At-Home Activity: Garlic Mustard Pesto

Published May 29th, 2020
By Alisha Mai McNamara, Programs Director
Tagged with: at-home activity • garlic mustard pesto • remote learning • social and emotional learning

When I was little we lived with my grandmother near the northern shore of long island sound. On our ¼ acre lot she grew a vegetable garden that to me seemed immeasurably vast. My mother remembers squinting from our back porch, trying to pick out my toddler’s frame from among the tomato plants. I remember Bubba’s kitschy ‘ducks crossing’ sign complete with an orderly row of chicks, lovingly placed at what had seemed to be a grand intersection. Picking cucumbers and cherry tomatoes for our summer salads, and peppermint for my mother’s ice water were elevated jobs I felt both delighted and uniquely qualified to perform.

I remember once declaring to my neighbor’s father over cheese ravioli that I lived to eat. As a parent figure to me and the skilled and prolific family cook of Jamaican cuisine, he raised an eyebrow and belly-laughed. But I was serious. I understood in no uncertain terms that even simple food bound us together. Although a decade subsequently passed without my stepping foot into a vegetable garden, I could never shake the essentialness nor magic of plucking food from the ground and preparing it to feed my loved ones.

Years later as I began to approach wild foods, my conception of what gardening is, and how it shapes our relationship to place and culture, widened. As an educator, I’ve seen firsthand that edible weeds hold such potential to unlock in children a passion for both nature and cooking.

An adaptable recipe like garlic mustard pesto is ripe to become a family or classroom tradition, creating scaffolding for a lifetime of learning.

Check out our Garlic Mustard Pesto video on Instagram TV and YouTube!