Bread – Students, teachers learn traditional breadmaking skills
Two women knead lumps of traditional pueblo bread dough and plop
them into pie plates in front of a group of Ernest Stapleton
Elementary School teachers.
One woman pokes the top of the dough with a fork. One might
wonder why they do that.
“We don’t really know why,” Celeste Naranjo said. “Grandma
said.”
Celeste and her sister-in-law Denise Naranjo, Stapleton teachers
and experienced bread bakers from Cochiti Pueblo, demonstrated the use of
the school’s horno, a traditional Southwestern outdoor oven, on
Wednesday, making traditional bread and non-traditional pumpkin
cookies.
They and their colleagues are to use the horno in lessons.
Stapleton’s horno, which is made of adobe instead of the
traditional pumice or lava rock, is part of the school’s Linda
Sanasac Outdoor Classroom. The Naranjos fired it up for the first
time Wednesday.
Fifth-grade teacher Joan Gustafson, who team-teaches with Denise
Naranjo, said using the horno would give students cultural
awareness, math exercises through working with recipes, an
opportunity for writing activities and inspiration to talk with
their parents about their family’s heritage.
“And I know our kids are really excited to do something with the
horno,” Gustafson said.
Third-grade teacher Erik Gutierrez said he thought using the
horno to make bread was a good multi-cultural activity for students, especially
since they live near pueblos.
He said he didn’t know until Wednesday that the burning wood and
coals had to be removed from the oven before the bread dough went
inside.
“It’s just cool to see how it actually works with someone
experienced who knows what they’re doing,” Gutierrez said.
Before the oven was installed, Celeste and Denise Naranjo agreed
to teach other teachers how to use it.
Denise Naranjo said although Rio Rancho is near so many American
Indian communities, they don’t have access to bread hornos.
Through the teaching, she hopes students will learn to respect
other cultures as adults.
Celeste Naranjo said it was exciting to share her culture, and
she thought students gained an awareness of how tradition is
continued.
“It’s nice to bring it from home here,” she said. “It makes it
another home.”
Celeste and Denise Naranjo often use an horno to bake pies,
bread and even deer meat.
They usually bake enough bread to use up 25-50 pounds of flour
in one session.
To use a bread horno, the baker fills it with cedar wood, sets a fire
and lets the wood burn to coals and then cleans out the coals and
puts in food.
Fourth-grade teacher Gabe Montoya said students would see that
they could learn from the pueblo culture and put experience with
the sight of bread hornos.
“I’m glad we have the experience here,” he said.
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