We Held "Polymath Kitchen"

On March 6, we held “Polymath Kitchen” at Big Roof Takizawa in Takizawa City.

“Polymath Kitchen” is a slow cooking class for children. This project corresponds to “#03 Slow Food Kitchen (Project Slow Food Kitchen)” on our project list page, and it aims to give children both the chance to taste real food and the chance to cook for themselves and then eat together with gratitude.

This time, we held its first session as a trial run¹.

A Montessori-based cooking class for children is a rare thing

Montessori education values opportunities to cook for real, not just to play house. There is a great deal to learn from cooking: it not only helps children develop good manners and refine the use of their hands, but also nurtures them in mind and body. And through themes well worth exploring, such as ingredients, cooking methods and kitchen tools, children can learn about nature, culture and the world.

Real cooking experiences like these are essential to children’s healthy development, yet children rarely get the chance to cook with themselves in the lead. That is exactly why we believe the significance of running Polymath Kitchen runs deeper than the Japan Trench.

The slow food movement, slowly

This April, the Polymath School welcomes its second spring. We have been fortunate to gain a few companions, and it has been an enjoyable year, but we feel the environment in which the children spend their time could be made even better. So this year we plan to focus on a kitchen and a farm linked to the school.

AI is advancing remarkably these days, but we believe that enriching “food (cooking) and agriculture (a kitchen garden)” at home directly improves quality of life. We have only just started, but we would like to set up the way we run things so that we can also welcome parents and children from outside.

Keeping the spirit of slow food, “organic, local, seasonal,” always in our hearts, we intend to keep going on a small scale. Because we do not accept first-time visitors without an introduction (ichigen-san okotowari), participation is basically by referral, but if you strongly resonate with our vision, our ideas and philosophy, and the spirit of the slow food movement, we would be delighted to hear from you.

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Footnotes

1. It was the first session in the weekly format held on the same day as the Polymath School, but counting the monthly “Cooking Meetings” we had been holding quietly, it was the sixth. ↩