Emilie Schaefer
SchoolKraut - Fermentation in schools
Follow:
Project description
SchoolKraut is a service that aims to promote healthier and more sustainable food habits in Scotland, by introducing the practice of fermentation, through fermentation workshops in primary schools. Indeed, this low-tech, local, affordable, and easy food preparation and preservation technique creates probiotics, benefiting the digestive system and learning capacities. With a systemic and holistic approach to the current obesity epidemic problem, this intervention develops new narratives about fermentation to help more empathic relationships towards the environment and more resilient food behaviours flourish.
The service
After an adapted contract is designed by the local council, the participant school's catering manager, and the school's wholesaler, a SchoolKraut box is delivered to the school with ingredients and equipment. A playful in-class fermentation workshop is conducted regularly by the teacher. The workshop's recipe follows the story of a modern witch who needs the pupils' help to heal people and the environment. When the food is ready, it is tasted at school and taken home to share with the family. Recipes are also available online to ferment at home.
The service's website
The website acts like an information hub about fermentation and about the service, and as a community platform.
Recipes can be found on the website to ferment from home, as well as the teachers' workshop instructions and a collaborative SchoolKraut box ordering form.
Printed recipe of fruit kefir
Main screens of the SchoolKraut website
A disruptive narrative
Fermenting is a reciprocal engagement with non-human species (food and bacteria) and honors the powers of Mother Earth. In Scotland, it was strongly related to the history of witchcraft, as this mysterious process could lead innocent women to burn at the stake. At the same time, fermentation is a science and can teach a lot about nutrition. This intervention suggests a new narrative of fermentation, a balance between witchcraft and science, to promote a new image of this amazing technique.
Eilidh, helps her friends and their places to stay healthy, with fermented magic potions
Fermentation is a collaborative and interactive activity, that can empower diversity (of cultures, of generations, of bacteria...)
The fear of bacteria can make fermentation scary... But the probiotics in fermented food, produced by bacteria during fermentation, are precious for the gut's health, but also for the mind's health
For a long time, fermenting was a daily routine for women, like these alewives making beer. But this mysterious process was then used to accuse women of witchcraft and the alewives' hats became the "witches'" hats...
Skills & Experience
- Sustainable Food System Design
- Service Design
- UX-UI Design
- Digital illustration
- Problem-centred expert interview
Emilie Schaefer
SchoolKraut - Fermentation in schools
Follow:
