I got most of our activities from The World of North American Indians (Passport to the Past)
I let PJ page through the book and choose our first project. He loves being in the kitchen so he chose to make corn cakes (found on page 24). The recipe called for corn tortilla flour (which we didn’t have) or all purpose flour (which was out because we’re trying a gluten-free diet for Ty this summer) so we used fine corn meal. The only other ingredient was water in the original recipe.
Normally the gluten in the flour would be enough to make the dough stick together but since we were just using corn meal, mixed a tablespoon of flax meal in 3 tablespoons of water to act as a binder.
I gave each child about 1/4 cup of cornmeal is a bowl. I should have put a teaspoon of salt in too. Then I let them dump their flax meal water mixture in and stir.
We added more water or cornmeal as needed to make a dough.
Then they flattened with their hands on a plate. Our “dough” more like wet sand than a typical dough. Flatter is better for cooking but much harder to get off the plate in one piece.
Next, we pan fried them in canola oil. They taste much better if you cook them until they are crispy all the way through like a thick chip.
We melted cheese on some, tried one plain, and dipped some in salsa. They probably won’t make our meal rotation but it was a good learning experience for the kids and doubled as snack!
To see other books we used, click here.
To see the overview of the unit, click here.