Kids Cookbook: Winning Recipes for Kids Cooking Contest, April 4, 1975

Calgary Public Library - 1975

Children’s cookbooks tend to emphasize desserts, as is especially clear in the Kids Cookbook produced by the Calgary Public Library. Children submitted their favourite recipes in this juvenile community cookbook: the results include brownies, peach crisp, and other treats. “Funny Face Cupcakes,” made from a cake mix, speaks to a late twentieth-century trend for “fun food” for children. But there are some exceptions: “Tim’s Tacos” and the Chinese “Rice Dish” demonstrate children reaching beyond expectations to make meals for the whole family. The instructions hint at these children’s approach to cooking. The taco recipe prescribes few measurements, relying on experience and intuition, while the rice recipe includes references to the settings on the family stove (“Hi” and “Lo”) and an attempt at adult sentence structures (“If desired crispyness at bottom”).

With permission from the Calgary Public Library.