REFRESHMENT IN THE HOUSE OF WISDOM
In the House of Wisdom, the scholar and mathematician
al-Kindi offers Ella and Shomari refreshment. The year is 841 CE, and the city
is Baghdad, center of culture and government for the caliphate. The two
time-traveling middle-schoolers are visiting to learn from the master about how
to decode a secret message. Food puts them at ease.
The teenagers drink cardamom coffee and fruit juice. They
nibble on apricots, nuts and dates from Persia as al-Kindi discusses his
theories on the origin of the universe, the benefits of trade and the
importance of religious tolerance. Finally, he shares his method to decode any
substitution cipher. The food and conversation contrast with the menacing behavior
of the guards who swarmed Ella and Shomari on their arrival.
In book six of Tumblehome Learning’s Galactic Academy of
Science series, The Cryptic Case of the Coded Fair, four friends work together
to outwit the evil Dr. G, who is scheming to undermine the international
science fair with cheating and “alternate facts.” The kids meet after school at
each other’s houses to plan their approach to breaking the secret code Dr. G
uses to send orders to his corrupt judges. Then one pair travels through time
to gather information from cryptographers of the past – from Julius Caesar to
Thomas Jefferson to Whitfield Diffie – while the other pair stays home to work
on computer programs.
Food reflects culture and personality, and every G.A.S. book
is multicultural as well as historical and scientific. In Coded Fair, the
snacks served at the different kids’ houses tells us something about their
culture and their parents. Shomari’s father serves the kids healthy cider and
vegetables with vegetable dip, but his mother sneaks in later to offer them
cupcakes. Anita’s mother serves sopapillas, but then on the spur of the moment
invites everybody to stay and eat chicken casada with Anita’s large and fluid
Dominican family.
Now if only we knew more about what Julius Caesar ate, or in
the Italian Renaissance of the grumpy mathematician Gerolamo Cardano.
Unfortunately, neither of those hosts was welcoming enough to offer food to his
visitors. But on the way, we got interested enough in the history of food to
explore it a lot further in book nine, The Contaminated Case of the Cooking Contest, which is all about food poisoning on a cruise ship.
Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Penny!
You can find Penny here:
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