In this lesson, designed to be part of a unit of everyday life in colonial America, students working in small groups will experiment with combining ingredients in order to recreate the beverage called “switchel”. As they develop their brew, the students will write out their recipes and generate a list of adjectives, similes, and metaphors to attempt to describe the taste. As a whole class, the students will identify the ingredients they used, discuss the place of those ingredients in the trans-Atlantic trade, and hypothesize about why switchel was so popular in the colonies. Finally, students will participate in a blind taste test to determine the best batch of switchel and generate a slogan or jingle to popularize it.
Colonial America’s Test Kitchen
Details
Author | |
Topic/Subject Area | Food, Cooking, Beverage, Alcohol |
Historical Era | Colonial settlement, 1620–1762 |
Grade Level | Middle School (6–8) |
Creation Date | 2016 |
Last Revision Date | 2024 |