Many adults have fond memories of growing up cooking along side their grandmothers and moms or helping dad out by the barbeque. Here are a few suggestions to help get you started teaching your sons, daughters and grandchildren the basics of culinary arts.
A variety of children’s cookbooks can be borrowed from your local public library. Once you have tried a few recipes from each book you may want to purchase a copy of your child’s favorite cookbook from your local bookstore.
All of the books reviewed below suggest reading through the recipe before you begin to cook to make sure you have all the necessary ingredients, tools and utensils on hand. Nothing is more frustrating than getting half way through a recipe and realizing you are missing a key ingredient.
Five Great Kid Friendly Cookbooks
Kids are Cooking: All-Time-Favorite Recipes That Kids Love to Cook
[Karen Brown, Meadowbrook Press, 1997]
This book is divided into sections according to the classification of the food such as beverage recipes, breakfast foods, snacks, lunch food, soups, desserts and more.
Kids are Cooking is a good basic cookbook for all ages, with a balance of easy to follow recipes for curious preschoolers with enough intermediate recipes to keep elementary and middle school age children interested. Preschoolers can easily follow along simple, no-cook recipes such as ants on a log while older children, with their parents assistance, can make recipes such as spaghetti with meat sauce.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Cooking with Kids
[Joan Cirillo, Alpha Books]
This book is more than just a collection of recipes, it can be used as a complete cooking school guidebook for teaching children all about cooking. The book is divided into 6 sections including Welcome to the World of Cooking with Kids, Getting Kids Curious About Food and Now You’re Cooking: The Recipe File.
Due to the encyclopedia nature of this book it is not recommended for preschoolers or young elementary school age children. This would make a great Home Economics text book for middle school age children through the young adult high school crowd. A friends 15 year old son wanted to impress his girlfriend on Valentine’s Day. With his father’s help he prepared three recipes from this cookbook and treated his girlfriend to a romantic, albeit chaperoned, home cooked meal.
Cooking on a Stick: Campfire Recipes for Kids
[Linda White, Gibbs-Smith Publisher, 1996]
This book is divided into 8 chapters including Cooking Over a Campfire, Cooking on a Stick, Cooking in a Pouch and Cooking on a Grate or Grill.
Any child that is a fan of camping out in their backyard in the family tent will certainly enjoy this book. It is also a great book to take along on your next scouting trip or family cookout. Dads will find this book easy enough to use along with their children and may even have found memories of enjoying some of the recipes when they were young. Kids will enjoy the easy-to-follow recipes such as s’mores, hibernating bananas and snails (dough) on a stick.
This book is filled with color illustrations giving it the appearance of a comic book. Although this book is marketed for children between the ages of 9 and 12, preschoolers and younger elementary school age children would be the best audience for this book as older children may find it a bit too simplistic.
Cooking Around the Calendar with Kids; Holiday and Seasonal Food and Fun
[Amy Houts, Snaptail Press]
The recipes in this book are grouped together according to season: autumn, winter, spring and summer. This book teaches children the basics of a sustainable diet, that is how to cook with in-season local ingredients rather than buying produce that is imported from faraway locations. The author mentions that “Cooking with a feeling of the changing seasons helps to keep us synchronized with the rhythms of life.”
Preschoolers might find the lack of illustrations a bit uninspiring. This book is probably better suited to older elementary school to middle school age children who can learn how to create such favorites as fajitas, Reuben sandwiches and lasagna.
Kids Cooking: Scrumptious Recipes for Cooks Ages 9 to 13
[Susan Manlin Katzman, Time-Life Books, 1997]
This is a great book for the beginning chef to use. You can use this book as a guide to teach your children and grandchildren some of the recipes most of us grew up with as a kid such as million dollar pancakes and chicken noodle soup.
Kids Cooking contains plenty of color pictures of kitchen equipment and ingredients along with a photo of how each dish should look when completed. The recipes in this book are divided into 4 sections: Breakfast, Soups, Salads & Veggies, Lunch & Dinner and finally, Dessert.
A Final Thought
A chef hat, apron or cooking tool set geared towards children would make wonderful gifts for the beginner chef in your life. Websites like Kitchen Shop and Famous Foods offer a variety of kid friendly cooking gadgets for sale on their websites. Make a gift of one of these cookbooks to your child or grandchild and offer to let them pick out a recipe or two that you can help them create. What a great way to prepare future generations of chefs.
