RECIPE ROAD TRIP

Lavin provides recipes and fun facts from across the United States in this children’s cookbook.

The author collects child-friendly recipes from the American Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West as well as from the federal district, commonwealths, and territories. Each section is prefaced by a map and a brief cultural and geographical description of the states therein. These introductions serve to identify unique regional characteristics throughout the U.S., which in turn are reflected in the recipes. The reader learns that the Southeast, with its subtropical climate, has a long growing season and thus is “rich in natural resources such as rice, cotton, citrus, sugar cane, tobacco, and peanuts.” The recipes that follow include Arkansas’ “Arkansas Rice Casserole,” Florida’s “Key Lime Pie,” sugar-heavy dishes such as Kentucky’s “Kentucky Derby Pie” and Louisiana’s “Yeti Baked Alaska,” and peanut dishes like Georgia’s “No-Bake Peanut Butter Pie” and Virginia’s “Boiled Peanuts.” Some recipes pay homage to historical food facts: Connecticut’s “Cheeseburgers in Puff Pastry” acknowledges the claim by Louis Lassen (of the city of New Haven) that he created the first hamburger. Lavin writes for children but with the caveat that adult supervision and a degree of adult involvement will be required in the cooking process. The dishes are all, to some degree, historically significant, easy to cook, or highly appealing to a child’s palate (often all three) and tend toward the lighter side. The book’s most obvious strength is its contextualization of food within ideas of national and local identity. Keeping the project fun, many of the recipes include silly jokes in the margins (“Why don’t lobsters share? They are shellfish”). Instead of photographs, the dishes are depicted in vibrant drawings by Eroshina that make them seem both delectable and achievable to the budding chef.

A colorful celebration of food and culture—children will delight in cooking (and eating) their way around the nation.