Taste Quest: Encouraging Kids to Play With Their Food

In 2017 with a background in writing, marketing and small business consulting, Emily Sauerman began Taste Quest as a nonprofit focused on cooking, community and play for families in Nashville. During the pandemic, however, Taste Quest was struggling to connect with families who already had too much on their plates. “As I began to re-invision Taste Quest during this time, I was approached by a partner organization who had a problem: they were giving away boxes of food to food-insecure families by sending them home with school-age kids.

For many of these families, however, the food was culturally unrecognizable, whether because they were immigrants, or because they had lived most of life in a food desert. In some cases, these families even returned the free food. The social workers who delivered the food to the kids were wondering whether there was a way to train the kids to be food and nutrition ambassadors to their families. As soon as I heard this, I knew this was an opportunity to reach more kids in need through Taste Quest after-school. I shifted our focus into group curricula that social workers, after school programs, camps and homeschool tutorials could use to empower kids through play-based food activities, some of which we had developed already. From this, we released Snack Around the World, our first activity kits that leverage the power of play with the power of food to help kids build critical life skills. This change fell perfectly in line with the Taste Quest mission.”

This Taste Quest curriculum is flourishing. After a recent lesson making guacamole, one facilitator said, “It was a huge hit. [The kids] put things in their guacamole that they never would have thought to simply because they had an open mind and the game said to add it. The students loved it once they tried it and they were able to share with each other and give respectful feedback on their recipes.”

Another student who participated in a Taste Quest lesson was terrified to taste a green pepper. Once she was assured it was not a spicy pepper, she gave it a try and discovered she loved it. This prompted her to request and pack up the leftovers to share with her mom. Emily explains, “This little moment was a beautiful example of a student who experienced something new and felt empowered to share that experience with her family.” It is evident that kids are learning new skills and bringing those skills and experiences back to their communities.

Taste Quest plans to distribute the current activity kit, Snack Around the World, to as many enrichment groups as possible. They are also building out an online library of free resources for groups and individuals to use as needed to enhance the learning experience around food and community.

Reach out to Emily if you’d like to get involved (as a board member, volunteer, sponsor & more)
@tastequesthq