Art Club 1.08: Our favourite foods!

Some of the favourite foods from our kids in Socio Vivienda 2(clockwise from top left, ending in centre): chicken with rice,salad and cola, fried fish and patacones, pineapple and strawberries, bolón with fried egg and coffee, crab with tortilla, prawn ceviche, chicken with salad and rice and a final prawn ceviche.  

THEME OF WEEK 1:08: Our favorite foods!

11th to 16th March 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To use a fun and simple activity to generate images for the carnival float of one of the most important things in our kid's lives….FOOD!  An ongoing joke (based in a some truth) is that the kids only come to Art Club for "refrigerio" ("refreshment") which is the snack and drink we hand out at the end of the sessions.   Whilst we know that the majority of our kids come for the art content of the sessions, hunger is a common fact amongst the children, in particular in Socio Vivienda, which means that yes, we have some children that come with food as their main focus, and even for those who we can see love the activities, snack time is an absolutely key moment in the session, coming at the end of the making, tidying away materials and cleaning the space.  

PROCESS: 

1. In our JUCONI office Emily and I googled and printed out images of the most popular typical Ecuadorian dishes and snack foods that we have had the pleasure of eating in our time here and know will be familiar to the kids, and mounted these up into a poster:

 A small selection of some of the typical foods here in Guayaquil that Emily and I have eaten and enjoyed here and that are familiar for our Art Club children (from left to right, top row to bottom): seco de pollo con arroz y maduro (chicken in a special lime and vegetable stew with rice and mature plantain, tortillas de yucca con cafe (fried tortillas made from grated cassava with coffee, panes de yucca con yogur (cheesy puff bread balls made with cassava flour, served with yoghurt), empanadas (the best of these are sold as 'Chilean' and come stuffed with savory fillings like cheese, ham, chicken, meat or even prawns if you're lucky, or in Playas!), pescado a la plancha con patacones (grilled fish with flat, pressed fried plantain), patacones (as before - they're so good they deserve putting in twice!), cangrejo (crab - served with a hammer alongside that is use to crack the shell of the body and legs.  You need a guide to explaing to you how to go about getting all the juicy flesh out, and to tell you which bit inside the main shell you can't eat.  Crab has an off-season,"veda de cangrejo", when you can't catch or eat it because the crabs are in their reproductive season (currently we're in this season), bolón con huevo frito y café (a oven baked or fried ball of plantain dotted with bits of cheese and/ or pork fat, served with a fried egg and coffee with no milk, just sugar), prawn ceviche (a cold and lime-y prawn 'soup' or salad, usually served with patacones, the prawns can be swapped or combined with fish, crab, mussels and any variety of other seafood.)   All DELICIOUS!!! :-)

2. Emily and I are made our examples: 

Emily's favourite dish (above right): "ceviche de camarón" (prawn soup)

My favourite(above left): "Bólon mixto con café" (cheese and pork fat ball of plantain, with a fried egg and coffee with sugar, no milk!)

3. We asked the children which of the foods on the poster they liked and what their favourite dishes are. Then they got started creating these dishes out of brightly coloured felts, starting with a plate or bowl, building up the dish from its various ingredients and finishing off with a glass or mug of their favourite drink and the cutlery of their choice.   

MATERIALS: poster of images of typical Ecuadorian foods, 2 facilitator examples, felt in a range of bright colours, including white, beige, pink, red, yellow and brown, scissors, glue/ UHU/ silicone, felt pens.

N.B. silicone is one of the best adhesives that we work with here, because it dries into a strong bond so quickly, much quicker than PVA.  One problem we face within the workshops is that almost all of the children like to eat and to play with the silicone.  They play with it by covering their hands in it, then opening and shutting the hands with the elastic effect that silicone has as it sets to a rubbery cosistency. Obviously as facilitators we discourage this, explaining to the children that firstly it is a chemical that can harm their skin or stomachs, and secondly it is expensive and we don't have endless funds.  Unfortunatley these warnings don't deter the children who will nod 'yes' in the moment and then the minute we turn our backs begin playing with it again.  Eventually, a few weeks ago Emily and I decided to cut silicone out of our materials box, and ran a few workshops with only PVA. The children were taken aback, but we told them the reason and they could see why.  So when we ran the first of these food making sessions in Sergio Toral, we ran it with PVA for the kids and UHU for Emily and I to use to secure any bits we might notice falling off.  However, there were so many pieces that were damaged in transit as a result of the more poorly sticking PVA, that we choose to use silicone again in Socio Vivienda, and with much better results, although of course we had to be very vigilant once again about the eating and playing. 

Favourite foods from the kids in Sergio Toral(clockwise from top left): prawns with patacones (fried plantain, squashed into flat discs at the half-way point of frying) and cheese, pizza with coffee, chicken with patacones and coca-cola, prawns with tortillas and juice, prawns with salad, tortilla and cola, patacones with prawns and jucie, corn tortillas with cheese and prawns and juice, prawn ceviche with limes and juice and another prawn ceviche.  There were also a good few bolones with fried eggs and coffee in this group, as well as more prawn ceviches, probably largely influenced by the facilitator examples, plus some chicken dishes and pasta dishes.

This was a really fun workshop for everyone.  With their natural love of food, the kids were really enthusiastic in their making and as Emily and I helped to draw and cut our various ingredients at top speed (in particular prawns and chicken drumsticks!) they chattered away about how delicious and tantalising their dishes were, whilst drawing, cutting and gluing.  Predictably we had all worked up a ravenous appetite by the end of the workshop and were quick to gobble up the food at snack time!

p.s. since the writing of this original post Emily and I have also made the patchwork "outfit" to dress the camioneta in and mounted all these foods on it.  We used felt in the four JUCONI colours: red, blue, yellow and green, and joined all the patches together with a combination of silicone, staples and velcro.