There are these children's board books all about different kinds of food, they rhyme and tell a story from a kids perspective of eating that food. The pictures our photographs collaged with paper and cloth versions of the food. In short these are my favorite children's books. They inspire curiosity, our simple to understand and incredibly creative in their approach to showing the food. In "Yum Yum Dim Sum," we go to a cafe with a little girl and her father and try different kinds of dim sum, taking away the knowledge that dim sum means "a little bit of heart." These are the perfect books to welcome a healthy curiosity in my daughter about the wonders of eating all different kinds of foods.
A habit and happy adventure for me and daddy is to find the little off the beaten path restaurants and markets to make and eat delicious food. When we walked around our neighborhood in Olympia, I would often wish for a chance to happen upon a small grocer, or little house selling homemade goodies for cheap. Now that we are in Austin this dream has come true. Daddy called me from the road a few Saturdays ago saying he had found the coolest market yet. "I am buying ingredients for bubble tea" he told me delightedly, and " I just saw a mound of Chorizo shaped into a hogs head." I was jealous he had gone without me and also excited for the adventure to come in the not so distant future. I watch Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" and learn about a food cart in Austin that makes farm to market, fresh, in season meals each week and another cart that makes gourmet doughnuts the size of frisbees. Our next foodie adventure is set.
Sweet pea has always liked adventures, like her parents some fresh perspective and cool things to sensually experience has always been a great way to get her attention in the present. Ethnic markets and restaurants feel like travel. We don't have to go far away from home to get a similar sensual hit of being in a new place. The people that run the markets and restaurants are trying out their culture on new soil. Making the foods of a place available to its immigrants is a great way to keep cultural tradition in a new place.
My mother, the Southern born Yankee, would often make us her family recipes for dinner, homemade mac and cheese, oven fried chicken, cornbread and black eyed peas. The South was a part of us even though we grew up around the knee highs and sugar maples of the Northeast.
It seems that Sweet pea will grow up with the mix mash food her parents subject her to, but she will have the original versions of those foods as well as our homemade versions. She will have her Teba's corn bread, her Cece's meatloaf, her parents favorite Indian restaurant and some Seattle, via China, dim sum.
The books that inspire childhood foodies:
"Yum Yum Dim Sum" By Amy Wilson Singer part of the "World Snacks" series, check all the books of this series out.
"Bee-Bim Bop" By Linda Sue Park and Ho Baek Lee, a great rhyming story about a Korean dish with a recipe in the back.
Great job Grit! Keep up the good work. This made me hungry for some Dim Sum.
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