Joined by a Cookbook
(Original)

Martin Kotarski
(Age 14, Croatia)
Ksaver Šandor Gjalski Primary School, Zabok

Society, culture, ecology, economy, citizen responsibility ... all the words which I, a fourteen-year-old boy, don’t know much about. But, a sad friend with no proper food on his table, nice clothes to wear, pocket-money, toys to play or computer for studying, sounds familiar.

One day I came to school and saw that my friend was sad. I asked him about it. He wouldn't tell me at first, but I found out that his father had lost his job and his mother were about to give birth to a new child. He was very depressed because his parents couldn’t pay the bills, food, give him money for his school lunch. So he lost some weight, his clothes were worn out and other kids started picking on him. He became aggressive and he fought all the time. He lost his friends and started getting bad marks. He desperately needed help. I wanted to help him but I didn't know how. I had known before about the kids with the same problem but I didn't think about it so much till now. Then I came up with an idea how to solve such problems in my school.

Why don’t we make a cookbook with traditional meals cooked by our grandmothers and mothers? We could sell that book and get money for poor people of our school. And not only that. We would bring old meals back to life and throw fattening and unhealthy fast food away. Say hello to delicious food my parents used to eat when they were little. I found a solution for two problems: how to help the poor people and dump fast food.

I knew I couldn't do it without help. I went to the school pedagogue and told her about my idea. Since she is a volunteer for the Red Cross (and she deals with the social problems of school children all the time) she liked the idea. We made an action plan and she put it in motion. She decided to involve students, parents, grandparents and the whole community to collect recipes for the cookbook. She informed teachers and then they threw themselves to work. They motivated children to talk with their grandparents about the forgotten “old ways” and write down their stories in local dialect. With students’ help a recipe pile was bigger and bigger. Even my friend, an excellent footballer, brought a whole bunch of old recipes. My Croatian teacher, pedagogue and librarian took a big part of whole job—they read the recipes, prepared the dishes, took photographs, wrote introduction, all in all, gave their precious time. The National Foundation for Civil Activities, located in the capital of Croatia, stepped in with a donation of 10,000 kuna ($2,000) for its publication. The Town Hall, Red Cross, Folk Group Zabok, regional newspapers, ecological organizations and some companies gave us a hand, too. After all, Zabok is a Town Friend of Children. That means that it supports all the programs of our schools, creative workshops and sports clubs.

When it was finally published we presented it to the public. The presentation was held in our school on May 30. Some mothers and grandmothers got themselves involved by cooking some old strudels, local cheese and corn cakes and so on. Two couples performed traditional dances and made the event even more special. I had a small part as well. I had to recite a poem. I forgot some of the words, but never mind. I felt great on the stage when they said it had been my idea. The whole bunch of people came to see the cookbook and taste the meals that were served at the end of the presentation. Many people have bought a cookbook as a gift, souvenir and some were trying to cook a meal using the recipes. My friend's mother at first bought three cookbooks and then she wanted five pieces more. “It is excellent! I really like the design—the photographs and the way it is written in the local dialect. That’s a nice touch. I can almost hear my old grandmother teaching me how to cook,” she said. Others agreed with her so we have sold five hundred cookbooks and collected $3000.

We raised enough money to help twenty–five needy families of our school friends in our region. My sad friend was happy, too, because his family was one of them. And not only that. We have become aware of the unhealthy food we eat every day and of the forgotten traditional values. Realizing that, we started visiting our grandparents more and enjoying their old stories and meals. Who knows? Maybe we will “dig out” some more good books.