"The Flavors Mix Together Slowly": Cooking Connections in

Picture-Cookbooks

Roxanne Harde

Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, Volume 59, Number

1, 2021, pp. 28-40 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2021.0007

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/785316

[ Access provided at 19 Mar 2022 16:56 GMT with no institutional affiliation ]

 “The Flavors Mix
Together Slowly”:
Cooking Connections in
Picture-Cookbooks
by ROXANNE HARDE

In Bilal Cooks Daal, Aisha Saeed’s narrative combines with Anoosha Syed’s
bright illustrations to tell the story of a Pakistani American boy and his friends
helping his father make daal. The recipe at the end of Bilal Cooks Daal
makes this picturebook a cookbook as well, and the narrative is as embedded
in the recipe as the recipe is in the narrative, thus building community
through connections within the text and among readers. This article
examines picturebooks that offer stories about cooking, with a focus on the
commensal connections these cookery narratives make between generations
and communities and brings to the surface the values promulgated by
these narratives.

I
Introduction
n Bilal Cooks Daal, Aisha Saeed’s narrative combines with Anoosha
Syed’s bright illustrations to tell the story of a Pakistani American boy
and his friends helping his father make daal. While this dish takes
hours for the lentils to cook and the flavors to mix, Bilal and his friends
spend that time playing together, making lasting connec-
tions. The recipe at the end of Bilal Cooks Daal makes this
picturebook a cookbook as well, and the narrative is as
embedded in the recipe as the recipe is in the narrative. In
her germinal essay, “Recipes for Reading,” Susan Leonardi
argues that while giving a recipe is an act of instruction,
recipes that are simply “rules for various dishes” are not the
point: “The root of recipe—the Latin recipere—implies an
exchange, a giver and a receiver. Like a story, a recipe needs a
recommendation, a context, a point, a reason to be. A recipe
is, then, an embedded discourse” (340). Leonardi offers as an
example a discussion of cake recipes in Irma Rombauer’s The
Joy of Cooking, focusing on the original edition where every
recipe comments on other recipes in a section or chapter. This embed-
dedness, Leonardi notes, “elicits reader response,” because Rombauer
surrounded the recipes with various kinds of narrative (341). Leonardi
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 “THE FLAVORS MIX TOGETHER SLOWLY”: COOKING CONNECTIONS IN PICTURE-COOKBOOKS

dismisses the later edition of the book because Rombauer’s daughter

removed these narratives. Pointing out that embedded recipes “are more
obviously literary texts—and, to me at least, more conducive to good
cooking,” Leonardi contends that this version also eliminated the commu-
nity that Rombauer had built with these narratives (343). In so thoroughly
connecting Bilal’s story with the daal recipe, Saeed builds the community
that Leonardi finds in Rombauer’s original The Joy of Cooking, an embed-
dedness of narrative and recipe that forges connections within the text
and then with and among its readers.
This article examines picturebooks that offer stories about cooking,
with a focus on the commensal connections these cookery narratives
make between generations and communities.
Tracing these connections offers insight into Cookery matters to children, their
how cookery matters to children, their families, families, and the societies in which
and the societies in which they are embedded,
but it also brings to the surface the values they are embedded, but it also
disseminated by these narratives. Where Bilal brings to the surface the values
Cooks Daal offers a multiracial cast of charac- disseminated by these narratives.
ters contributing equally to both their work and
their play, and sets aside stereotypical gender roles with a father who is
adept at both cooking and parenting, other picture-cookbooks fall short,
as they reify the paradigms of the nuclear family or sexist assumptions
about women’s place or racist suppositions about particular groups. If
cooking and eating together is a communal act,
then children’s books focusing on those themes If cooking and eating together is
can and should present families and communi-
ties that are equal, diverse, and inclusive. a communal act, then children’s
books focusing on those themes can
“Noodle Heaven”: Connections and
Women’s Spaces
and should present families and
In a reading of literary cookbooks for children communities that are equal, diverse,
that provide recipes for dishes mentioned in and inclusive.
popular children’s books, such as those cook-
books based on Alice in Wonderland, Jodie Slothower and Jan Susina note
that the best of these books “offer a gustatory supplement to the narra-
tive” by expanding children’s perspectives, in literature and cookery (21).
Recipes combined with narrative have the ability to expand children’s
perspectives even more widely, as they offer stories about children in their
families and communities who are brought into relationship through
food. “Taking food seriously as an area of inquiry within literary and
cultural studies,” Amy Tigner and Allison Carruth suggest, “invites one
to posit ethical questions. While such questions may foster transforma-
tion at the level of individual eaters, food is inextricably entangled with
issues of social and environmental (in)equity and with collective cultural
histories” (174). In a study of best-selling picturebooks, Lisa Rowe Fraus-
tino analyzes mother-child relationships and dissects the way they often
use food, and sometimes cookery, to reify the image of the good and loving
mother. Although I am troubled by the way picture-cookbooks regularly
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entrench traditional roles for women and thereby limit possibilities for
girls, there are additional questions driving my readings. A reader doesn’t
have to accept that the only place for women is the kitchen even as she can
appreciate the ways in which women’s work, under patriarchal hegemo-
nies, centers on food preparation and general caregiving. The women and
girls in these picture-cookbooks might be confined to the home,
the neighborhood, and the market, but their work in those places
almost invariably enriches connections among themselves and
family members, friends, and neighbors.
Unsurprisingly, grandmothers and mothers encourage both
the cookery and the connections in many food-focused picture-
books, and this building of community often begins intergen-
erationally in the kitchen and at the table. Peeny Butter Fudge, by
Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison and her son Slade, tells the story
of a grandmother spending the day with her three grandchildren.
“Mom’s Instructions” on the fridge show a schedule of healthy
meals and snacks, time for playing, napping, bathing, and bed by
7:30 p.m.1 The narrative poem and vibrant illustrations show that
Nana has other ideas about how they should spend the day. There’s
a nap, but with the children snuggled in bed with Nana and books.
Storytime and playing in the yard lead to flights of imagination: dragons
appear and potato sacks become cars. Lunch, meant to be vegetable and
fish fingers, is “biscuits, ham, and lemonade.” They play doctor, with Nana
as the patient, have a hokey-pokey dance party, and do a jigsaw puzzle.
Just before Mommy arrives, they make “peeny butter fudge” for dinner.
The children and Nana “[m]ix it, cook it. / Cool it, eat it. / My mother taught
me, / and I taught yours.” Their mother arrives to see Nana’s disastrously
messy kitchen, her children not ready for bed, splattered and filled with
fudge. A double-spread illustration shows her in shock, holding her head,
mouth open as if ready to shout. The next page shows her smelling the
plate of fudge, with a memory cloud of herself as a child, making this
recipe with her mother. The final page of the
Nana has taught these children story has them all in a group hug. The Morrison
that their imaginations matter, and family recipe for the fudge comes at the end, in
an illustration that looks like a well-used recipe,
books are great; that patience is folded and creased, splattered with chocolate
necessary for many activities, like and peanut butter. The book makes clear that
puzzles and fudge making; that they although the day doesn’t look like mother’s
plan, Nana has taught these children that their
can aspire to any profession they imaginations matter, and books are great; that
choose; and that family traditions, patience is necessary for many activities, like
puzzles and fudge making; that they can aspire
like making fudge, keep families to any profession they choose; and that family
together. traditions, like making fudge, keep families
together.
Other picture-cookbooks feature mothers blending family history and
cookery to make lasting connections. Also told in a poem, Linda Sue Park’s
Bee-bim Bop! matches the pace of the lyrics with the urgency of shopping
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and cooking a dish of bibimbap: “Almost time for supper / Rushing to the
store.… Hurry. Mama, hurry / Gotta shop shop shop! / hungry hungry
hungry for some BEE-BIM BOP!” Mama and her little girl work quickly,
and while the child is too young to do more than wash the spinach, mop
up the water she spills, and set the table, the narrative follows the steps of
preparing the dish: frying the eggs, making the rice, chopping the meat
and vegetables, and then stir-frying them. Grandmother leads the family
to the table, where they say grace and assemble their dishes: “Rice goes
in the middle / Egg goes right on top / MIX IT! / MIX LIKE CRAZY! /
Time for BEE-BIM BOP!” The recipes at the end of these books uniformly
caution that an adult must supervise and assist in the cooking; however,
Park includes instructions covering two pages that are divided into the
child’s tasks and those for the adult. The head note explains that none of
the steps are difficult, and that this is her family’s recipe. Kara Keeling and
Scott Pollard point out the double address often found in cookery books
for children, wherein authors offer instructions and advice to both chil-
dren and adults, noting it as an embedded discourse that creates meaning
for readers (34). Park’s recipe demonstrates exactly how to involve chil-
dren in making this dish, and the final page shows her cooking with
young children. Her serving instructions cover what the poem misses and
enhance children’s independence, giving them the freedom to
choose ingredients to their taste: after the rice goes in the bowl,
diners then add the vegetables and meat, some of the juice, then
the egg, and hot pepper paste, and then bee-bim, “mix everything
together.” Metaphorically, this mixing reflects the mix of genera-
tions in this household. The poem and illustrations are charming,
sure to attract a young audience, but the connections are the foun-
dation of this book as child and mother bond while cooking, then
serve their multigenerational family a long-favored dish.
Dorina Gilmore’s Cora Cooks Pancit also works to connect a fami-
ly’s generations, from the dedication to Gilmore’s Grandma Cora,
“who always welcomed me into the kitchen,” to the story’s focus on
the memory of little Cora’s grandfather, her Lolo, who immigrated
to California and “was a cook for the Filipino farmworkers.” He
taught Mama to cook and “told stories about the Philippines where
he was born.” Cora is the protagonist, a child who “loved the kitchen. She
loved to drink in the smells of Mama’s Filipino dishes.” Her adventure with
pancit begins on a day when her older siblings, who “often helped with the
cooking,” are going out. Mama lets Cora choose a dish that they will cook
together and she imagines “a large bowl of pancit” full of thick noodles
and vegetables in broth. The narrative follows the steps of the recipe, and
Cora assists with everything but the chopping, as her mother tells stories
about cooking with Lolo. When the family gathers for dinner, Daddy
congratulates her, saying, “This tastes like Lolo’s pancit.” Gilmore includes
a glossary of Tagalog words with the recipe and entrenches those connec-
tions between generations of an immigrant family. Similarly, How Mama
Brought the Spring by Fran Manushkin offers another immigrant family’s
cooking story, this one told like a fable, in which a mother in Chicago
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makes blintzes with her daughter and tells a story about making them with
her mother in Belarus. The narrative takes on the flavors of a folktale as
Rosy’s mother describes how, in making her wonderful blintzes,
“Grandma Beatrice brought spring to Minsk.” Just as Lolo’s apron
and pancit connect the generations of Cora’s family, Grandma
Beatrice’s tablecloth and blintz recipe connect the generations of
Rosy’s. Moreover, both narratives work to bring immigrant food-
ways into the wider culture by showing how they work to connect
generations, as do every family’s food traditions.
Jama Kim Rattigan’s Dumpling Soup (mandu-guk) works in
much the same way, but also connects the many arms of a multi-
racial extended family through Marisa, who is seven and wants to
help make dumplings for her family’s New Year’s Eve celebration.
Marisa’s narrative foregrounds this Hawaiian family’s blending of
food, language, and customs from many countries: “My aunties
and uncles and cousins come from all around Oahu. Most of them
are Korean, but some are Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, or haole
(Hawaiian for white people). Grandma calls our family ‘chop suey,’ which
means ‘all mixed up’ in pidgin. I like it that way. So does Grandma. ‘More
spice,’ she says.” The night before the party, Marisa’s mother and aunts
gather in Grandma’s kitchen to prepare the filling for the mandoo. She
watches the women with their cleavers and cutting boards chop and mix
huge bowls of filling; Grandma is clearly in charge: “‘Too much gossip!’
says Grandma in Korean. ‘Mince that cabbage! More bean sprouts!’ It is
her recipe, so she is very picky.”2 When the women and girls reconvene
to make the dumplings on the day of the celebration, Marisa struggles
with her mandoo: “Sometimes I put too much filling in the middle. Some-
times I don’t put enough water along the edges. My dumplings look a
little funny, not perfect like the ones my aunts have made.” However, she
also notices that “Auntie Faye’s dumplings are rectangles, and she lines
them up like soldiers. Auntie Ruth pinches her dumplings along the edges
to make them look fancy. Auntie Grace puts more filling in the middle
than anyone else. ‘I like fat ones,’ she says.” The diverse dumplings in the
kitchen mirror the diversity of this family as
Preparing and eating traditional they gather to celebrate, bringing traditional
food is always a deliberate act of dishes from their various cultures, including
performing identity and building Japanese mochi: sweet moon-shaped rice cakes
with bean filling that “help keep the family
community, revealing the religious stuck together.” After the midnight fireworks,
or ethnic or regional, even the it’s time for dumpling soup. While Marisa is
teased about her “little elephant ears” dump-
linguistic, influences that have lings, Uncle Myung Ho proclaims them O-no,
shaped an individual, her family, “delicious” in Hawaiian, and Grandma eats a
and their shared history. bowl full of Marisa’s mandoo. Her desire to make
them again next year demonstrates the founda-
tional importance of this family’s celebratory gatherings. Preparing and
eating traditional food is always a deliberate act of performing identity
and building community, revealing the religious or ethnic or regional,
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even the linguistic, influences that have shaped an individual, her family,
and their shared history.

“Where Hardworking People Come Together”: Food Connections

in and out of the Kitchen
Picture-cookbooks that bring women and children out of the kitchen and
into the neighborhood or marketplace offer additional insight into how
cookery forms connections. Leyla Torres’s Saturday Sancocho tells the story
of Maria Lili, who spends every Saturday “making chicken sancocho with
her grandparents Mama Ana and Papa Angelino.” One weekend, however,
there is no money to buy the vegetables, herbs, or chicken. All they have
is a dozen eggs, so Mama Ana takes Maria Lili to the market, taking two
baskets, one with the eggs and the other empty. There, she barters her
eggs for the other items, always acquiring more than she needs for the
recipe and then bartering those ingredients for others: she trades six eggs
for a huge bunch of plantains, some of the plantains for several cassava,
half of the cassava for six ears of corn, and so on. Finally, with a stroke
of genius, she puts some of each ingredient into a basket and convinces
Doña Petrona, the chicken vendor, to part with a nice plump hen in return
for the convenience of acquiring all the vegetables and herbs she needs to
make her own sancocho. When they get home, Papa Angelino processes
the chicken, Mama Ana prepares the vegetables, and Maria Lili chops the
onions and cilantro. The recipe Torres includes “has been handed down
from one generation to the next,” throughout Central and South America,
and notes that the protein can be chicken, beef, or fish. Torres enhances
the narrative with detailed watercolors that show the interactions between
Mama Ana and Maria Lili and the members of their community as they
move through the market, making clear that collecting ingredients and
cooking are communal events.
In Oh, No, Toto!, Katrin Hyman Tchana and Louise Tchana Pami feature
the market in the story of Toto Gourmand, who lives in Cameroon and “got
his name because he loves to eat all the time.” When his grandmother, Big
Mami, takes him to the market to buy the ingredients for egussi soup, his
appetite gets him into all kinds of trouble. There’s cognitive dissonance
between Toto promising to behave in the text and the image of him on his
grandmother’s lap; he’s a chubby, happy toddler, and his promise holds
little weight. His speech is limited to her name, as he demands treats,
completely ignores her requests that he stay near her, steals one foodstuff
after another, and destroys many more as they move through the market.
Big Mami is ready to leave the market without many necessary ingredients
when she sees Mami Peter, a vendor who sells all the things she needs. As
Big Mami shops and visits with the vendor, Toto eats Mami Peter’s lunch, a
delicious dish of koki. When this theft is discovered, Mami Peter demands
that Toto be taken home, “before he eats up everything in the market!”
At home, Toto’s aunt cleans him up and sends him to his room, ordering
him to stay there until dinner. However, when he smells the finished soup,
he goes to the kitchen: “First he ate up all the meat. Then he drank up all
the soup, until the pot was empty and his belly was full.” The book ends
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“THE FLAVORS MIX TOGETHER SLOWLY”: COOKING CONNECTIONS IN PICTURE-COOKBOOKS

with Toto falling asleep beside the empty soup pot. The illustration shows
his grandmother standing over him, hands on hips, but from the waist
down, so the reader can’t see her reaction to the boy eating a pot of food
almost as big he is, the egussi soup meant for the entire family. The book
ends with a glossary of Cameroonian foods, and the recipe for egussi soup
is on the back cover, with a substitution of pumpkin seeds for the egussi
seeds. The ingredients for the soup are pureed except for the meat or fish,
which explains the order in which Toto consumed the soup. In this book,
females cook, males consume, and the only joy is Toto’s. Even the women
completely exasperated with him still smile at him, and the only punish-
ment he receives comes from a male. The images focus all attention on the
boy, making the market look sparse and largely unoccupied, and while
it’s heartening to see Cameroonian culture featured in a picturebook by
a mainstream press, the book emphasizes the patriarchal nature of that
culture and makes connections only among women.
While Oh, No, Toto! shows a particularly narrow vision of women’s
place, Kathleen Lindsey’s Sweet Potato Pie prioritizes women’s creativity
in and out of the kitchen. Taken from stories told by her grandmother,
Lindsey’s narrative focuses on eight-year-old Sadie, who tells the story of a
drought that devasted her family’s farm, except a large crop of sweet pota-
toes saved by a late rain. With one month until the bank forecloses, Mama
has the idea to sell her sweet potato pies, with their “extra-flaky crusts,” at
the Harvest Celebration in town, which Papa describes as the place “where
hardworking people come together and proudly show off what they grew
on their farm or made with their hands.” Both parents and all five chil-
dren work together to gather the ingredients and make a wagon load of
pies. There are several mishaps as Sadie has issues with the milk cow and
the rooster as she and her brother try to collect eggs and milk. The story
emphasizes how the family members pull together to complete the work,
and then how the children find ways to pull the community together to
support their sales, even “leading a parade of hungry people back to our
wagon” by holding warm pies high in the air. Mama is clever enough to give
out samples, and take some to the local stores. The family heads home with
their pies sold and weekly orders for as many as they can possibly make.
The farm is saved, and Mama was right to think that “something sweet
will solve all our problems.” Riley-Webb’s illustrations are vibrant acrylics
that blur the edges so that lines marking Sadie’s motions blur her into her
surroundings and other people. The overall effect brings together all the
features of each painting to resemble a continuous, connected, forward
motion, and accurately depicts the connections
Dooley underscores the connections made by food among the family and their wider
between comfort food, in this case community. In Norah Dooley’s Everybody Brings Noodles,
noodle dishes from many cultures, Carrie has worked hard to help organize her
and the comfort of relationship. multicultural neighborhood’s Fourth of July
block party, and the narrative focuses on her
anxieties about making the party a success, and her wish to contribute to
the talent show although she has been too busy to plan something. Each
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interaction with her neighbors underscores the importance of the relation-

ships she has built with and among them, and each features descriptions
of the dishes they will bring to the buffet tables. Dooley underscores the
connections between comfort food, in this case noodle dishes from many
cultures, and the comfort of relationship. Carrie starts the day with her
favorite food, pasta with butter, for breakfast, and then helps her mother
make spaghetti with pesto for the party. As Carrie goes around the neigh-
borhood completing the tasks on her list, she interacts with many neigh-
bors: Mrs. Hua, who gives her a wok full of yellow sesame noodles to take
to the party; the Stephanopolis siblings, who contribute a Greek orzo dish
made by their mother; Fendra Diaz, who is bringing her “Abuela’s maca-
roni salad”; Tam Tran, whose mother is making spring rolls filled with
noodles; Mrs. Shinzawa, who is making zaru soba, buckwheat noodles in
broth; and Mrs. Max, who speaks with a thick accent and has prepared a
noodle kugel. Though she is sad that she isn’t participating in the talent
show, Carrie is nonetheless “in noodle heaven,” sampling each dish and
enjoying them all.3 As they enjoy the food, the show, and each other’s
company, Carrie’s neighbors praise her, recognizing that “[s]he’s the one
that got us all talking with each other.” In terms
of gender, all the cooking is done by women and In terms of community and
girls, and most of the performers in the talent commensality, the narrative builds
show are male. However, in terms of commu-
nity and commensality, the narrative builds a a multicultural streetscape in which
multicultural streetscape in which all dishes all dishes and humans are created
and humans are created equal. The recipes for
all the dishes mentioned are included, and there
equal.
are suggestions for what to substitute for ingredients that may be hard to
find, like pigeon peas for the macaroni salad. Dooley does not center a
white gaze on these dishes, instead connecting everyone through their
love of noodles, the quintessential comfort food.

“The Best Part Is Sharing It with Friends”: Men and Commensality

In a survey of food’s functions in children’s books, Keeling and Pollard
show “how comprehending the sociocultural contexts of food reveals
fundamental understanding of the child and children’s agency” (6). They
focus on “cookbooks that are aimed at teaching children how to cook in a
systematic and wide-ranging manner,” and in doing so, uncover various
attitudes toward child capability (13). They find that while these cookbooks
often isolate “children reader/cooks from their food heritage, most have
more interestingly grappled with ways to empower children in the kitchen”
(34). The picture-cookbooks I’ve collected work
in markedly different ways. First and unless The narratives in which children
they are surveying multiple cultures as Dooley are cooking with fathers and
does in Everybody Brings Noodles, they uniformly
work to connect children to their personal food grandfathers make those children
heritage or to introduce them to other cultures’ far more autonomous than those
foodways. Second, while these books’ recipes
all instruct the child reader-cook to ask an adult
with mothers and grandmothers.
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for assistance, the narratives in which children are cooking with fathers
and grandfathers make those children far more autonomous than those
with mothers and grandmothers. The connections they construct might
therefore resemble those forged by women, but they differ in ways that
emphasize the child’s agency.
Isabell Monk’s Blackberry Stew begins with Hope mourning her
Grandpa Jack on the day of his funeral. Janice Lee Porter’s pastel illustra-
tions make clear that Hope’s mother is African American and that Hope’s
father is white. While the family assembles for the funeral, Aunt Poogee,
Jack’s sister, and Hope wait to take the blackberry stew out of the oven.
Poogee takes this time to comfort the child, who is afraid that “[o]nce we
say good-bye to Grandpa Jack, I’ll never see him again.” Aunt Poogee tells
Hope that she still sees her brother in her imagination, rocking Hope
when she was a baby, or going fishing in his old
The sharing of particular dishes overalls, and she reminds Hope about when the
three of them picked blackberries. Hope pauses
with loved ones forms foundational over these memories: the berry-picking gloves
memories for children, linking them that Grandpa Jack had fixed for her; the garter
for life to the person with whom snake that terrified her, until her grandfather
caught it, convinced her to touch it, and thus
they cooked and ate the dish. learn not to fear it. Those memories are tied
to the stew, a cobbler with a dumpling topping
over sweetened, thickened fruit, and as she smells the newly baked stew,
Hope is ready to go to the funeral, because “Grandpa Jack will be with us
whenever we tell stories and about him.… And he’ll be with us whenever
we eat blackberry stew.” The sharing of particular dishes with loved ones
forms foundational memories for children, linking them for life to the
person with whom they cooked and ate the dish. Monk’s narrative makes
clear that this comforting dessert will return to Hope the memories and
connections she shared with her grandfather and great-aunt.
In another book about stew and grandfathers, three
children have an adventurous day with theirs in Cathryn
Falwell’s Rainbow Stew. Like Peeny Butter Fudge, this narrative
is told in poetry and features an African American family.
It’s raining outside, so Grandpa suggests they “find some
colors for my famous Rainbow Stew.” They head outside in
their rain gear, and the children help harvest vegetables, but
they also “jump around like grasshoppers and buzz about
like bees. / We creep along like ladybugs, and all get muddy
knees.” After they change into dry clothes and Grandpa
towels their hair, the four of them make the stew, with the
two older children cutting vegetables and stirring the pot and
the youngest one shelling peas. Falwell’s illustrations depict
a middle-class home, with details that emphasize the arts
and education: a concert poster, a graduation photo, books,
art supplies. While the stew simmers, they read, with Grandpa reading a
picturebook to the youngest child. The book ends with them eating their
Rainbow Stew with bread and a salad for lunch. Much like their day with
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Grandpa, the recipe gives the basics and invites improvisation, calling for
both sturdy and tender vegetables, and offering a long list of possibilities.
It adds an optional ingredient section with choices for a starch, a legume,
and a protein. The improvisational nature of cooking with Grandpa is
matched by the autonomy he grants the children to choose their activities,
to select the ingredients for the stew, all heightened by the rhythm of the
poem. The book is also clearly about forming lasting, intergenerational
connections through food.
Similarly, Aisha Saeed’s Bilal Cooks Daal matches recipe to storyline.
The book is a food adventure, beginning with Bilal biking outside with his
friends, a little blond girl and an African American boy. When his father
calls him to begin cooking dinner, they ask why “they would need to start
cooking so early.” Abu explains that this dish takes patience and time,
and Bilal announces, “It’s the best meal of all.… It’s Daal!” His friends
want to know if the dish is salty, if it tastes good, and Bilal explains that
“[d]aal is nutty and creamy and warm like soup.” Abu allows the children
to pick which kind of lentils they will use, and after they take off their
shoes and wash their hands, Bilal introduces them to the varieties of daal.
They settle on yellow lentils, or chana daal, Bilal’s favorite. The trio of chil-
dren assist with each step of the recipe, enjoying the scents of the spices,
even as Morgan thinks this food “looks funny” and Elias whispers that
it “smells funny.” As Bilal worries that his friends won’t like his favorite
dish, his father sends them all out to play while the daal cooks slowly so
the flavors mix. The trio’s game of hopscotch attracts more children, and
when they all go to Morgan’s pool, other children join them. When Bilal's
friends pester him to taste the daal, he reminds them that daal takes time.
They go for a hike, and as the sun starts to set, Abu calls out that it’s almost
time to eat. The children help with the last steps, dicing onions and ginger,
pressing garlic, squeezing lemon, and chopping cilantro. The eat the daal
with naan, and declare it delicious. Each child comments on a different
aspect of the dish, and Bilal concludes that “the
best part is sharing it with friends.” The dish’s His friends’ comments on the dish’s
Pakistani roots are noted, and overall it mirrors
Bilal’s community. It takes time to make friends
taste and texture mark it as a
in a new place, and the multicultural nature of comfort food, and the purposeful
Bilal’s circle of friends resembles the diverse blending of its ingredients looks
ingredients in daal. His friends’ comments on
the dish’s taste and texture mark it as a comfort very like the blending of this diverse
food, and the purposeful blending of its ingredi- group of children.
ents looks very like the blending of this diverse
group of children. Discourses of difference are disrupted by narratives like
Bilal Cooks Daal, stories that use cooking and eating together as a remedy
for nationalist politics of racism and oppression.

“Not as Good as Homemade”: Commensality and Community

As shown by the texts discussed above, the making and eating of tradi-
tional foods is particularly meaningful in forming lasting friendships,
communities, and familial connections. In Rabbi Mindy Portnoy’s A Tale
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“THE FLAVORS MIX TOGETHER SLOWLY”: COOKING CONNECTIONS IN PICTURE-COOKBOOKS

of Two Seders, a little girl describes the six different seders she’s had in the
three years since her parents’ divorce, with a focus on the food, partic-
ularly the charoset. She describes how food matters in her two different
homes; both parents keep her favorites, but “Mom won’t let me
eat Fruit Loops” (7). She explains that some Jewish families have
two seders, “which makes Passover a lot easier than Thanksgiving,
when there’s also lots of food, but you have to decide where to
eat it” (5). And she rates these meals according to the charoset, a
sweet mixture of nuts, dried and fresh fruit, and wine that ranges
in texture from a granola-like mix to a paste. The first year, post-
divorce, her father’s doesn’t stick together and her mother’s “tasted
mostly like figs,” and “Auntie Evelyn made some very sweet
charoset from a Yemenite recipe” (11). The next year was notable
because her father invited his girlfriend Gail, and this year Gail,
now engaged to her father, “brought her mother, and her mother
brought…charoset made with dried cranberries” (17). However, for
the second seder, her mother takes her to the temple, where there is
a large community seder; her friends are there, both of her parents,
Gail, and Gail’s mother. She notes that the “charoset was okay but
not as good as homemade” (24). Later, her mother tells her that
“families are like charoset. Some have more ingredients than others, some
stick together better…some are sweeter. But each is tasty in its own way”
(28). The book ends with four traditional charoset recipes, Israeli, Yemenite,
Ashkenazi, and Italian, none of which include dried cranberries. This
child’s commentary and her mother’s wise advice combine to offer young
readers insight into how food can help fami-
This child’s commentary and her lies stick together, whether or not parents stay
together, and into how wider communities
mother’s wise advice combine to matter to children’s well-being. They might not
offer young readers insight into be as good as homemade, but those friendships
how food can help families stick support independence, awareness of other chil-
dren’s cultures, and the traditions that matter to
together, whether or not parents them.
stay together, and into how wider Building on Valérie Loichot’s contention that
eating together, “the sharing of food defines
communities matter to children’s us as humans, members of families, social
well-being. groups, religions, and nations,” I have shown
how cooking together, as well as commensality,
forms deep and lasting connections among family members and their
wider communities (171). The narratives about Bilal, Hope, Carrie, Sadie,
Toto, Maria Lili, Marisa, and Cora uncover how individual maturation
intersects with familial and communal dynamics. These children’s stories
about fudge, bibimbap, pancit, blintzes, mandu-guk, sancocho, egussi soup,
sweet potato pie, multicultural noodles, sweet and savory stews, daal, and
charoset show how food reveals history, social values, and social problems.
They demonstrate how cookery and commensality build and maintain
identity and community, how they both contribute to the development
and continuation of a culture, even as they shape the life of a child.
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Notes
1. Peeny Butter Fudge is unpaginated, as are most of the picturebooks under
discussion.
2. This book is dedicated to Grandma Yang, who did not share her recipe;
it’s the only cookery picturebook lacking a recipe in this study. However,
most sites with recipes for mandoo note that there are as many recipes
for these little dumplings as there are Korean cooks.
3. Dooley features Carrie in a series of books that include Everybody Cooks
Rice, Everybody Bakes Bread, and Everybody Serves Soup, and she does not
always appreciate foods from other cultures. In the former, she tastes
rice dishes in the homes of various neighbors while she searches for her
brother, and while she rates many of the offerings “delicious,” she uses
the condescending “interesting” to describe her Vietnamese neighbor’s
nuoc cham on rice.

Works Cited
Children’s Books
Dooley, Norah. Everybody Brings Noodles. Illustrated by Peter J. Thornton.
Carolrhoda Books, 2002.
Falwell, Cathryn. Rainbow Stew. Lee & Low Books, 2013.
Gilmore, Dorina K. Lazo. Cora Cooks Pancit. Illustrated by Kristi Valiant.
Shen’s Books, 2009.
Lindsey, Kathleen D. Sweet Potato Pie. Illustrated by Charlotte Riley-Webb.
Lee & Low Books, 2003.
Manushkin, Fran. How Mama Brought the Spring. Illustrated by Holly
Berry. Dutton Children’s Books, 2008.
Monk, Isabell. Blackberry Stew. Illustrated by Janice Lee Porter. Carol-
rhoda Books, 2005.
Morrison, Toni, and Slade Morrison. Peeny Butter Fudge. Illustrated by Joe
Cepeda. Simon & Schuster, 2009.
Park, Linda Sue. Bee-bim Bop! Illustrated by Ho Baek Lee. Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2005.
Portnoy, Mindy Avra. A Tale of Two Seders. Illustrated by Valeria Cis.
Kar-Ben, 2010.
Rattigan, Jama Kim. Dumpling Soup. Illustrated by Lillian Hsu-Flanders.
Little, Brown, and Company, 1991.
Saeed, Aisha. Bilal Cooks Daal. Illustrated by Anoosha Syed. Salaam Reads/
Simon & Schuster, 2019.
Tchana, Katrin Hyman, and Louise Tchana Pami. Oh, No, Toto! Illustrated
by Colin Bootman. Scholastic Press, 1997.
Torres, Leyla. Saturday Sancocho. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 1995.

Secondary Sources
Fraustino, Lisa Rowe. “‘The Apple of Her Eye’: The Mothering Ideology
Fed by Bestselling Trade Picture Books.” Critical Approaches to Food in
Children’s Literature, edited by Kara K. Keeling and Scott T. Pollard,
Routledge, 2009, pp. 57-72.

IBBY.ORG 59.1 – 2021 | 39

“THE FLAVORS MIX TOGETHER SLOWLY”: COOKING CONNECTIONS IN PICTURE-COOKBOOKS

Keeling, Kara K., and Scott T. Pollard. Table Lands: Food in Children’s Litera-
ture. UP of Mississippi, 2020.
Leonardi, Susan J. “Recipes for Reading: Summer Pasta, Lobster à la Rise-
holme, and Key Lime Pie.” PMLA, vol. 104, no. 3, May 1989, pp. 340-47.
Loichot, Valérie. “The Ethics of Eating Together: The Case of French Post-
colonial Literature.” Food and Literature, edited by Gitanjali G. Shahani,
Cambridge UP, 2018, pp. 169-86.
Slothower, Jodie, and Jan Susina. “Delicious Supplements: Literary Cook-
books as Additives to Children’s Texts.” Critical Approaches to Food in
Children’s Literature, edited by Kara K. Keeling and Scott T. Pollard,
Routledge, 2009, pp. 21-38.
Tigner, Amy L., and Allison Carruth. Literature and Food Studies. Rout-
ledge, 2018.

Roxanne Harde is a professor of English at the University of

Alberta’s Augustana Faculty. A Fulbright Scholar, she researches
and teaches American literature and culture, focusing on children’s
literature, popular culture, women’s writing, and Indigenous
literature. Her most recent book is The Embodied Child, coedited
with Lydia Kokkola (Routledge, 2017). She has published articles in
The Lion and the Unicorn, Bookbird, Mosaic, Critique, Jeunesse,
and IRCL, and chapters in more than twenty collections of essays.
An award-winning teacher, she has presented teaching workshops
in Canada and Europe, and has published several pedagogical
essays.

In this little gem, the internationally popular author/illus-

trator team has created vastly different characters from their
better-known Gruffalo. Loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, Londo
this picturebook’s jabberwocky-style rhyme and interplan-
U

20
n

etary illustrations do not disappoint. The red Smeds and the

NITED

blue Smoos cannot mix, so when a Smed and a Smoo fall in 19

M

love, their families strongly disapprove. Through friendship,

O

love, and family bonds, this delightful tale takes a hard look KI GD
N
at bigotry and bias using rhyming prose that is especially
effective when read aloud:
Janet met Bill in the Wurpular wood.
Where the trockles grew tall and the glompoms
smelled good.
The Smeds and the Smoos
The two rubbed antennae and played all day long,
She told him a story; he sang her a song… Julia Donaldson
Illustrated by Axel Scheffler
Among brilliantly weird aliens and planets, Donaldson’s
wordplay and Scheffler’s visual narrative show how rivals can London, UK: Scholastic, 2019.
accept differences and overcome prejudice. 32 pp.
ISBN: 9781407188898
Penni Cotton (Picturebook; ages 3+)

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