Noodles, potatoes, rice,
veggies fresh or pickled,
herbs and spices and yum!

Welcome, welcome! Our table is set with the tools we need (chopsticks, a flat-bottomed spoon, or our hands), and our senses are ready – let’s eat together!

Rice or corn or bread or noodles or potatoes could be the foundation of our meal – so many shapes and textures and flavors to enjoy.

Our food is more interesting because we add spices, herbs, peppers, tomatoes – each place in the world has its favorites.

Perhaps you’ve tried kimchi or other pickled vegetables. Molokhia and choy sum are green vegetables that might be new to you.

Beans, nuts, and soybeans are proteins that help our bodies stay strong, as are meats and seafood – look at all the wonderful ways they are cooked!

Oh, the lovely sweet ways to finish our meals – ice cream, fruit, pastries! Bananas are the most-eaten fruit in the world – can you guess the second most popular? *

Readers can learn to say “happy eating” and words about texture and “delicious” and “goodbye” in several languages, with phonetic pronunciations included for every non-English food word in the entire book.

Foods from 103 countries are featured in this attractive introduction to what we share around the table at mealtimes, fascinating for kids who want to know what their age-mates in other lands are eating and interesting for adults who want to expand their culinary horizons. Picture books are Everybody books!

Where did your favorite lunch food originate?
**kmm

Book info: Welcome to Our Table: A Celebration of What Children Eat All Around the World / Laura Mucha & Ed Smith; illustrated by Harriet Lynas. Nosy Crow, 2023. [Laura’s site] [Ed’s site] [Harriet’s site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

(* It’s watermelon!!)