As prelude to the 12-week course, Rozalie Czesana ’18, Chef Craig Shelton and Karla Cook, Princeton Studies Food coordinator and project manager, worked with partners to produce a one-evening pilot taught by postdoc Amy Lerner WWS-STEP, a specialist in Mexico and food systems. In her lecture, she discussed the importance of corn, chiles and chocolate to Mexico.
She and Chef Craig Shelton collaborated on a menu for participants to prepare and eat together that included home-made tortillas, five salsas, pan-seared sea bass and grouper with salsa verde, Puebla poblano mole, seared zucchini with roasted tomato-chipotle sauce and hot chocolate for dessert. Among Chef Shelton’s lessons for participants: knife skills, protein theory, flavor, physiology and cooking in context.
Partnerships for funding, equipment, supplies and support included the Princeton Public Schools and its faculty and staff; Princeton Studies Food; Spoon University-Princeton; the Princeton University Office of Sustainability; the Council on Science and Technology; the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Community-Based Learning Initiative, as well as all participants.