Cristo Rey Students Create Cookbook from Urban Garden Harvest

There is a garden in Southwest Detroit that grows shishito, jalapeño and habanero peppers. In another bed, there is chamomile, chocolate mint and mojito mint. There are three kinds of thyme, sage and oregano. There are wild berries, sunflowers, tomatoes, zaatar, three kinds of squash, four kinds of cucumbers and two kinds of watermelons. There is also a sensory garden where children pull cherry tomatoes and taste them.

This bounty of fresh vegetables is from Cadillac Urban Gardens and inspired “Recipes from the Garden,” a cookbook in the works by the environmental justice club at Cristo Rey High School. The idea for the book came from Dolores Perales, Co-director of Cadillac Urban Garden, who wanted to promote healthy eating and engage high school students in urban agriculture.

Perales, a Cristo Rey graduate, learned about a grant opportunity from the Michigan Alliance for Justice in Climate (MAJIC). In April, MAJIC awarded Cadillac Urban Garden, a nonprofit, a grant to put together the recipe book. By May, students had put out calls on social media, encouraging family and friends to share recipes via a Google form. Over 100 submissions were received, most from the families of Cristo Rey students. Each recipe had to use ingredients from the garden and avoid all-meat or all-dairy dishes.

A variety of recipes were submitted—everything from fried green tomatoes to chilaquiles and tabbouleh. People got creative. They also submitted recipes for healthy teas and fruit smoothies.

 “One of the ways I connect with being Mexican is food,” said Odalis Perales, a volunteer at the garden, who contributed her recipe for chilaquiles en salsa verde. “My mom’s recipe needs to have epazote, and the garden actually grows it. At the grocery store, she has only found dried epazote, which she says doesn’t taste the same as it does fresh.”

Alex Montesinos, a 17-year-old junior at Cristo Rey and president of the Environmental Justice Club, was the link between the garden and the students.

“The main point is to get more people to go to the garden where everything is organically grown,” Montesinos said.

Many of the recipes were submitted in Spanish. Montesinos led the students in translating the recipes. Recipe submitters were asked to cook their dishes, and students interested in photography took food photos in exchange for community service hours. There is also hope to put together free cooking videos to supplement the book.

“Whether it’s a Spanish dish or a Middle Eastern dish, we wanted to diversify the recipe book as much as possible, which is why we reached out to the community,” Montesinos said.

The garden was built in 2012 by Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision with the support of the Ideal Group, a Latino family-owned and operated business in Southwest Detroit. Once an abandoned parking lot, the area now boasts over 330 raised garden beds. The vegetables are free and a source of fresh food for the community.

The garden is also a source of innovation and creativity.

A few years ago, the Ideal Group, the garden’s sponsor, issued a challenge to create a system of collecting and storing rainwater to sustain the vegetables. The Detroit Cristo Rey Robotics team, the Kinematic Wolves, accepted the challenge and built a water catchment system that is there to this day.

Alex Montesinos was just a child when his older sisters were part of the robotics team that designed and built the catchment system. Through his involvement with the cookbook, his connection to the garden has come full circle.

Alondra Carter-Alvizo, board president of the Cadillac Urban Garden non-profit, describes how they approached neighborhood residents for recipe ideas.

“We worked with different community residents who might want to bring their own seeds for culturally relevant foods,” Carter-Alvizo said. “Now that such a diverse crop has been planted, the recipes can include culturally meaningful food such as rhubarb, okra, and poblano peppers.”

“I really think [the goal] is to feed our neighbors,” Carter-Alvizo said.

The Cadillac Urban Garden is open from April through October and free to the public. The book is slated for an August release.

“The pandemic really exacerbated a lot of the food insecurity that was already prevalent in our communities, and so the garden became a source,” Carter-Alvizo said. “Ultimately, I’d want us all to have a stake in what a garden can do for community revitalization.”