Have you ever considered the sensory richness of cooking? It might not be obvious, but when you cook, you utilize all five senses - sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch - throughout the whole process.
Cooking is a wonderful multi sensorial experience!
Children have an inherent capacity to learn and absorb information, and they do this through the experience and utilization of our five senses.
These five senses provide the framework for children to understand and interpret the world around them. Each sense offers a unique avenue for learning and helps children to process information in a way that is engaging and meaningful to them.
Let me go into more detail on how there are numerous ways our senses are engaged every time we dive into the fun and exciting world of cooking together with our children.
First Sense.. Sound
Cooking and baking can be a symphony of sounds:
- boiling water
- sizzling pan
- chopping on the cutting board
- timers ringing
- clanging pots and pans
Recognizing cooking sounds like boiling water is a useful skill, although not often required. Children can be taught to associate the sound with caution. When they hear the boiling noise, they should exercise care and avoid the stove area.
Another interesting aspect is observing children's reactions to loud kitchen noises for the first time. For instance, when you start the food processor at high speed, they're initially startled. Gradually, they become accustomed to the sound. Eventually, they'll eagerly join in, excited to help operate the appliance alongside you.
Second Sense.. Sight:
Cooking involves a multitude of visual elements:
- Observing the bright and dull colors of ingredients and how they change when cooked
- Noticing the transformation of food shapes after being diced, baked, boiled
- Describing the size and shape of the ingredients
During our cooking sessions, we engage in observations and discussions. We identify the colors of the ingredients, witness changes when substances melt, observe the batter's transformation from liquid to solid, and watch as colors or shapes alter when ingredients are mixed. If we incorporate food coloring, we forecast the resulting hues.
Third Sense.. Smell:
Smell is an integral part of cooking, from the scent of fresh ingredients to the aroma of cooking food.
My 3 year old daughter now associates smell with specific foods as she walks in the kitchen, and my 18 month son already says "wow" just as he smells a good smell in the kitchen. When I cook with them I always have them smell the spices before adding them to the mixture. I explain what they're about to smell, they take a sniff, and then we discuss whether they like the smell and how different smells work together in the recipe. While doing this they learnt to associate smell to food very quickly and they're appetite increases just by sensing the smell.
Fourth Sense.. Touch:
Touching provides information about an object's texture and temperature, making it a crucial part of sensory education.
Cooking provides numerous opportunities to feel and describe different textures. For example, by touching you can tell that cauliflower is hard and bumpy while mushrooms are squishier. It's also interesting to feel the contrasting textures of a pineapple's rough exterior and juicy interior.
Cooking ingredients can also change textures, like a hard potato becoming mushy after boiling or a stiff spaghetti noodle becoming soft. Other tactile experiences include mixing ground beef for meatballs, patting pizza dough, and cracking an egg.
Fifth Sense.. Taste:
Taste is perhaps the most obvious sense involved in cooking. Tasting vegetables before and after cooking, tasting sauces, and tasting the finished product all contribute to a delicious meal.
Identifying whether something is sweet, sour, bitter, or salty can turn tasting into a fun learning experience. It's also important to recognize what might be missing in a dish's flavor. Understanding which flavors pair well together is fundamental to cooking a delicious dish. Observing how the taste of ingredients changes after they've been cooked is another learning opportunity.
My daughter and I always talk about what we can prepare with each ingredient before cooking, I have her express her ideas and then we decide together if the two or three ingredients she mentioned could taste well together. It makes her feel very confident.
My kids both love the tasting part of cooking, sampling sauces, spices, and mixtures. Their excitement adds to the joy of cooking :)
On another note..
I recently watched an incredible movie that stimulates all five senses as if you were cooking in the kitchen alongside the characters. The film, called "The Taste of Things," is a wonderful French romantic story between a homeowner and his chef. They cook for each other, and the way they express their love through food is enchanting.
This movie will make you want to cook more and share the experience with your loved ones. You'll feel all five senses come alive just by watching it!