Children鈥檚 cookbooks stir the creativity of budding chefs
Illustrations by Karen Norris/Staff
Priya Krishna鈥檚 childhood reads like a dream. Her mother worked in the airline industry, and Priya and her sister grew up traveling the globe with their parents. By the time she was a teenager, she had explored the pyramids of Giza in Egypt, climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower in France, fished for piranhas in the Amazon rainforest, and sandboarded across dunes in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. She also ate dumplings in China, pozole in Mexico, silky smooth hummus in Egypt, paper-thin crepes in France.
Her globe-trotting, street-food-sampling childhood not only informed Krishna鈥檚 career 鈥� she鈥檚 a food reporter and bestselling cookbook author 鈥� but also inspired a fun and energetic children鈥檚 cookbook that has quickly become one of my kids鈥� favorites.
Priya鈥檚 Kitchen Adventures: A Cookbook for Kids takes kids on a culinary journey to 12 countries 鈥� including Greece, Mexico, France, Peru, Morocco, and Japan 鈥� and offers a collection of easy takes on iconic dishes like spanakopita, fried rice, vegetable tagine, and miso ramen. Helpfully, recipes are marked easy, medium, or hard. Krishna breaks down more complex recipes, like pork and chive dumplings, pear and Gorgonzola ravioli, and tarte aux pommes, into clearly written steps illustrated with photos of the process to guide more adventurous junior chefs.
Why We Wrote This
Culinary adventures await in the family kitchen, where kids can learn the basics and be inspired by a quartet of helpful cookbooks. Our reviewer and her children share their favorites.
Our copy of this book, which has sprouted a thick crop of bookmarks to earmark must-try recipes, often keeps my 9-year-old company as he pores over descriptions of far-flung places and international recipes. It has also inspired lively conversations with visiting cousins debating favorite countries to visit and cuisines to sample.
Krishna鈥檚 fried rice was easy enough for my kids and me to throw together one recent weekday for lunch, and their enjoyment of it was heightened by the fact that they mostly cooked it themselves. We regularly enjoy crepes with strawberries and Nutella for a special weekend breakfast, and I can鈥檛 wait to try the mousse au chocolat, which contains just dark chocolate chips and heavy cream 鈥� and looks like a dream.
I鈥檓 skeptical of celebrity cookbooks, but David Atherton鈥檚 Baking Book for Kids by the winner of the 鈥淕reat British Baking Show鈥� stole my and my kids鈥� hearts. I loved Harry Woodgate鈥檚 endlessly charming and cozy illustrations that tempted me to tie on an apron and get baking: a little girl curled up on a sofa, dipping her biscuit in a cup of cocoa; a trio of friends lying on a picnic blanket, gazing at the clouds while they munch on spring rolls; a pair of friends enjoying a tea party with their stuffed animals while they pour pretend tea and sample peanut butter-and-jam sandwich cookies. My son noticed and appreciated that the illustrations included children with disabilities joining in the baking fun.
And my kids loved Atherton鈥檚 clever kid-friendly twists on classic bakes: breadsticks become 鈥渃runchy critter breadsticks,鈥� with little legs and raisin eyes; hot cross buns morph into 鈥渉ot cross hedgehogs鈥� with pinched snouts and scissor-snipped spines; and scones explode into savory scone volcanoes with a clever cheese-stick trick.
The slim volume covers sweet and savory bakes, including breads, cakes, pastries, and cookies. Many are standard bakes with some British twists (see: flapjacks), but look closely and you鈥檒l notice good-for-you ingredients tucked in here and there: Atherton includes whole wheat flour in many of the breads; sneaks veggies like shredded zucchini, corn, and even rutabaga into cakes and bars; and employs yogurt as both a moistener and a cupcake frosting.
Each recipe is generously depicted, with sweet illustrations of each of the ingredients, each step of the process, and the finished product, so little bakers have plenty of visual cues 鈥� and inspiration.
We tried the autumn apple cakes one rainy afternoon, a moist and barely sweet muffin. My daughter loved the apple-forward flavor and glaze, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed a bake sweetened with only 2 tablespoons of honey. We鈥檙e waiting for more rainy days to try the chocolate chip buns, sticky chocolate flapjacks, summer berry yogurt cakes, and cheese twists.
Mark Bittman鈥檚 giant food tomes were some of the first cookbooks I bought as a young professional, then newlywed and new mom. They taught me the bare-bones basics, and more important, how to substitute, riff, and adapt with ease. Now that my kids are starting to join me in the kitchen, I was thrilled to offer them their own Bittman cookbook, How To Cook Everything Kids.
I think of this as an all-purpose cookbook with training wheels: It鈥檚 got many of the staples kids love, along with super-simple instructions, cartoonlike illustrations, and plenty of ideas for variations with toppings and mix-ins. Bittman keeps this book very approachable with a friendly tone, photos of kids cooking, and plenty of hand-drawn charts. One of my son鈥檚 favorites is a 鈥淐reate your own sandwich鈥� game board, complete with different breads, smears, layers, and toppings, culminating in a towering sandwich.
With lots of tips and customizations, Bittman encourages confidence, experimenting, and making a dish one鈥檚 own, perhaps the most important kitchen skill, and one I鈥檇 love my kids to gain.
As with his earliest books, the recipes here are mostly basic: think flippy pancakes, super-creamy mac and cheese, bean burritos, 鈥渃hicken Mark nuggets,鈥� and applesauce. The recipes are less adventurous, and more geared toward helping young cooks learn easy staples. But my 9-year-old was also intrigued by some of the more offbeat offerings like tuna-potato-chip pot pie, white beans with Parmesan, and egg pizza. The quinoa cooked with salsa caught my eye, as did the far-out farro sundae, both simple and clever ways to cook and serve whole grains.
First, an admission: Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods is not a cookbook. Rather, it鈥檚 a book of stories behind iconic Chinese dishes. It鈥檚 also one of my older kids鈥� favorite books, and they wouldn鈥檛 let me write this roundup without including this, a book they trade back and forth many nights to read in bed, and whose binding has already shown the love it has received.
It鈥檚 easy to see why it鈥檚 so loved. The book is formatted like a menu at a Chinese restaurant, with sections for different teas, appetizers, soups, sides, specials, and desserts. Each 鈥渙rder鈥� has its own chapter with the legend behind its origin 鈥� all real, according to author Grace Lin, who researched every story and included a bibliography for budding food historians who want to delve deeper.
Who is the General Tso behind General Tso鈥檚 chicken? Why is the dish called Buddha Jumps Over the Wall? How should you never hold chopsticks? How did a culinary accident by a devoted son in pursuit of immortality lead to the invention of tofu? And what does the modern fortune cookie have to do with Japanese internment camps during World War II?
The stories Lin cooks up are fascinating, delving into history, culture, and cuisine, with a side of old-fashioned fable. My kids loved the sections on dumplings, fried shrimp, and tofu, and begged to try some of the foods they read about. If they鈥檙e anything like mine, perhaps the little ones in your life will happily eat this book up, too.