Cookbooks & Passports in Kenya

Crackly Banana Bread

Today was the first day of Cookbooks & Passports summer camp!  This week we will be 'travelling' to Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, China and Australia through food, crafts, music and garden/biome visits!

To begin our journey to Kenya, we read First Come the Zebra Lynne Barasch.  This story is about a Masai boy who becomes friends with a Kikuyu boy, despite their tribes not getting along with each other.  It taught the campers a little bit about Kenyan culture and the plants and animals found there.  Next we worked in our recipe journals/passports, finding Kenya's location on a world map, coloring in the nation's flag and learning a few facts about the country.  We also colored a picture of an African elephant and baobab tree, both native to Kenya.


The recipes we made from Kenya today were Sukuma Wiki (“Push the Week”) from Global Table Adventure, Crackly Banana Bread from Smitten Kitchen and Kenyan Chai (tea) from AmaniDC.  The banana bread was not a Kenyan recipe, but I thought it would be appropriate since it contains two foods enjoyed in Kenya: bananas and millet.  We voted on how we liked each dish by giving it a 'thumbs up,' 'sideways thumb,' or 'thumbs down.'  The campers gave sukuma wiki nine 'thumbs up,' four 'sideways thumbs,' and two 'thumbs down.'  The crackly banana bread was much more popular (the campers were so excited when they could smell the bread baking!), it received twelve 'thumbs up,' two 'sideways thumbs,' and one 'thumbs down.'  The Kenyan chai was the least popular recipe today, the campers didn't think it tasted very strongly of anything and the ones who have had chai before thought it needed sugar (this recipe contains no sweeteners).  The campers gave this one two 'thumbs up,' one 'sideways thumb,' and eleven 'thumbs down' (one camper decided not to try the chai).  I thought the sukuma wiki and chai were delicious and I already have ideas on how to make the crackly banana bread gluten-free - it smelled and looked amazing!

Our Kenyan activities today included making Lilac-breasted Rollers (the national bird of Kenya and Botswana) out of TP tubes and learning about Wangari Maathai, an environmentalist who planted trees in her native home and helped restore Kenya's forests.  Wangari also worked on women's rights and founded The Green Belt Movement to encourage women to plant trees as a source of food, firewood and income.  This year as part of our summer camp program, we are teaching the campers about Wangari and planting a tree in her honor.  All of our campers are voting on which native Ohio tree we'll plant: Tulip Tree, 'Autumn Splendor' Horse chestnut or 'Espresso' Kentucky Coffeetree (so far, the Horse chestnut is winning by nearly 50% of the vote!).  To introduce the campers to Wangari, we read Planting the Trees of Kenya by Claire A. Nivola.  We finished the camp day by playing 5 Trees, a hide and seek style game from 5 Orange Potatoes.

Tomorrow we visit Brazil!


I am linking this post about our adventure learning about Kenya with Around the World in 12 Dishes and the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #7!




For more international craft and recipes ideas, check out my Pinterest board Global Chefs + Crafts!