

The class is one among a smorgasbord of enrichment courses offered at the warm, friendly middle school, called “Brooklyn’s best-kept secret” by star TV chef Daisy Martinez during a kitchen visit last year. Other courses include silk painting, drama, calligraphy, CPR, math, dessert making, art, science, salsa, creative writing, sculpture and one that’s a trip into the past, “Brooklyn Street Games.”

Teachers generate ideas for courses based on their own interests. The courses, geared for either general education students or special ed students, are listed in colorful little brochures printed four times a year. Kids choose what they like. The program was a big hit and is in its fourth 11-week cycle.

It all started when teachers faced the challenge of how to use the extended day to benefit the large number of gifted students with no weak areas in need of remediation.

“The idea for an enrichment program came from all of us,” says Kary. “Not only did the administration approve but our principal, Mr. [Justin] Berman, has been extremely supportive.”

There was only one problem with the Spanish Cuisine concept.

There was no kitchen.

So teachers and administrators sat down and came up with a plan. They would use money from the school budget and put in a purchase order to Food Services to rent the school cafeteria kitchen for an hour. They’d arrange to pay for the help of school cook extraordinaire Linda Smyth, a member of DC 37. They made their move and the rest is culinary history.

According to Semidei and Kary, what teachers love most about the enrichment program is that it cuts across the school’s three academies, giving students a chance to mingle, work in teams and make new friends. “And teachers get to enjoy their students in a way you can’t in a class of 32 kids,” Kary adds.

Kary loves seeing kids take home food for their families to taste. “It’s just so rewarding to me,” she says. Students are allowed to take home their professional chef hats and aprons and of course the recipes, many of them simple enough to make on their own. She loves the idea of them cooking for their families.

For Semidei, it’s “giving students something that kids today don’t have for, sitting down all together at dinner time.”

School cook Smyth is already prepping in the kitchen, heating up the spiced ground meat that the kids made the day before for today’s end-of-semester celebration, a taco fiesta. The petite, strong, wiry Smyth, who comes from a family of chefs and has been in the business since she was 18, is reigning supreme over pots bigger than she is.

“Because the kids interact with me now, from this class, they’re getting away from that scary lunch-lady energy they see on TV shows,” Smyth says. “They come in thinking we’re mean and find out we’re not!”

When the last bell of the day rings, the action begins. Kids pour in and put on their chef hats and aprons.

“Okay, we’re ready to rock and roll!” shouts Smyth.

Soon everyone is chopping, stirring, laughing, talking and listening.

“I really enjoy eating what we make and critiquing it,” says 6th-grader Zach.

“This is better than chess,” says fellow chef Michael.

“Taco Bell has nothing on us,” Zach adds.

“Not only do we learn cooking,” says 7th-grader Lena, “we also learn about Spanish cultures and ingredients and tools and words.”

Like pilón, a mortar and pestle. Sofrito: A blend of herbs and spices. Tostenera: A press made of two hinged wooden paddles for flattening and tenderizing plantains for frying.

“You know,” says Semidei, “I came from a humble, modest family. We didn’t have a tostenera. We’d smash the plantains down with a can of tomatoes, whack!”

And did the fried plantains come out good that way?

Deliciosos.

Best in Brooklyn.

Or maybe not.

Because the way Kary’s family used to make them …