Great Reads for Culinary Kids (and Hungry Adults)
Sep 25th, 2009 by Marilyn
One breezy Chicago summer, my brother and I built a treehouse.
Isn’t that nice? But before my mother objects, let’s rephrase: one sweaty Chicago summer, my brother and I nearly killed each other nailing two boards into a tree. We pounded rows of crooked nails into little boards for steps, and as high as we could get, two larger boards for seats. It wasn’t much, but it was up in the leaves, perfect for neighborhood spying and perfect for summer reading. I would make two separate climbs before settling in: one toting a snack-filled Partridge Family lunchbox, and another dragging a library bag full of books.
It won’t surprise you to hear that many of my favorite reads, both then and now, feature food. But what I really love are books that don’t announce they’re about food – they just are: Heidi toasting cheese in her Alps, Jo March eating apples in the garret, Mary and Laura pouring maple in the snow. These were the bits I read and reread, and then snacked and read again. Don’t even get me started on The Bobbsey Twins’s luau and the pig roast. Now that was a page-turner.
Lucky for me – or no accident at all – my daughter tasted books the same way. Here’s a list we compiled together of great culinary reads for kids, all so good and so timeless, this adult likes to sample them now. They run from picture books to young adult (or 41-year old adult.) Do you have a favorite food read, or a great food scene you never forgot? Add yours to the list. Happy (and Hungry) Reading.
Fanny at Chez Panisse Alice Waters, 1997
Truly charming story-plus-cookbook by a culinary royal. Alice Waters describes how her young daughter, Fanny, spends her days at mom’s famous Berkeley restaurant, sorting tiny eggplants, hiding in stock pots and watching chefs at work.
Bread and Jam for Frances Russell Hoban, 1964
Frances will only eat bread and jam, so her mother gives it to her for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I would like to reenact this as “Deep Dish Pizza for Marilyn.”
Blueberries for Sal Robert McCloskey, 1948
The classic picture book of blueberry picking, a bear cub, mothers and life in Maine.
Amelia Bedelia Peggy Parish, 1963
I always liked the many good qualities of free-spirited Amelia Bedelia: she was a tall, skinny smiler, and she cheerfully screwed up everything. I particularly admired the way she could neutralize any angry person by feeding them lemon meringue pie.
In the Night Kitchen Maurice Sendak, 1970
Though there was controversy over the depiction of a nearly baked-in-a-cake naked boy, all I saw was a fantastical look at how a bakery worked overnight. Sendak’s illustrated world – especially with flour and sugar – never fails to stop me in my tracks.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Eric Carle, 1969
The classic caterpillar eats every food in sight, until he finds all he really needs is one plain and perfect green leaf. Truth? I didn’t want him to eat the leaf. I wanted him to keep eating salami and ice cream.
Eloise in Paris Kay Thompson, 1957
I was lucky to inherit a stack of 60′s-era Eloise books, and Paris was my favorite. Her champagne cork necklace! Baguettes! Dinner at Maxim’s! It was all rawther delicious.
Little House in the Big Woods Laura Ingalls Wilder, 1932
I could blog every day for a year about the Ingalls family and how they rest in the mind of most every woman I know – but for now I’ll just serve highlights: maple syrup snow, sideboard of pies, sour pickles, a crackling pig’s tail. Onion wreaths in the root cellar. So memorable were Laura’s food passages that they eventually filled The Little House Cookbook, as noted in this lovely post by Paige Smith Orloff.
Strega Nona Tomie DePaola, 1979
A wise Italian witch with the power to conjure up pasta. What’s not to love?
Heidi Johanna Spyri, 1880
One of my all-time favorites, the story of a Swiss girl and her grandfather in the Alps is really about toasting golden cheese, curing sausages, warm goat’s milk, and soft white bakery rolls. Do not be fooled by the jacket copy. It’s all about the food.
Anatole Eve Titus, 1956
And here is where Simmer readers fall down. Yes indeed, I love a book about a mouse, a mouse who wears a beret and tastes cheese in the cheese factory. When I first read it – decades before the pear incident – I was dazzled by his little scarf, and all those Bries and bleus.
Strawberry Girl Lois Lenski, 1945
A terrific book I never forgot – Lois Lenski’s story of hard living for rural Florida “crackers,” a detailed, often sad picture of Birdie Boyer and the tough world around her. Strawberries are everywhere, all about growing them, picking them, eating them. A classic for 9-12 readers.
James and the Giant Peach Roald Dahl, 1961
This book made me dream of waking up, rolling over and eating chunks of peach from the wall. Enough said.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone J.K. Rowling, 1997
Oh sure, there’s dueling and wands and danger, but what thrills me at Hogwarts is dessert. I mean, Dumbledore claps his hands and profiteroles fill the hall. Magic, or what?
What a great post! As you know, I’m a huge Little House fan and am convinced that it is mostly responsible for my current career choice. We may have talked about this before, but I find Farmer Boy just as tantalizing as LHITBW when it comes to food descriptions: the eggnog Almanzo carries out to the men in the field, the pig who gets his teeth stuck together after eating candy, and the exploding jacket potato.
Great picks. Many of our faves are on it, and I’m eager to try the others. Our kids (8 & 10 years old) still enjoy the beautifully-illustrated “Scarlette Beane” about a girl with a red face & magically green thumb who grows extraordinary veggies. Also lovely is “Olivers Vegetables,” about a boy who eats only french fries until Grandpa intervenes.
Other faves: “Heckety Peg,” “Dim Sum for Everyone!” and “The Runaway Squash” (a Golden Book from my own childhood). Frank Asch’s “Popcorn” book in which Sam the Bear fills the house with popcorn was particularly glee-inducing when our kids were toddlers. We love Asch’s Moonbear books, and I recall one in which Moonbear tastes honey that a brought a lot of joy. Thanks for this trip down memory lane!
The Bobbsey Twins and the pig roast – I’d totally forgotten about that! And had also forgotten how much I loved the food in Heidi – fresh goat’s milk with its power to apparently heal Clara, and cheese toasted over the fire (which must be where I got the idea to do that the first time we stayed somewhere with a fireplace).
Must agree on Dim Sum for Everyone and on Farmer Boy (apple pie for breakfast – Almanzo ate well). Also there was Harriet M. Welsch (the Spy) and her everlasting tomato sandwiches (I didn’t like tomatoes at the time, but now I get it).
The All-of-a-Kind Family series had so many wonderful food descriptions: cone of “chick peas! fine, hot chickpeas!”, all the different kinds of candy that Charlotte and Gertie could buy for a penny (chocolate babies, chicken corn, broken crackers in flavors like lemon-snap and ginger), blintzes they rolled up and filled with sour cream (but not before Gertie bit holes in one of the pancakes to make a mask for her face), the mouthwatering description of a pickle the girls shared.
And I read over and over a book called Ginnie and the Cooking Contest – part of a series by Catherine Woolley, but I never read the rest of the books. Ginnie made perfect bread and some kind of fancy chicken dish, her chicken was disqualified but she won a special prize for the bread, and her friend Lucy won with baba au rhum. I checked this one out so much the librarian asked if I wouldn’t like to take something else out instead.
Back in the tot era. my son wanted me to read The Gingerbread Man every night. We had many versions. I’ll never forget the sound of his babyish pronunciation, asking; “What happened gingerbread man?” I explained that he was eaten by the fox, which he considered gravely and seriously as we moved on to the next book. He loved the story so much, I once hid a little gingerbread man in the book and made it run out. I also made him a large, beautiful gingerbread man. His jaw dropped when we took it out of the oven and he saw the raw dough transformed into a puffed, golden gingerbread man. For a second, I think he believed it would jump up and run.
Great choices but what about Babar? I love the food in the illustrations in Pique-nique chez Babar and Babar Learns to Cook? And Alice in Wonderland? Beautiful Soup, Lobster Quadrille, The Mad Tea-party and “Eat Me” – that one pretty much defines my life
Welcome Merrill and Julie, and thanks Robin, Kate and Jane (modernemama) for such great contributions!
Jane – you know I loves me some Babar. Remember all the 60′s hardbacks in Josie’s room? Babar Learns to Cook is wonderful, and the one at the World’s Fair features all sorts of food. Alice also a great idea.
I’m also thinking of the Arnold Lobel books – Frog and Toad make soup, I think, and also Mouse Soup. He was brilliant.
I could have listed books forever, but would love to hear from you. What else?
Frog and Toad made cookies! Chocolate chip, I think, and one of them had so many that he said he had to stop eating them, and they kept hiding them in different places but the first one (probably Toad) kept explaining that that wouldn’t work because he could just go get them from the hiding places. When they turned the books into a terrific musical, “Eating Cookies” became a very catchy song: “eating cookies, eating cookies, we’re so happy eating cookies, cookies cookies cookies we adore . . . .”
Blueberries for Sal is quite possibly the best book ever written. That and One Morning in Maine. Great and adorable post!
Ooooh – so many memories in those books! (but especially Strega Nona and Blueberries for Sal…)
Thanks for the reminiscence.
Oooh… I’d add Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. I haven’t seen the movie, but we’ve read the book to our boys more times than I can count. And although Where the Wild Things Are isn’t a book about food, the last sentence talks about how Max got back into the night of his very own room after smelling dinner “and it was still hot.” From the time they were teeny tiny, every time we got to the last page, my boys would pretend to pick the food off of Max’s food tray and eat it.
Marylin…Oh, I have missed so much and am trying to catch up…
now…
Blueberries for Sal…really it is the best!!!
and Babar Learns to Cook…a great fave here.
Anatole. Hurrah!
In the Night Kitchen! Sendak can do no wrong.
More favorite Sendak eating: Chicken Soup With Rice
Ramona Quimby Age 8 has some great food scenes including the infamous egg bashing on head incident and the dinner of yogurt marinated chicken that Beezus and her sister make for their parents.
I’m also a huge fan of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and A little Golden book called “Mickey Mouse’s Picnic.” Of which I have 3 copies because my mom buys it every time she comes across it at a yard sale or thrift store.
Love All-of-a-Kind Family, definitely Blueberries for Sal and Chicken Soup with Rice as well as the marvelous Frog and Toad.
Beverly Cleary’s Emily’s Runaway Imagination has the best pie baking chapter ever. Truly. I craved Turkish Delight for around ten years after reading Narnia. Wee Gillis made even porridge look scrumptious.
And Homer Price wins the donut category.
The Hungry Thing! My kids love it.
Hello, Marilyn and Happy Second Birthday, Simmer!
I’ve enjoyed your blog for more than a year–and not just because you, like I, used to be in Chicago, or that we love labs and watching our daughters grow. (My own three girls are way, way grown, but your comments about Josie bring back so many memories.) What I love is your cache of terrific recipes, tantazlizing photos–and how the making food and meals becomes an act of love, of family, of community.
You’re a talented chef–and a gifted writer.
Thanks for sharing all this and so much more. Here’s one devoted reader looking forward to at least another two years with you! Now back to those chocolate ginger scones.
we love In The Night Kitchen!
But then, my children have an innate love of licking beaters–and A terrific aversion to clothes.
Does anyone remember Beyond the Paw Paw Trees? A magical book about a a young girl setting off an an adventure to find her father, who is “off chasing rainbows” according to her mother. The drawings are fantastic and the food references I still remember. Alas, this lovely book has fallen into the “rare books” category and is now very expensive and hard to find. If you are lucky enough to run accross a copy – enjoy. Mine is lost who knows where.
Your post brought back some long dormant memories (which I seem to have more of every day). Back when I was in my youth, when shag carpet and Spiro-graphs were in style, my folks bought a series of children’s books from Parents Press. There are only a few of them I remember clearly. One was a Cold War metaphor about a kind old squirrel who is evicted from her tree by a bunch of red squirrels and the other involved a witch. Through eBay, I located the squirrel book but I couldn’t remember enough about the witch book to figure out the title – until your blog sent me into action.
OLD BLACK WITCH was the first in a trilogy of books, beautifully illustrated, about a witch who lives in the attic of a tearoom/house into which a young boy and his mom have just moved. Each story ends with the witch baking something that solves the problem of the day. What made these books so unique and memorable was that on the back cover of each book was the witch’s actual recipe that you could make in your own kitchen. The first book allowed me to attempt blueberry pancakes at the age of 6.
Here’s a sample. Gorgeous illustrations that probably helped lead me into an temporary art career.
http://www.vintagechildrensbooksmykidloves.com/2008/06/old-black-witch.html
And of course, Green Eggs and Ham will always be a favorite.
Found a copy of an OLD BLACK WITCH recipe. Hilarious that there’s an incantation included in the recipe.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y107/lelaer/Books1/Books2/Picture5853.jpg
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs was a long-time favorite, with its pea soup fog and Cream of Wheat snow banks. My other favorites were Beatrix Potter stories, which often revolves around food. Peter Rabbit, of course, revolves around food, as does The Tale of Two Bad Mice. I still have my original copies of those books, which is miraculous, since I’m not one who holds onto things. But those two books have gone with me from kindergarten, to college, and are taking me into motherhood.
So much fun to be reminded of all these wonderful books. Thank you, Marilyn!
These probably came out when Josie was too old, but Amy Wilson Sanger’s Let’s Nosh Board books are wonderful for toddlers. “Miso in my sippy cup/tofu in my bowl/Crab and Avocado fill my California roll!”
We’re also a fan of Mo Willems around here, with our favorite being “The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog.” The pigeon describes his hot dog thus:
“Well, it is a taste sensation. Each morsel is a joy. A celebration in a bun.”
Another absolutely wonderful one for older readers is Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter. There are several memorable scenes surrounding Elnora’s lunchbox (she is a neglected country girl going to high school in town) and the people who love her fill that box with the most delicious sounding food IMAGINABLE. I mean, listen to this:
“She walked down the road looking straight ahead until she came to the corner, where she usually entered the swamp. She paused, glanced that way and smiled. Then she turned and looked back. There was no one coming in any direction. She followed the road until well around the corner, then she stopped and sat on a grassy spot, laid her books beside her and opened the lunch box. Last night’s odours had in a measure prepared her for what she would see, but not quite. She scarcely could believe her senses. Half the bread compartment was filled with dainty sandwiches of bread and butter sprinkled with the yolk of egg and the remainder with three large slices of the most fragrant spice cake imaginable. The meat dish contained shaved cold ham, of which she knew the quality, the salad was tomatoes and celery, and the cup held preserved pear, clear as amber. There was milk in the bottle, two tissue-wrapped cucumber pickles in the folding drinking-cup, and a fresh napkin in the ring. No lunch was ever daintier or more palatable; of that Elnora was perfectly sure. And her mother had prepared it for her! “She does love me!” cried the happy girl. “Sure as you’re born she loves me; only she hasn’t found it out yet!”
Roald Dahl is terrific — Everyone know’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but I remember being entranced by his autobiography, “Boy”, which included vivid descriptions of sweets he ate at his English boarding school and Gjetost and fish on his summer holidays in Norway.
My mother used to read Stone Soup to me as a kid and it always made me impossibly hungry.
I always enjoyed If You Give a Mouse a Cookie… though I can see where that might not be up your alley. The Little House books were huuuge for me (I have the same birthday as Laura!) and any book where people get oranges for Christmas just tickled me.
I’ve already begun to stock up on some of these for my grandkids — at eight years old, they both like to help in the kitchen. And now that they are reading, it’s so much fun to give them books. I let them choose recipes for us to make together.
I have retained an interest in New York egg cream since reading “It’s Like This, Cat,”way back when. Even better than reading for yourself is reading to your children, saving those books and reading to the grands.
I’ll second (third and fourth if need be) everything on this list and add the Boxcar Children books
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boxcar_Children_novels for all their amazing descriptions of the kids leaving butter in a cold stream, etc. as they cared for each other. Along the same lines, A Dutch Fork Farm Boy by James Eleazar (sadly out of print now) was an amazing trip back in time. The descriptions of food fresh from the farm fields and gardens were especially tantalizing for a girl who grew up without a vegetable garden.
What a brilliant post! You’re brilliant! But I already knew that. I think you included all my faves (Blueberries for Sal and In the Night Kitchen).
I loved all the Bobbsey ones – remember Candy Castle? and of course “Pancakes for Breakfast” by Tomie DePaola (http://www.amazon.com/Pancakes-Breakfast-Tomie-dePaola/dp/0156707683)
Just saw that people have been mentioning All-Of-A-Kind Family, which I always loved for its wonderful food descriptions. Anyone remember the Boxcar Children, where they had to forage for their food? Nothing feeds the imagination quite like a picnic cobbled together by a bunch of hungry runaway children and eaten in a boxcar in the middle of the woods.
You know how I love food and books!
I can’t say enough about “Kitchen Dance” by Maurie Manning (I reviewed it over at P&P) – it captures not just the joy of food but the kitchen as well.
“Adventurous Chef” by Ann Arnold also gives kids some culinary history info – I found out a lot that I didn’t know. Also on culinary history, “Bring Me Some Apples and I’ll Bake You a Pie” by Robbin Gourley is particularly well-written.
For older readers, I loved “Dear Julia” by Amy Bronwen Zemser – this is appropriate for tweens even though the characters are older. I also ADORED “Madame Pamplemousse and her Incredible Edibles.” It’s super short but holds so much magic in such a tiny package.
For teenagers, “The Sweet Life of Stella Madison” is really wonderful. Great characters, fantastic food descriptions.
I could go all day…
Susan Coolidge wrote a series of stories, known as the “What Katy Did” stories, back in the mid-19th century. They were for preteen and young teen readers. There are such mouthwatering descriptions of picnic lunches, treats sent to boarding school at Christmastime, wedding menus, meals on trans-American train trips and in European cities, and the best of cooking on the wild frontier. I could not read while hungry!
Didn’t Robert McCloskey, of ‘Blueberries’ fame also write the delightful ‘One Morning in Maine’ about the young girl who goes clam hunting with her father and loses her tooth? I seem to think it’s the same whimsical and engaging author. As I read this list, I realized that these all represented many of my favorites too, a past redolent of food books, memories and fully embraceable stories. Great post.
I also loved (and finally located a copy of) Ginnie and the Cooking Contest. A few corrections to the earlier post – Ginnie won a special prize for her bread not because her chicken loaf was disqualified, but because she had to submit (and therefore make) bread as her contest recipe since her chicken loaf recipe got ruined by a last-minute milk spill minutes before the contest deadline. The friend who ended up winning the contest was not Lucy, but Lily Schwartz, who baked a chocolate fudge cake to win.
Two other great old-fashioned food books are Adopted Jane by Helen Fern Daringer and A Sundae With Judy by Frieda Friedman.