Norma Jean Anderson: Guiding Young Minds to a World of Flavors
Long ago, in my junior high school home economics class, one featured recipe was English muffin pizza. Light years away from that culinary low spot is Norma Jean Anderson’s decade of leading her students into an exciting world of food and food culture at Nauset Regional High School in Eastham. Fresh, scratch, and healthy are her key words.
Norma Jean’s version of my sad English muffin pizzas, by the way, calls for students to make their own pizza dough, make their own tomato sauce, and choose their toppings (at least two veggies). Next year, they may even make their own mozzarella cheese!
Before coming to Nauset, Norma Jean spent almost ten years subbing at Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans. While there, she started the Breakfast Cafe where traditional and special needs students worked together to make breakfast for teachers. After school, she organized the Iron Chef Kids’ Club. Teams competed, and teachers and guest food professionals judged students’ meals. She also started Cooking Buddies, an after-school program where differently abled students and traditional students made low-key small meals together, set the table and shared the meal; a club with an emphasis on having fun making a meal together.
When the Culinary Arts instructor job at the high school came up, Norma Jean (and approximately forty-five others) applied. She loved it right from the start and calls it the perfect job. With her energy, drive, and imagination, she was set on completely changing the program, which continues to this day.
Norma Jean says, “The curriculum in place when I arrived was using a lot of old school ‘tried and true’ recipes and cooking methods. I wanted to: 1) introduce new recipes, flavor profiles and cooking techniques from around the world to students; 2) give students the tools to make any of the aforementioned ‘tried and true’ recipes into the healthiest possible versions — and the experience of tasting delicious food that also happened to be healthy for them; and 3) create and grow connections with our food growing and serving community as they learn more about where their food comes from and options for eating locally.”
Culinary arts instructor, caterer, personal chef, cooking teacher at local inns and in Nauset Community education, volunteer, and former actress, Norma Jean has been involved in cooking on Cape Cod for over 30 years. She describes her day at Nauset as “a combination of teaching and running a restaurant.”
A Halloween baby, she was born and raised in Haverhill, MA. She earned a BA in theatre and dance from Barat College in Lake Forest, IL, just outside Chicago. Having graduated from a large high school, she relished attending a small college.
Norma Jean’s father, a teacher, principal, and coach in New Hampshire, would sometimes bring her to his school when vacation days didn’t coincide. She liked being in the school and would help other kids with their reading. Her father tried to convince her to take education courses in college even though her interest was theater. She didn’t take those education courses until later and wished she had followed his advice.
After graduation, Norma Jean moved to Lambertville, NJ, and then to New York, where she studied acting at HB Studio and with the late Wynn Handman, a prominent teacher and producer of the American Place Theatre. She worked as an agency temp and was an actress in off-Broadway productions as well an extra in several films and soap operas. She says, “Theater was my love.” It is Nauset’s good fortune that she developed a new love!
One of Norma Jean ‘s first goals at Nauset was to introduce her students to concepts of healthy food with a focus on creating recipes that taste good and are good for you — food you make for yourself. Among the foods in the wide range of classes she offers are egg dishes, soups, salads, chili, healthy snacks and comfort foods; the food of Jamaica, the Caribbean, Italy, Asia (Thai, Chinese, Indian), and Mexico; knife skills, and the five Mother Sauces. An important component of the classes is learning about cultural, political, religious, geographical, and climatological influences on cuisines. They also learn where food comes from. “The juice is in the lemon, the cheese is in the dairy fridge.” Most students take just one or two of these elective culinary classes, although a handful take all, and several have gone on to Johnson and Wales University or the Culinary Institute of America.
Norma Jean brings her students out into the community — field trips to local farms, oyster grants, a chocolate factory, a cranberry bog, and more, and every second year she takes them on an adventure out into the wider world, with food-focused European trips. She makes full use of the diverse community of local food growers, fishermen, and purveyors. On this spring’s farm-hopping field trip, Dave Johnson, a town shellfish officer, taught them about oysters at one of the town of Brewster oyster grants at Mant’s Landing. Chuck O’Connor of the Chatham Bars Inn Farm, also in Brewster, discussed their farming techniques and farm-to-table connection with the Chatham Bars Inn. This fall, the Tupper Farm cranberry bog will be added to the trip.
She also invites the community into the school, with invitations to restaurateurs, cheesemakers, fishermen and farmers. Mac Hay from Mac’s Seafood brought cod, taught the students how to break down the fish, and then make four recipes. Local shellfishermen brought in oysters and scallops and the students made a sweet potato oyster stew and scallop ceviche. ACK Gioia cheese store did a demo station at last year’s Farm & Sea-to-Table event, and plans to come back this fall.
A very special event for the public, Farm & Sea-to-Table is a popular annual fund-raising evening coming up on its eighth year on October 8. With food and beverage stations, live and silent auctions, and food demonstrations by local chefs, the evening promises to be a fun one that will benefit the Culinary Arts program’s field trips, organic produce, small appliances and replacement cooking tools for the kitchen, as well as international culinary travel scholarships.
The hard work and leadership of Rand Burkert, the Nauset Food and Research Garden, Gretel Norgeot of Orleans Farmers’ Market, and many volunteers has provided bountiful produce to the Culinary Arts program as well as local food pantries. The garden area will be used for portable classrooms during a major construction project starting this fall at the school. One exciting result of the renovation is that Norma Jean and her students will have a commercial kitchen for their classes.
One of the most enterprising of Norma Jean’s efforts has been taking students to Europe with Boston-based EF Tours. The first time, they attended the Global Student Leadership Summit on the Future of Food. Fifteen hundred students from all over followed itineraries that included various combinations of Spain, France, and Italy. Norma Jean’s group visited France, where they enjoyed dinner with locals, an amazing traditional meal at a club in Avignon. They visited the famous and fabulous La Bouqueria food market and took cooking classes in Barcelona, Spain, where they also made classic paella, had dinner with local residents and attended a workshop in molecular gastronomy. There they made instant ice cream, and used emulsion, spherification and gelification techniques to create a tasty and exciting meal.
All fifteen hundred students then convened in Milan for three days. In Milan, 114 teams from around the world were given food-related challenges employing an approach called design thinking. Among the topics were allergies, waste, food deserts, food insecurity, food sovereignty, and not having control over your own food. Top teams presented their solutions at the closing evening event for judging, and the winning team had their idea/ creation put on permanent display at the Nobel Prize Museum!
The second trip was to Italy and Spain, where students sampled traditionally-made small-batch aged Balsamic vinegars, made gelato, had pasta-making demonstrations, and watched the making of true Parmigiano Reggiano from start to end. The group learned to judge the age of a round of cheese with a density test by tapping with a small metal hammer and listening for inconsistencies.
This past April, Norma Jean, eleven students and two chaperones went to Greece. They had a cooking class in an Athens restaurant, went to a honey farm in Ancient Olympia, learned about olive oil, and visited the Oracle at Delphi. They also went to the Acropolis, Temple of Poseidon, Mycenae, and the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. The trips are life-changing; many of the students have not had the opportunity to travel. It’s a chance to see the bigger picture and discover that we are more alike than different. This year, Norma Jean is considering possibilities for a 2024 culinary adventure to Europe.
Another one of Norma Jean’s innovative programs is Out of Africa, an opportunity to explore the tremendous contributions of African slaves to what we think of as American cuisine. Students make and taste a variety of ingredients and dishes and learn about their origins and the food ways of the people who fed America.
In these digital, GMO days, Norma Jean’s commitment to teaching her students about real, fresh, healthy food and how to prepare it is more vital than ever. Her remarkable community spirit has connected her students and the local food culture as she continues her journey to bringing her students exciting new food possibilities.
For more information on the 8th Annual Farm & Sea-to-Table event on October 8, 2022 visit: nausetschools.org or contact Norma Jean at andersonn@nausetschools.org
TIPS from Norma Jean Anderson to her students (and the rest of us).
>> Air is the enemy of freshness! Squeeze all the air out of bags of leftover cut veggies, fruit, herbs.
>> Put mushrooms in a brown paper bag. They get mushy in their original packaging. If they dry out in the bag, rehydrate them before use.
>> Make your own stock and freeze into ice cubes. Save veggie and herb scraps, meat bones and unused parts, and shellfish and seafood scraps until you have enough to make stock.
>> Layers equal flavor! Use a variety of cooking methods, textures, contrasting flavors.
>> Use the right knife for the job! Chef ‘s knife for most needs, paring knife to peel or cut fruits and veggies into small pieces, and serrated knives for citrus, tomatoes, and bread.
>> A sharp knife is a safe knife! Hone your knives after every use.
>> Taste before you serve!
