Travel Without Leaving Home – International Recipes

Travel by Taste

Y’all I have a problem. I love to travel! I suffer from WANDERLUST! I would seriously love to sell my house with everything in it, pack a big suitcase, and travel full time with my family. Unfortunately we can’t pack it all up to explore new foods or destinations.  Since I can’t give in to my wanderlust and explore, we’ll have to do the next best thing. We’ll have to travel by taste and cook up delicious international recipes.

If you can’t pick up and go either, gather your family and experience the world from your home kitchen. We’ve got recipes ranging from Asian stir fry to North American barbecue to help you explore the world’s different flavors together.

Cooking with Kids

Children learn by using all of their senses.  The kitchen is one of the best places for hands-on learning. It brings together ALL of their senses. When kids are involved with cooking a meal, they enjoy eating what they prepare.

Cooking is an essential life skill, but there is so much more to learn than just the skill of cooking. Children can study geography as they cook international recipes. Recently, I was reading Real Food for Healthy Kids by Tracey Seaman and Tanya Wenman Steel and I loved what they said about cooking and eating international recipes.

“Eating dishes from other countries enables learning about other cultures, foreign languages, and geography, and provides a culinary vocabulary.”  

Learn Geography Through Cooking

Cook up some learning fun with your family with these easy recipes. The recipes we’ve included below are easy enough for children of all ages to assist with. They are perfect for lunch or dinner and they can spark the desire to learn more about where food comes from.

Incorporate geography by:

• Reading stories from the region where the meal/recipe is from
  • Asia – The Story of Ping or Magic Treehouse: Day of the Dragon King
  • Africa – Nelson Mandela’s Favorite African Folktales
  • Europe – D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths or Paddington
• Learning more about where foods are grown or originated
  • Print a map and mark where foods are from
    • Look at product labels  and produce stickers

NEXT PAGE for the recipes