Outer Seed Shadow Project: Recovering Ancestral Knowledge, 8/5

[Image Description: This color photograph shows an instructor conducting a class with young people. Everyone in the image is focused on the table in the middle, which has drawings and paintings—made by the class—on it.]

Date: 7/17 12:30-2:30pm — 08/05 12:30-2:30pm

Facilitators: Chef Yadira Garcia.

Place: OSS#MH Garden. Located on Broadway at 228th St (Marble Hill Houses).


Duration: 2 Hours

Cost: Free

Participants: 07/17 children between 8-12 yo. 20 participants.
08/05 Families: Adults and children’s of all ages. 10 families.

Description

Hosted by Outer Seed Shadow, Community Foodtivist, Natural Foods Chef and Holistic Health Coach Yadira Garcia will work with community residents to use nature, observation, and hands on cooking demonstration and participation in the Outer Seed Shadow garden located in the Bronx’s Marble hill to curate a nutritious, delicious and educational experience for appropriate for younger and older residents that live on the property. Using the items planted by residents they plan to have the following stations for residents to participate in during two workshops.

In each workshop a group of 20+ people meets at the garden to participate in the workshop with the following structure (Amount of participants can be adapted to the necessity of the partnering organization):

Workshop #1 DIY Sofrito /Sazon and Herb Lab

One of the biggest problems plaguing the community is not only food accessibility but also the preparation of these foods. Many of the traditional cultural seasonings such as Sofrito, Recao, Sazon have been culturally appropriated by large manufacturers and corporations who have since filled these seasonings with high amounts of sodium, preservatives, sugar or artificial fats and unhealthy oils.

These seasonings directly contribute to the propagation of disease states such as hypertension (high blood pressure), cholesterol, early onset of diabetes and Obesity.

Station 1
On station one, they will have a demo table showing these manufactured seasonings and display the amount of sodium, sugar, salt, fat as compared to RDA (recommended daily allowance) to help illustrate to community members how harmful they are.

Station 2
Through this workshop, community members will have the chance to prepare their own food seasonings, mostly based upon what is growing in the garden. They will learn the art of blooming spices to extract maximum flavor, and they will be shown how to use a blender and food processor to show how to prepare Sofrito, Sazon, Adobo. Residents will then be able to bottle and take their seasonings with them, in labeled mason jars.

Station 3
On stations three, they will showcase delicious traditional preparations of using garden made sofrito, sazon, and adobo recao. And recipes such as a whole grain Moro, using brown rice, fresh herbs and pigeon peas.

Natural Remedies

Asthma, Common Cold, Cough, Hypertension & Blood Sugar.

While Western Medicine has brought many advancements and pharmaceutical medicines, there is no denying that the root of medicine began with holistic, natural and home remedies. Together as a community this workshop will explore home remedies people in the community grew up as well as revisit some of the most tried, true and oldest forms of self-healing. Alchemy and extraction of herbs to create healing medicines, tinctures and infusions.

Through a series of stations set up with Pilones (Mortar and Pestle) residents can move from table to table in order to learn and make remedies for prevailing chronic health issues such as Asthma; which produces a large amount of absences in the youth of in the community. Immune boosting for prevention and treatment of common cold and cough, as well as, how to naturally aid the body in maintaining normal blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol.

To reserve a workshop, please get in touch with them by:

E-mail: project@outerseedshadow.org

Phone: 646-246-0877

You can learn more about Outer Seed Shadow here.