Students Take Local Culinary Tour

Twelve students strapped on their walking shoes for a Food Literacy Project-led “Culinary Cambridge Walking Tour” on Saturday.

The jaunt was led by FLP Administrator Theresa A. McCulla ’04, and included stops at chef Julia Child’s former home, Savenor’s Market, and locally-owned café, The Biscuit.

McCulla said that the purpose of the tour was to introduce students to culinary points of interest in Cambridge.

“It’s so easy to just stay on campus without realizing that you can find all this neat stuff,” McCulla said.

Students said their interest in participating stemmed from a fascination with the preparation, taste, and presentation of different types of food.

“I thought it would be a good way to see the cooking culture of Cambridge,” said Jimmy C. Yang ’09, who took classes in French and Italian cooking last summer.

The first stop was the former home of chef Julia Child—credited with popularizing French cuisine among an American audience—on 103 Irving St., just a few blocks east of the Science Center.

Although the students could not enter the historic three-story abode, as it is now a private residence, they circulated a photograph of Child’s kitchen, which was moved in its entirety to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. three years before her death in 2004.

Two blocks away on Kirkland St., students took a tour of Savenor’s Market, the butcher shop and grocer frequented and made famous by Child.

Students went behind-the-scenes at the butchering station, learning about the preparation of the store’s famed meats, which range from the ordinary—chicken and pancetta—to the exotic—llama, black bear, and Brazilian python.

General Manager Juliana Lyman offered a tasting of Savenor’s gourmet products: maple smoked salmon with crème fraiche on water wheel crackers, goat cheese on crusty baguette slices, and freshly seared prime rare strip steak—all washed down with Pellegrino and Poland Spring mandarin orange sparkling water.

“This isn’t what they serve in your cafeteria,” laughed Lyman.

The final stop on the tour was nearby café The Biscuit, where students sampled sandwiches, pastries, coffees, and teas—all on the FLP’s tab.

The FLP aims to “[cultivate] an understanding of food from the ground up,” according to its Web site.

“This place is really cute,” said Sarah T. Yang ’10 as she sipped a café au lait, adding that she might come back if she needed a place to study.