07/03/2007

Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids – Stephanie Alexander (Lantern - Penguin, £14.99)

At the end of February, a survey was published which uncovered the rather scary findings that, while eight-year-olds can download mobile ringtones and programme a recordable DVD player, some believed bacon came from sheep and that cows laid eggs. Over the last few decades, however, it’s not just children that have become further divorced from the source of the foods they eat, but many parents have also become reliant on the shrink-wrapped world of the supermarket. If the parents cannot tell one end of a carrot from another then is it really a surprise that many children struggle to identify what is radish and what is rocket.

You might not have heard of her, but long before St Jamie of Oliver got on the case for UK kids, Stephanie Alexander was quietly and effectively running a kitchen garden at Collingwood College, in Melbourne, Australia – introducing inner-city children to healthy and homemade food. Since then, she’s set up the Kitchen Garden Foundation, working with hundreds of primary school pupils to teach them to grow organic produce and turn their harvest into healthy dishes.

This new cookbook, published in Britain on March 27, helps parents and their children create that link between growing and eating. Presented as a holistic approach, the colourful and easy to use book starts with planting your garden or allotment and then moves onto 120 recipes that,  while written in a simple way, are not 'kiddie food'. As Stephanie writes, if food is good, everyone will enjoy it regardless of age.

The recipes introduce a range of interesting and healthy tastes, with a special emphasis on the affordability of cooking and seasonality. This book will help you reconnect with your taste buds, the seasons and, perhaps more importantly, help reconnect with your children too.

Read more about the cookery workshops for mums and kids at Celtic Football Club, here