Teachers Are Tastemakers
Cubans, Cubans, Cubans
My friend James and I were floating in the neighborhood pool chatting while the kids did cannon balls and flips off the diving board. James looks at me with a wry smile and says, “My son’s been ordering Cubans everywhere we go this summer.”
It didn’t immediately register, “What?” I knew he wasn’t referring to his 7th grader smoking cigars, but I couldn’t contextualize the comment. Then it hit me: “Ohhh. Because of the Cuban sandwiches?”
“Yeah, every restaurant we’ve gone to he has managed to find one on the menu.”
I couldn’t help but smile. We’d had a school get-together at our house to kick off the summer, and I’d asked a few students to come into the kitchen to help assemble cuban sandwiches for the picnic. We set up three little stations, and I showed them how to layer mustard, pickles, Swiss, pulled pork, ham, and more Swiss. We griddle cooked the giant sub rolls together.
They were delicious. And they stuck with that 7th grader.
At a school picnic earlier this year, some moms were chatting with my wife—“Our daughters can’t go without tea now—drinking tea all the time at home!”
In my English classes, we have regular tea time. Students bring mugs from home, selected a tea bag, maybe add a bit of honey, and settle in for a quiet read as the record player fills the classroom with Chopin. Slowly but surely, those impressionable teenagers had gotten hooked!
Teachers are tastemakers. Not just literally—as in, teaching kids to love Cubans and London Fog—but as in books, subjects, activities, hobbies, art, music, and more. We have the ability to encourage students to savor what is worth savoring, to put what is good and true and beautiful before our students and say, “I love this! Here, have a taste.”
Little by little, our students gain an appreciation—a hunger even!—for things like Algebra, Austen, and American history as we set a daily table before them filled with things that will give long-lasting satisfaction. Celebrating so many good gifts together in the classroom, we cultivate a taste for the Giver: “Taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Ps 34:8).
Cuban Sandwiches
Never had a cuban? That’s a shame. With two kinds of pork, zingy mustard, and sweet bread and butter pickles, this is a favorite of kids and adults alike at the Ashby house.
This recipe from Tyler Florence is all you need:
Pro-tip: Make your own sub rolls, and it will be all the better. Here’s that recipe:
