Food & Drink
Nutritional Values
Social entrepreneurs
are making careers out
of doing good in the
world of food. Here’s a
look at some activists
who are putting their
know-how where it’s
needed most
BY CORINNE WHITING
“Freedom from Want,”
from Norman Rockwell’s
Four Freedoms series, was
published in The Saturday
Evening Post in 1943.
In the early 1990s, Daniel Nachtigal and
his late wife, Liesel Flashenberg, left
their comfortable Washington, D.C.,
existence and relocated to Costa Rica
to live on their savings. A Sunday afternoon conversation in the National Gallery of Art had solidified their desire to
share a more intense family experience,
Nachtigal says. They craved a less-hectic
lifestyle in which they could enjoy more
meaningful daily interactions with their
three young sons.
After moving to Costa Rica, the couple
began catering for high-end clients in
embassies and resorts, sometimes baking
up to 1,000 brownies a week. Soon they
opened a small cooking school. Satisfied students began asking if their maids,
many of them illegal immigrants from
abusive backgrounds in Nicaraguan barrios, could enroll.
The couple decided to grant one
student free tuition for every tuition
paid, and in no time, good news started
pouring in. Clients reported that their
household sta; returned from cooking classes changed people, exhibiting
much more confidence.
“One woman called and explained that
now, when she wanted to have guests for
dinner, her maid could plan the menu,
determine if there was enough chicken,
get more if necessary, and run the household without the same requirement
for micromanaging by the employer,”
Nachtigal says.
Nachtigal and his wife quickly realized
they were accomplishing more than just
teaching cooking. The courses wove sub-
tle messages of self-esteem into lessons
on knife skills and menu building. Unlike
many classes, these didn’t start out with a
review of the science of nutrition. Instead
of talking about the food pyramid, the aim
was to show students respect.
Earning While Learning
Fast-forward two decades, and Nachtigal
(Flashenberg died in 2010) and his sta;
carry on this same mission at the D. C.-based Through the Kitchen Door, which
he and his late wife cofounded with a
mission to use “food as fuel for healthy,
stable families and sustainable community development.” The group aims
to empower recent immigrants, low-income adults and at-risk youths, and its
Earning While Learning catering enterprise employs the program’s graduated
students for about 75 events a year.
Since it opened in 2000, when it was
run out of the couple’s home o;ce and
local church kitchens, some 1,000 adults
and 1,000 youths have taken Through
NORMAN ROCKWELL/CORBIS
