Teaching a World Crops Course by Integration of Food Preparation/Cooking with Classroom Lectures: Field to Fork.

For over the last 25 years, the course World Crops and Cropping System was taught using traditional lecture formats. The course is an introduction to world crops, their primary regions of production, the factors that determine where they are grown, their economic importance, and how they are used in the human diet. For the first time this year, we included a food lab along with the classroom lectures. The purpose of the lab was to make students aware of how the different crops covered in the course can be utilized as food by different cultures. During each lab period, the students were divided into groups by gender. The weekend before the food lab, students were given recipes for crops discussed during class period. Each group prepared a main dish, appetizer and dessert from the same crop. The students also were asked to relate the food preparation and consumption to the cultural origin of the crop. The outcome of the food lab exceeded expectations and student comments were favorable. Overall, the students learned how world crops were processed and prepared as nutritious food from field to fork.