Historical Cuisines: Design a 3 Course Meal task

Food is one of the key aspects to understanding culture. It helps us identify where we are from and why and how we eat the foods we do. Today there are so many multicultural societies and foods that we have access to that have their origins in historical and traditional cultures. This can be contributed to cuisines borrowing traditional ingredients and methods from other cultures and incorporating them into our modern meals.

This task provides students with a list of traditional foods and ingredients categorised into staple & grains, fruit & vegetables, meat & proteins, spices & herbs, and beverages consumed by the AZTECs, Ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greeks and Ancient Roman peoples. Students select a range of items to create a 3 course meal that they would want to eat if they were transported back to that particular era. There is also a short video clip associated with each culture to help students understand the type and styles of food eaten. Students then need to justify why they chose the particular foods/ingredients they’ve put into their 3 course meal, explain how the style of food differs from ours nowadays as well as identify which of the foods/ingredients they would or could incorporate into their daily diets.

This is a great filler task for the end of a lesson or used as a homework task. Students can be tasked with creating a 3 course meal for each of the historical societies OR given the choice to select and complete a 3 course meal on one of the historical societies.