Fairy tale feasts

A delightful cookbook: "Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook" Tales retold by Jane Yolen, recipes by Heidi E.Y. Stemple. (Crocodile Books)

Renowned storyteller Jane Yolen and daughter Heidi E.Y. Stemple are making magic again.

They've written another cookbook for kids, and it's delightful.

"Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook" is filled with lovely illustrations by collage artist Sima Elizabeth Shefrin. There are 18 recipes, including latkes, kugel and blintzes, spiced with an equal number of folk tales. Whether it's "The Latke Miracle" or "The Wheat Came in at the Door" or "How to Know a Noodle," Yolen's storytelling enriches each folk tale.

That food and folk tales are so intertwined shouldn't be surprising. They are among our oldest traditions.

"We eat and we entertain ourselves with stories. There's also a great female aspect because in the old days it was the woman in the kitchen and telling stories to the children," says Yolen during a phone chat with the authors from Yolen's Massachusetts home. "Both of them are arts and skills, and even if you have very little talent for each, you can do something within the family as part of the storytelling and cooking."

Chimed in Stemple, "These are both things that families do together and they're multigenerational. You can tell a story and a child will get one level of it and a parent will get another. With cooking, it's the same."

Get a taste of our weekly Food and Wine newsletter

And while it may sometimes seem easier to chase kids out of the kitchen with an "I'm just cooking a meal," Stemple, who's cooked with her two daughters, including the now-18-year old who helped test recipes, urged otherwise.

"You can say, 'We need to peel the carrots and that's your job' and somebody else needs to stir the batter and that's a job for your younger sibling," said Stemple. "It depends on the recipe, the child and the kitchen. My kitchen has some enormous sharp knives. It has gas. The water is turned up scalding hot. My kitchen is not where a 7-year-old should go into and cook on her own."

"We're just hoping the book becomes a tradition with families, especially if they're families who haven't had much of a story and a cooking tradition because I think that we make it simple to love," said Yolen, who's written a hundred-plus books. "Cooking and telling stories are the way to have that wonderful family time that we're all regretting that we don't seem to have anymore."

The authors have designed the book to appeal to all ages for, as they note, recipes and folk tales have always been adaptable. Recipes get tweaked by cooks to suit their taste buds, skills and budgets. So do stories, whether the listener is a toddler or teenager.

"Be playful with both these stories and recipes," the authors write. "First make (and) tell them exactly as they are here, and then begin to experiment. Recipes and stories are made more beautiful, more filling more memorable by what you put into them."


This recipe from "Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts" is adapted from Jane Yolen's grandmother.

Rinse, core and cut 6 large apples, such as Macintosh or Granny Smith, into medium-size chunks; leave skins on. Put apples in a large pot with 1/4 cup water, 1 cinnamon stick or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and, if you like, 1 tablespoon to 1/2 cup sugar depending on how sweet you like it. Heat to a boil over high heat; reduce heat to medium-low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally until all apples are mushy and skins are peeling off, 15-20 minutes. Set a colander in a large bowl. Scoop apples into it. Mash apples, using a wooden spoon or spatula to press apples through colander. Makes: 2 cups

"Jewish Fairy Tale Feasts: A Literary Cookbook" Tales retold by Jane Yolen, recipes by Heidi E.Y. Stemple, Crocodile Books, $25