GLOBAL COOKBOOK

This kid-friendly cookbook provides a culinary tour of the globe.

Most cookbooks geared toward children share two common goals: to encourage little ones to eat more adventurously (even if that just means devouring more vegetables) and to empower them to participate in the magical process of turning raw ingredients into a delicious home-cooked meal. Most people with kids will tell parents that it’s best to start simple. Breakfast might be scrambled eggs and toast; lunch could feature a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with sliced fruit; and dinner might star spaghetti with marinara sauce. Without forsaking easy-to-tackle recipes, Tierney goes beyond the standard American starter meals with 44 recipes from around the globe, from Europe and Asia to Africa and beyond. Informed by the author’s own travels, the recipes toggle between the familiar and the refreshingly unique. In the first category, there are Chinese egg rolls, Polish pierogis, and German pretzels. In the second category, there are Filipino yema balls (a chewy dessert made with condensed milk and eggs), South African bobotie (a spiced meat concoction), Kenyan irio (a side dish featuring potatoes, corn, and peas), and Antarctican sledging biscuits (a dense, utilitarian pastry prepared simply from flour, water, baking soda, butter, and salt). Tierney calls bobotie “a pumped-up version of a hamburger casserole.” There’s also a fun interactive element: Readers get a “culinary passport,” complete with stamps meant to accompany each country represented in the book. This engaging work is by no means a comprehensive look at the cuisines of the world. The author’s picks are those of a visitor—albeit a curious one—passing through one destination en route to the next. But by cooking some of the best-known breakfasts, entrees, desserts, and snacks of each continent, young chefs will hopefully be excited to try lesser-known regional fare as they grow up.

A delightful collection of recipes that introduces young cooks to worldly dishes.