MY TOP TEN PICTURE BOOKS ABOUT FOOD

(Stay tuned for my September GIVEAWAY! In the meantime, bear with me as I blog about food...)

"What can I eat?" Ah, the never-ending quest for food.  Ask my son, who just left for college last week. When I dropped him off, we quickly stocked his apartment kitchen; but he called me yesterday and is already running out of ideas: "Mom, if you could email me some-good-and-quick-and-easy-with-maybe-three-ingredient-recipes, that would be great".  Sigh.

I started googling around and found a blog, called STONE SOUP ("delicious meals in minutes"), with 5-ingredient recipes. That got me thinking about the children's book, Stone Soup and some of my favorite picture books about food...

1. STONE SOUP by Marcia Brown. Three soldiers came marching down the road towards a French village. The peasants seeing them coming, suddenly became very busy, for soldiers are often hungry. So all the food was hidden under mattresses or in barns. There followed a battle of wits, with the soldiers equal to the occasion. Stone soup? Why, of course, they could make a wonderful soup of stones...but, of course, one must add a carrot or tow...some meat...so it went.
2. BLUEBERRIES FOR SAL, by Robert McCloskey. (CLICK HERE to read my review).
3. THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR, by Eric Carle. Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a perennial favourite with children and adults alike. Its imaginative illustration and clever cut-out detail charts the progress of a very hungry caterpillar as he eats his way through the week. (My post about Eric Carle can be read by CLICKING HERE.)
4. JAMBERRY, by Bruce Degen. (My previous post about this book can be found HERE.)
5. THE CARROT SEED, by Ruth Krauss. (CLICK HERE to read about this book in my "Time for Gardens" post.)
6. THE DUCHESS BAKES A CAKE, by Virginia Kahl. (CLICK HERE to read my review.)
7. HOW TO MAKE AN APPLE PIE AND SEE THE WORLD, by Marjorie Priceman. The world becomes a young girl's grocery store, as she goes on a global journey to find ingredients for an apple pie.  (And yes, there's a recipe at the back of the book!) 
8. I WILL NEVER NOT EVER EAT A TOMATO, by Lauren Child. Lola is a fussy eater. A very fussy eater. She won’t eat her carrots (until her brother Charlie reveals that they’re orange twiglets from Jupiter). She won’t eat her mashed potatoes (until Charlie explains that they’re cloud fluff from the pointiest peak of Mount Fuji). There are many things Lola won’t eat, including - and especially - tomatoes. Or will she? (To read my past post about Charlie and Lola books, CLICK HERE.)
9. SUN BREAD by Elisa Kleven. Winter’'s gray chill has set in and everyone misses the sun—. So a baker decides to bring warmth to the town by making a "sun" bread. As the bread bakes, rising hot and delicious, everyone comes out to share in its goodness. Everyone, including the sun itself. Kleven offers a lilting, rhyming text, colorful illustrations, and a recipe for baking your own sun bread!
10. THE POPCORN BOOK, by Tommie dePaola. Brothers Tiny and Tony are hungry for a snack, and their mother allows them to make some popcorn. The two boys learn about the history of popcorn in the Americas, how much popcorn is eaten on an annual basis, and methods of popping corn. Two recipes to pop corn are included in this book.

Did I leave your children's favorite off my list?  Ask them, while you all munch on some yummy, healthy, quick-and-easy after-school snacks that I found HERE (Lady and the Blog) and HERE (Family Fun). Hmmm, maybe I should send these links to my son. You're never to old for fun snacks, right?