A little while ago, my friend Lisa from The Book Mums spotted a cookery book that she thought would be right up my street – and she was right. It’s the Usborne Children’s World Cookbook which is filled with recipes from 25 different countries. If you have a long summer holdiay ahead of you to fill with children this book would be a very handy addition to your activity list.
The great thing about the Usborne Children’s World Cookbook is that it has a firm outer cover and inside it is spiral bound, making a great lie-flat book for the kitchen counter. The pages are thick and whilst they are probably not indestructible, they wipe clean very well if there are any minor splashes or spillages.
When I was little, I remember that my sister and I had a cookbook, with step by step pictures and instructions and two characters messing around – I wish I could remember the name of that book as it was the very first book I ever cooked from as a child. One of the characters was a cat, a bit like Henry’s Cat, but he wore a chef’s hat. Anyway, I digress. This book reminded me of that book in the way that the pictures breakdown each recipe in a simple-to-follow format.
Children of any age could easily follow the recipes in this book – if they are younger, of course, they would need lots of help and supervision. Older children (8-11) would enjoy picking out recipes to try too. You also get little snippets of information about each country throughout and its food or traditions.
There are some basic hints and tips to start with, such as how to chop an onion, how to grease a tin, whisk and beat. The first double-page spread features The United States of America, mentioning New York delis, pretzels and giving a recipe for a baked New York Cheesecake. Flip over and you’ll find a second recipe for Chocolate Brownies and a picture and explanation of the tradition of eating Pumpkin Pie. Well, we didn’t expect healthy recipes to start with, did we?!
England features Cream Teas with an easy recipe for Scones (which kids always love making and eating) and mentions seasonal fruits, berries and our love of jam making.
The Latin America pages are cool, showing you how to make Tacos, Guacamole, Salsa and Re-fried Beans. This would be a great project for older kids or adventurous families who could easily put together a theme night (based on any of the countries, in fact).
There are also pages showing all kinds of bright and colourful fruit and vegetables. I liked the way that unusual fruits were highlighted, such as Guava, Star Fruit, Lychees and Sharon Fruit and in the case of vegetables, Plantain, Okra and Yams. We took our book out shopping with us to see whether we could spot anything unusual – we found a few and came back with kiwi fruit and asparagus which my little boy was then keen to try.
There are also pages on Fish and Seafood, Cheese and Bread as well as photos of lots of Cakes and Pastries from around the world. My favourite sweet recipes were the Austrian Sachertorte and the German Lebkuchen (spiced biscuits) which we’ll definitely be making and decorating at Christmas.
It was great to see savoury food from The Caribbean, Norway, Russia and The Middle East highlighted and there were some real treats from Denmark – my son loved making ‘Smorrebrod‘ or open sandwiches and we enjoyed getting to know other Mediterranean ingredients, particularly as he adores olives!
Towards the back, the last few pages feature the flavours and spices of India, Thailand, China and Japan. We made the Fried Rice with Vegetables from China easily enough and the kids had fun practicing with chopsticks. In hindsight, I didn’t chose the easiest food for them to pick up, did I?!
All in all, I was very impressed with this book both for its educational though fun style, a very clean layout and simple to follow instructions. We’ll definitely be busy over the long Summer holidays experimenting and trying new recipes from around the world.
The Usborne Children’s World Cook Book is available through Usborne Children’s Books and is priced at £12.99. Check out Lisa at The Book Mums who will easily point you in the direction of a local consultant or will mail it out to you.
Other Usborne cookbooks include The Children’s Book of Baking, The Usborne Healthy Cookbook and 30 Things to Cook and Eat.
For downloadable versions of recipes in the book go to the Usborne Quicklinks Worldwide and enter the keywords “world cookbook“.
Thank you for my review copy. The book is written by Angela Wilkes and Sarah Khan with food photography by Howard Allman.