Schmaachstonnen

„D‘ École du Goût – am Klassesall d’Schoulbänk drécken?“

On a snow-white plastic tray are placed

The first apple glows an intense red, stands out from the tabletop with its bright colour and reflects the light from the light tubes onto its round, shiny skin. The second apple appears in a dull yellow-brown, with isolated cracks and deep brown bumps. It's very shapeless and, to be honest, doesn't look particularly appetising. Especially not in direct comparison with the perfect red apple. How, in such a situation, we can communicate the ecological and cultural value of regional orchards and relativise the mass production of global supermarket chains remains a mystery to us. Even us, in such an environment, would probably go for the red apple. We are convinced that building an emotional bond with a regional product is only possible in the field, respectively in the kitchen. To develop a feeling and esteem for the apple grown in the orchard, you have to have experienced where the apple comes from. You have to be able to touch the tree it grew on, lift the apple itself from the damp, leaf-covered earth and taste it in the meadow on a cold autumn's day to really get a feel for the apple's taste and character. In this environment, the perfectly formed, shiny red apple does indeed seem a little foreign. Contrary to what its name might suggest, the École du Goût is not an independent school with teachers and classrooms. Our educational offer differs in many ways from a traditional course. It's true that up until now, due to our limited resources, we've largely worked on a decentralised basis in school classrooms. But this does not correspond to the methodology we follow. For us, it's important to offer children and pupils a concept that takes them out of the classroom and into the field and the kitchen. We want to give them the opportunity to talk to the producers, restaurateurs and food professionals and to experience and understand their work with all the senses. Identifying with Luxembourg's gastronomic culture and providing the right channels to make it tangible is an absolute priority for us.

Primary Schools (Cycle 1-4)

The École du Goût offers sensory education and taste perception units for primary schools. Different learning units have been developed over time, dealing with various aspects of our food and culture. A unit of this kind can be compared to a tasting session, but it makes greater use of tried and tested teaching methods and approaches. Through practical, interactive sensory education, children learn more about themselves and their environment in terms of our food culture. Find out more about our methodology Individual themed programmes are also developed, often in collaboration with our partners. Naturparkschoul.

Écoles secondaires

The School of Taste has also developed a specific programme for secondary schools. The question arose how and through which channels we could reach secondary school pupils with regard to our food culture. The answer was: social media and advertising. Students are exposed to advertising on all media on a daily basis. What used to be print advertising or TV commercials is now conveyed through personalised content and professional groups like influencers on Instagram. Marketing is constantly evolving and flooding us with stimuli. In our "Food Design" workshop, we show how advertising works. We examine which media and psychological tricks are used and how our senses react to the targeted manipulations of the advertising industry. To better understand this complex and theoretical content, we realised that it was much more effective to let the students create the content themselves. So we called in a media educator and a food photographer to work as close to reality as possible. We also work with the students on different types of advertising and marketing strategies to show them how they should go about it themselves.