Do Try This at Home: Cook It!! by Punk Science
| Do Try This at Home: Cook It!! by Punk Science | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Margaret Young
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| Summary: Do Try This At Home is a fun cross between a boy friendly cookbook and a kitchen science experiments book starring Punk Science members Jon, brad and Dan, the stars of the Science Museum's shows and books. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 96 | Date: May 2013 |
| Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1447205531 | |
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Do Try This At Home - Cook It!! is a fun, very boy friendly ( but not just for boys) cookbook combining very basic recipes, science facts and a few science experiments with food. Not every recipe in this book includes science facts and in some the science bit is limited to mentioning vitamins or giving us a very simple fact like the fact a tomato is a fruit, or a water chestnut isn't really a nut. But other recipes have quite a bit of scientific information. For instance this will tell you why cooking makes an egg hard, but makes cheese softer. Children will learn what an emulsion is, why onions make us cry, how yeast works, how to make a bouncing rubber-like egg and how to make a colour changing cabbage solution that will tell if a substance is acid or alkaline.
Some of the nicer recipes include fresh baked bread, hamburgers, and smoothies. The jelly with a toy spider in it looks like good fun, and we even ordered a toy spider to try this. Sadly after reading the science bit - which tells what jelly is made of - my sons immediately decided to never touch the stuff again, but such is the price of knowledge. There are a number of recipes which I really cannot see appealing to children, such as leek soup or chicken casserole, but I recognise that all children's cook books include a lot of these now, I suppose to show they are promoting balanced eating. Still, my own children have no interest in making or eating these recipes, and some like baked salmon will be a bit expensive for parents to buy the ingredients and let the children experiment with. In addition, I have to confess that the pizza recipe is really rotten. I am sure some children would eat this, but mine certainly would not - and neither would the dog. A much nicer recipe could have been easily made. A few of the recipes are not intended for human consumption,, such as the cabbage experiment, but these are both entertaining and educational.
We have not tried all of the recipes in this book, nor will we. But, we have found all of the instructions for all of the recipes we have tried, to be simple, clear and easy to understand. These are all recipes that an average child of 8 could easily follow with parental assistance only being required for safety reasons. Each recipe is also clearly marked to show cooking and preparation time, difficulty, if this involves heating, and if a grown up helper is needed. Almost all of the activities do indicate a grown up helper is required, but the last category I feel is something that parents should decide for themselves.
I do have my complaints with this book, such as the recipe selection and the fact that not all of the recipes have any scientific information at all. My sons were also disappointed by the explosions possible promise on the front cover. Being typical boys the promise of an explosion is guaranteed to lure them in, but there really isn't anything in the book about blowing things up. Despite my complaints, I am still giving this 5 stars. This does represent good value for money. I have bought more science kits than I can count, and I feel that this does give you more activities than the average kitchen science kit at a fraction of the cost. Although not every recipe has any connection to science, the ones that do are very good, teaching quite a few concepts in a fun, hands on manner. I also feel that learning to read a recipe and follow instructions is very beneficial, and of course, this book does have the children reading as well. In addition to teaching some science, health and literacy skills there is a limited of maths involved in cooking as well which can be increased by asking a child to halve or double a recipe. In short - I highly doubt anyone will use all of the recipes in this book. You will find some that suit and some that do not. But even if you only use a fraction of the ideas and recipes included here you are still guaranteed plenty of learning and opportunities, and even more fun. I also feel that this suits a wide range of ages, with both my 4 year old and 8 year old finding topics of interest in this book, and I feel it would appeal to much older children as well.
Children and their parents will appreciate the following related books:
A Horrid Factbook: Food by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross
The Lazy Cook's Family Favourites by Mo Smith
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You can read more book reviews or buy Do Try This at Home: Cook It!! by Punk Science at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Do Try This at Home: Cook It!! by Punk Science at Amazon.com.
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