The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook (A Kids Can! Book)

     As the longtime senior editor at Disney's Family Fun magazine, author Deanna F. Cook's Family Fun Cookbook (published in 1996) was one of the first cookbooks that I purchased once my husband and I started our family.  Filled with easy, tasty dishes that even your pickiest eaters will enjoy, her cookbook has been a go-to favorite in our household for many nutritious, yummy meals that needed to be created in a time crunch.
   The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook (A Kids Can! Book), I was curious to see if Ms. Cook could capture my interest, as well as my family's taste buds (which have now matured over the passage of time) once again.  Ms. Cook knows all too well how making dinners more interesting and fun can be a frustrating challenge for just about any family.  And, introducing new, foreign flavors from different cultures from around the world can, let's face it, be a trip into some very shallow waters if your household is filled with picky eaters (like mine)!  Ms. Cook's new book will win your family over with the attention to detail in this authentic complication of recipes and facts.

  So naturally, when the kind folks at Ideals Publications sent her latest cookbook,
     Ms. Cook interviewed children from around the world to discover the types of foods they eat, and they, in turn, taught her how to make their favorite dishes.  The pictures of these children are shown throughout the book, and this is a sweet highlight.  Children of all ages can easily prepare most of the dishes featured in this book, but one of the most helpful details is that each recipe is rated for difficulty using the visual of spoons--one spoon signifies an easy dish to three spoons which signifies at least moderate to complete adult supervision.  While many of the foods are clever takes on familiar foods that only have a different name, there are other recipes that we were unfamiliar with, like Chapatis (an Indian flat bread that the people of India use to eat their food with).  This cookbook is chock filled with activities, trivia and games from several countries (which include Thailand, Switzerland, Italy and Israel to name a few).  We also enjoyed learning some unfamiliar facts about several of the countries (did you know that in many of the kitchens throughout Central America, people have chili pepper bushes growing right by their kitchen sinks?  This is because the chili pepper is a popular spice used throughout Central American households to kick their foods up a notch!).
     The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook (A Kids Can! Book) is great for children who are beginning to show an interest in cooking, as a lot of these recipes are easy and quick enough to be used in a classroom or school cooking club.  From an educator's perspective, I also think this would be an excellent resource to turn to for a fun lesson on multiculturalism, as the recipes are culturally oriented for many geographic regions.

The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook (A Kids Can! Book)
Written by Deanna F. Cook & Illustrated by Michael P. Kline
Publisher:  Williamson Books (an imprint of Ideals Publications, a Guideposts Company)-2008
Website:  www.idealsbooks.com
Retails for $12.99 (Softcover)
ISBN: 978-0-8249-6818-2
For ages 5 and up