Try the World: Teaching Kids About Other Cultures Through Food
When school begins, travel gets put on the back burner, but that doesn’t mean learning about destinations around the world ends. In the past, our family has made time for learning about different countries throughout the year. Each child would choose a country to research and we would head off to the library to find books and possibly movies to learn more. We would also search online for recipes and music and plan one meal representing the cuisine of that country. Our children really enjoyed this, but as our lives got busier, we stopped making time for this. When I saw the Try The World subscription box, I realized it was the perfect opportunity to rekindle this tradition.
*This is a sponsored post with Try the World. I receive a box to try in return for my honest review.
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Try The World: Teaching Kids About Other Cultures Through Food
Try The World is about discovering the world through food. Each month notable chefs choose a variety of products representing a specific country. Products come directly from their county of origin and Try The World makes every effort possible to work with small, family owned businesses that use traditional production methods. Each box contains 7 to 8 products that are pantry staples and treats, along with instructions to make recipes with these ingredients. When I learned about this fabulous subscription box, I knew I wanted to share it with my kids.
The box arrives
When the box arrived, I wanted my children to be involved from the start. You can see everything from beginning to end of what comes in the Spain box:
(Not my best filming because I was so excited about what was in the box!)
Planning a meal
When I was in college I lived abroad in Spain for a summer, so this box brought back many memories. There were five different recipes in the box and I knew it would be ambitious to try all of them. Tapas are traditional snacks or appetizers found in many bars in restaurants in Spain and I knew I wanted to have a couple of those, so I chose the pan con tomate from the recipe list and purchased a variety of Spanish olives at the local store. For the main course I really wanted to make paella, the traditional Spanish rice dish, since the box gave me several items I could use in the recipe (olive oil, paprika, and mussels). For dessert I was going to make the crema Catalana featured on the Try The World menu. With the meal planned we headed off to the store and found our ingredients.
Cooking together
In the Try The World box, you also get a link to a Spotify playlist you can listen to while cooking or just to get you in the mood. The musics was awesome and we had a lot of fun dancing around the kitchen. The recipes from Try The World were easy to follow and delicious too. Everyone raved about the tomato flavored tumaca sauce we ate on toasted bread (pan con tomate) and the crema Catalana with floral jam and turrón (both of which came in the box). My son even asked if we had more turrón (a hard nougat candy with almonds), which made me smile. My grandmother was Puerto Rican and this was her favorite candy. Obviously the sweet tooth runs in the family.
Dinner
From start to finish the meal was a success. My kids aren’t always the most adventurous eaters, but they didn’t hesitate to eat a single bite of this meal. We discussed our previous trip to Spain where we visited Barcelona, Granada, and Sevilla. It was fun to connect our food experiences with travel memories, yet make new connections to the Spanish culture around our kitchen table. I’m fluent in Spanish so I quizzed them on a few words they knew and then taught them a few new ones as well.
