I have a confession, Lunch Tray readers, and I’m warning you that it’s not pretty.
It seems to be agreed upon by all that cooking with your kids is a lovely bonding experience — parent and child mixing up batter together and happily making messes all over the place and licking icing from the bowl. The stuff of a Norman Rockwell painting, right?
But when my kids were little — even though I still did it now and then — I secretly hated cooking with them. (Awful, I know.)
I think it’s because back in those days (and I’m talking maybe kindergarten and under here), so much of the minutiae of daily life felt like such a massive hassle – from getting all the occupants of the family car seated and buckled, to the time it took to get those little bodies dressed semi-appropriately, to the near-constant vigilance required to prevent choking, electrocution, drowning and other major disasters. Adding one more messy endeavor to the docket just felt like a huge imposition back then. That was all the more true because, for me, cooking has always been a refuge, a relaxing time when I can putter about the kitchen, lost in my own thoughts or listening to the news or music on the radio. Adding little kids to the mix turned much-needed down time into that much more work for Mommy.
But now that my kids are older, cooking together has become a real pleasure. My daughter, especially, takes immense pride in the fact that she can now prepare an entire breakfast (scrambled eggs, pancakes, etc.) for the family and she’s constantly asking how things are made and whether she can try to make them herself. Friday night, the Jewish sabbath, is our family’s special night for dessert and the children often vie for who gets to prepare it. And both children will occasionally surprise me (OK, not really a surprise because I can hear all the ruckus in the kitchen) with various treats and beverages they’ve concocted for my enjoyment.
So I recently decided it was time to expand my cookbook library with some kid-and-parent cookbooks, ones especially designed for children to do most of the actual cooking. My only criteria were that the books appeal to both me and my kids and that the resulting recipes were healthful enough that I’d actually be glad that we were eating them. (Why is it that so many kid cookbooks — and kid cooking classes– assume that the only thing kids want to prepare is homemade junk food or sugary desserts?)
In seeking buying advice, I knew just where to turn: Donna Gershenwald, my fellow Houston ISD Food Services Parent Advisory Committee member, parent and foodie extraordinaire. She generously schlepped to my house over a dozen such books from her collection and in the end my kids and I selected the top three that most appealed to us.
Tomorrow I’ll post my list of those three, but I’m also sending out an open call to all Lunch Tray readers. What’s your favorite kid cookbook? Gather up your trusted titles and be prepared to share tomorrow in The Lunch Tray’s first (but not last) Reader Exchange!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I teach cookery to 6-11yo in the UK and have noticed a distinct lack of decent kids cookbooks especially ones to use with their parents. There is also a huge gap for a book aimed at boys who are around the 8-12 mark.
I don’t know if these are avaliable in the US but my fave are:
Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes
and Kids’ bKitchen by Fiona Bird
Jules – I’ll look for those on line and see if readers here can purchase them. Thanks for sharing with us! – Bettina
We love the Sneaky Chef! My kids love to help “sneak” veggies, fruits, and whole grains into our meals and snacks. We always to to trick my husband and he has to guess what we deceived him with! It’s always fun when we sneak in sweet potatoes because he doesn’t like sweet potatoes!
Tracy – that’s a topic I’d like to address next week: the whole sneaky thing. Some parents love it, others hate it! Look for it next week. – Bettina
Bettina–I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this with you, but I am actually a really good cook. I credit my grandmother with this, and I started cooking with her when I was about 3 years old. So I have some memories of the child’s perspective on this. As for the adult perspective, as shocking as this may be, I have taught kids to cook. (There is evidence of this and you will find, in the photo section of my facebook page, a photograph of me teaching kids (these are 7 year-olds) how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch.)
As a child I was a particularly quiet and patient person so I imagine it was easier for my grandmother than it would have been for many. What I recall, though, is that she gave me very simple things to do which were always repetitive tasks–so she could show me once or twice and then leave me to do the thing over and over and over. So, I remember doing things like rolling miniature meatballs for soup, removing peas from the pod or stuffing sausage into the casing. Any time a whole package of something had to be dumped into a mixture she left that for me–it’s the cooking equivalent of setting of fireworks. She never had me measure anything, or cut up anything (even with a dull knife), or count. When I look back on it I see that she gave me tasks which didn’t require much cognition, had a wide margin of acceptable error and wouldn’t confuse me and were always constructive. As I got older my participation became more sophisticated, but I didn’t start having critical jobs (like measuring things for baking, which must be precise) until I was 8 or 9. I always did these things happily–but in those days, as you know, I wouldn’t have been aware of potential distractions like television, video games, the internet, etc. More important, to this day, several years after her death, she remains my favorite family relation.
On the teaching end, I have learned some important things. Kids today have a lot of distractions, limited attention as a result, and no patience. So, in the cooking lessons I have given I take the position that the kids are a sort of studio audience who like to leave a lot. I call them in to the kitchen when there is something to do in terms of combining ingredients, and I send them off to play nearby during all the “boring” times–in the mac’ & cheese context that would mean they’re in the kitchen for things like putting the pasta into the water, draining the pasta, watching the ingredients for the bechamel go into the pot, melting cheese into the bechamel and mixing everything together at the end, but not for the actual cooking of the pasta or the endless whisking of the bechamel as it cooks.
I suppose like everything that involves kids this boils down to having them participate in the moments that are appropriate to their level of development, with adjustments for individual disposition, but not forcing them to participate in aspects which will make them, and in turn you, crazy.
As for books, I don’t use many cookbooks myself, but I would imagine that the old Moosewood and Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbooks would be good for kids–they have fun covers, dishes that involve simple ingredients and simple processes, and relatively large typeface.
Anthony: This is all just lovely and I so appreciate your sharing. Of course, the image of your grandmother totally shames me, because I should have relished those moments with my very little ones! I did enjoy aspects of cooking with them back then but overall, as I said in my post, I think that period was such a chaotic time for me that my reserves for such activities were a little low.
As for the way your grandmother taught you, and they way you now teach kids, I think you’re both absolutely right. I, too, make sure that the kids get the “fun” jobs, whatever they think those are, and will send them off to do something else and come back for the next step if there’s something that doesn’t particularly interest them. And, as I also said in the post, cooking with them now is a real joy.
The real question is, when I am going to come out there and get you to cook for me?
good question. and WHAT will you want me to cook? i can do the whole italiganza, which is amazing and very rough on the arteries, or i can cook five element style employing chinese herbal elements to make food that is tasty AND healthy, but by no means anywhere near as delicious as the ‘ganza. you pick and i’ll do it.
‘Ganza, hands down!
I like to think of cooking with my 4 year old as an “activity”…much like an art project. I don’t ever try to have him cook with me if I’m pressed for time. However, on my days off, when we have time, I’m game; knowing full well that an hour and half will yield 2 scrambled eggs.
CAN NOT wait for the sneaky food post…game on (again!).
My 10 year old bought herself a Jello dessert cookbook a couple of years ago, and while I shuddered inside it turned out to be a really nice book for her. The desserts were simple, she could do them all herself, many were low fat (if not low calorie, but that can be managed with some simple substitutions), and the results were really pretty.
We have some kid cookbooks (Kosher by Design has one, Sheila Lukins put one out too), but really what my kids like to do is stand next to me and work step-by-step through the dishes they know and love.
And the oldest likes to invent her own recipes, usually with a candy theme. Have you been reading the “Cooking with Dexter” column in the NYTimes Sunday mag? Lovely stuff.
Mollie Katzen (of Moosewood face) has some good cookbooks for kids: “Honest Pretzels,” “Pretend Soup.” I’ve used those with my cousins and found them to be fun and good. Bonus: she uses real ingredients instead of weird shortcut things like boxed cake mix.
I never cooked anything as a kid until I was about 9, and then I was only limited to grilled cheese and scrambled eggs. I didn’t cook my first full dinner (meat and two sides) until I was in college. I have grown up to be an adventurous, and (not to brag) good cook. What I did do was hang out in the kitchen with my mom while she was cooking. I learned by osmosis. I knew what good food was supposed to look like, and if I was fuzzy on a few details like oven temps or cooking times, I’d call my mom and she’d fill me in. It served me well.