Two salads: one kale, one beet. Photo: Jaime Lutz

When I was a teenager, I usually didn’t care what I was eating. I ate wildly, decadently unseasonal: Chilean strawberries in January, grilled and salted zucchini in March. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about slow food or healthy eating or the environment – I simply didn’t know about any of the issues caught up in the production of food.

Bless, then, those bright, health-conscious, Pollan-reading high schoolers that were all over the Northeast Food and Justice Summit at Northeastern University over the weekend. Sponsored by Real Food Challenge, The Food Project and Boston Latin School’s Youth CAN, the summit connected student groups, activist organizations and leaders in the slow food movement from all over the Northeast (the Food Project previously held conferences in other corners of the country).

There was an even mix of high school and college students – in total, conference organizer Anim Steel said that over 600 people registered or volunteered to attend. At the conference’s center were an abundance of workshops, usually led by people both younger and more dazzlingly brilliant than I am – I never thought I’d finally learn how to chiffonade greens from someone who is, probably, learning the quadratic formula as I type this. (After the jump – more from the conference and a seasonal beet salad recipe!)

My picks for Saturday were a student-led tutorial on growing your own food (it inspired me to start a garden, but more on that in future posts – in the meantime, check out our Twitter page for planting tips), a talk with leaders of college food co-ops and a hands-on cooking workshop on preparing produce, led by New York’s West Side High School’s Teen Battle Chefs. Teen Battle Chefs is a program that teaches high school students how to prepare their own nutritious meals – but at our workshop, it was the teens who were teaching us. We made two easy, fresh and satisfying salads – one with kale, almonds and fresh parmesan, another with ruby red beets and carrots.

I was especially taken with the beet salad, which had this gorgeous, jewel-like color (I am reminded of Natalie Portman’s Oscar dress from last night). The recipe was developed and tweaked by the teens at the West Side High School themselves, who added yogurt and honey to the mix. I thought the salad benefited from their additions – the freshness of the veggies was well-suited for the yogurt’s tang, and the honey added an understated, subtle amount of sweetness. You can try out their recipe for yourself below.

So, was the conference a success? I think I’ll let Steel have the last word on that. He said the conference goal was to empower teens, to liberate them from a tired and overworked food chain. “We’re not who the media says we are, we’re not just passive consumers, that’s not our role in society,” Steel said. “We can change things and we have the responsibility to change things.”

“If people leave with that, it will be a success,” he added. “The rest will follow.”

ROOT VEGGIE SALAD
Recipe written by Lynn Fredericks, Family Cook Productions. Adapted by West Side High School Teen Battle Chefs.

You will need:
2 turnips or ¼ head cabbage
1 beet
2 carrots
1 orange juiced or 1/3 cup orange juice
2 tbsp rice vinegar or apple cider vinegar

Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Optional variation:
½ cup yogurt
1 tbsp honey

Directions:

1. Grate turnips, beets and carrots
2. In mixing bowl combine turnips, beets, carrots, vinegar, and orange juice
3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Variation:

1. Add the yogurt and honey to the other ingredients and mix well.