I taught my daughter’s third-grade class how to make good guacamole. It was my second time working with classroom 3B, this time not in the art room but on a diminutive desk in the classroom itself. On this knee-high rectangle of beechwood-colored Formica with a scooped out slot for a pencil at the top, I was able to use skills gained long ago interning at a doll-size garde manger station, elbows pinned to my sides.
When kids came into their classroom, they found tortillas, knives and avocado halves on their tables, and the other ingredients were ready on mine. It smelled like onions and cilantro. Passing teachers poked their heads in to see why. I worked fast to outpace the kids’ hunger, questions and strong desire to get avocado goo on their sleeves. Eventually I guided my 19 cooks to a high-five-inducing guacamole (with a side of chips).
First I told them the safe and polite way to handle their plastic knives (by the handle, always cutting away from your body, the other hand’s fingers curled under, etc.). Then we cut up tortillas to make chips. They are studying fractions, so there was a lot of debate. Some tables chose eighths for more chips, some went with sixths for bigger chips, and others chose straight strips for the sake of innovation. We tossed them in a bowl with oil and salt, layered them on sheet pans and popped them into the oven down the hall in the art room. Then we moved on to the main attraction.
Most of the kids had heard of guacamole; many liked it, though few had ever made it themselves. Lots of questions happened: Did this avocado come from Mexico? Will this be spicy? Can’t it be spicy? Do we have to eat the guacamole part? Can we squish this with our hands? May I have another knife? Can we keep the pit? Repeat.
Each cook held his or her own avocado half and used a plastic serrated knife to score the avocado flesh and scoop the cubes into a central bowl. I brought a molcajete (see below), and took it to each of the four tables to construct their unique guacamole. I insisted on using garlic, onions and salt, but I asked them to decide on the rest of the ingredients (some liked spicy stuff, others did not want cilantro), then I crushed these together into a paste. I asked them to add salt so they could feel with their fingers how much to use. They added the avocado and took turns smashing it up. A dozen avocados, many tortillas and one fire drill later, we had a nice snack. Every single person tried some. No one said, “Yuck.” Success!
I’ve broken down my prep for you here so you can do it too. There is a shopping list, an equipment checklist and a list of things to do ahead of time — and I added several tips from hard-won experience.
P.S. You can use a bowl and a fork or pastry cutter to make guacamole, but a molcajete (a traditional Mexican stone mortar and pestle), if you happen to have one, steals the show. They are huge and heavy, bumpy and a pain in the neck to transport, they look ridiculous on a school desk, and therefore, they make glamorous props.
Class Plan and Some Thoughts
- You’ll need an oven; if you don’t have one, bring chips already made.
- Plan for an hour to measure and assemble the tools and ingredients at home (you can do this the day before). Plan for 20 minutes to set up workstations and about an hour to make and serve the guacamole with the class.
- Measure everything ahead of time and bring it in bags and sealable containers.
- Pits: The surprise heroes of this demo were the avocado pits. They caused a lot of discussion, one loss of recess and some whining, in part because they are like balls. But they're desirable mostly because, following the laws of supply and demand, they are abundant enough to seem attainable, yet they're scarce enough (only one pit for every two halves) to become the most-coveted objects in the room. Do away with the pits before class, or bring just one — or save up some extras if you are organized enough to collect them before your demo.
- Stains! Avocado is green, full of fat and gooey, and it gets on sleeves. And like many delicious things, avocado can stain. Take note.
- There are things you can teach in the name of this dish: Discuss fractions: wholes, halves, quarters, number of chips per child. Taste test: parsley versus cilantro, salt versus no salt, lime versus no lime. Plant life: avocado-growing climate and avocado seeds. Tomato-, jalapeno- and lime-growing climates (and the items' respective seeds), parsley and cilantro (where are those seeds?). Cooking and hygiene. Safety. Table manners. Smelling. Tasting. The proper way to hold a knife. The proper way to hand someone a knife. How to tell if an avocado is ripe and how to peel it. How to customize flavor. Where guacamole is from and how to eat it.