A Cooking Tour

Can your child identify and properly use a garlic press or a double broiler, or understand the difference between dicing and mincing, or demonstrate what it means to “fold” in an egg.Truth be told, these kitchen skills aren’t learned through osmosis, and unfortunately, if kids aren’t given the opportunity to cook throughout their childhood, or if they don’t at least take some kind of home economics/cooking class, they might arrive at adulthood without knowing the first thing about cooking.

And think about the financial ramifications of not knowing how cook. If a person can’t cook, they’re more likely to eat out a lot and/or purchase convenience foods that aren’t exactly very healthy.

Obviously, teaching your children how to cook can really have a great impact on their future. So how about giving your kids a good tour of the kitchen. I’m not just talking pots and pans and other cooking implement, but also various cooking terms and methods that are regularly seen in basic recipes.

Suggested Learning Activities.

• Pick up a good children’s cookbook and read it with your kids. Not cover-to-cover, but take a good look at the information usually included at the beginning of quality children’s cookbooks. Often, the authors will illustrate various cooking implements and techniques in an easy-to-understand format. So take a little time and study those pages with your children.
• Take a tour of your own kitchen. Open that messy utensil drawer, pull out some long-forgotten utensils, and talk about how each of them is used.
• Look through the cookbook and discuss the various cooking terms. Do a little grammar lesson in the process and have your child identify all the verbs in the recipe (like stir, broil, saute, etc.), then discuss each technique. You might want to make a set of flashcards with the technique on one side and a simple definition on the other side. Your kids can review the cards until they have a good grasp of the definitions.
• Have your kids cook on a regular basis. This is something we started doing recently and the entire family has benefited greatly from it.
• Participate in cooking classes with a local 4-H club or some similar organization in your area. Participation is usually free or very low cost, and your kids can learn a lot of great information about cooking by participating.
• Learn the science of cooking at this informative, kid-friendly site.

Suggested Resources. There are many high-quality children’s cookbooks out there, but these two books are what we have been using, and they have been more than adequate for our needs. We would recommend both.

New Junior Cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens)

Cooking for Beginners (Usborne)

Kids Cuisine: Great blog all about cooking for kids, and cooking with kids. Check out this post about the specifics of how kids can help with cooking at different ages.

Food Network has some good step-by-step “Kid-friendly Cooking Demos” that can help you teach your kids how to:

• dredge bread
• make cookie logs
• make sushi
• form baguettes & pizza
• ice a cake