Niam! Cooking with Kids: Inspired by the Mamaqtuq Nanook Cooking Club

Niam! What does that word sound like, in English? You don’t have to speak Inuktitut to realize that it sounds a great deal like “Yum!”, and nothing hooks kids on cooking like knowing that they can cook up something with serious “yum” factor. While the recipes for this kids’ cookbook were developed in Northern Canada, they are usable and/or adaptable to any Canadian location, rural or urban. Preceding the cookbook’s recipe collection, author Kerry McCluskey (a long-term resident of Iqaluit) offers very useful guidelines as to how the book can be used. “Recipe Notes” tell the reader that the recipes were designed with junior cooks of varying ages and skill sets in mind: it uses simple ingredients and uncomplicated methods. Although the recipes make use of “country foods” harvested in Northern Canada, such as seal, caribou, muskox and game birds, the recipes are adaptable to whatever is in season or on sale at the grocery store. Of course, southern cooks can substitute beef, pork, or chicken. In Northern Canada, it can be difficult to obtain some items fresh (onions, garlic, and fresh herbs, for example), but dried versions can easily substitute. Often, adults worry that kids working in the kitchen will cut themselves, burn themselves on a hot pan or pot, or be careless about hand-washing and food safety. “Safety First!” reminds adult kitchen supervisors to make age-appropriate choices about the tasks at which student cooks will be allowed to work. Wisely, McCluskey strongly advises against allowing young children to work alone without adult supervision in the kitchen. Common cooking terms, such as boil, grate and marinate, are listed and described, with common abbreviations for cooking measurements being offered in both metric and imperial formats.

Cooking skill development is an important focus in Niam!, and each recipe is preceded by a list of skills to be learned or developed in that cooking experience. “Community Involvement” has been crucial to the Mamaqtuq Nanook Cooking Club, both as a source of various supports (donations, guest speakers/guest cooks, for example) and as a way for the Cooking Club kids to acknowledge and to give back to the community in which they live. “Cooking Club Tips” - “what does and what does not work when cooking with children” (p. 11) and many of the recipe pages - offer not only a lesson in cooking, but also on what the recipe has taught the cooking club supervisors. Finally, “Start Your Own Cooking Club” reminds adult readers that, following the recipes, there’s a section of the book offering a list of steps and suggestions for starting one’s own cooking club, at school, church, or any other place where there’s a group of kids who might want to be junior chefs.

The recipe pages follow a standard format: an attractively-presented, full-colour photo page depicting the item to be prepared/cooked, and, on the facing page, a list of the skills to be learned, ingredients used, possible alternatives or substitutions, and then, the directions for preparation. Following each recipe (the recipes are usually designed to feed four but lend themselves to easy expansion for larger groups), there’s often an example of “Community Involvement” or a “Cooking Club Tip”. The recipes start off easy (Smoothies and Sandwiches), but then it’s on to Mini-Quiche and Stuffed Potato Skins. Is there a kid who doesn’t like pizza? It’s the most popular dish at the cooking club, and this is a “scratch” recipe: make the dough, make the sauce, add a selection of toppings, and bake. Two recipes are interesting combinations of Northern and Southern food favourites. The word “Palaugos” is a combination of the words “pogos” and “palaugaaq” (traditional Inuit bannock). Put the two words together and you get “palaugos”, an adaptation of a “pogo” (or “pigs in blankets”, as they were called in my old and treasured Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys & Girls).
Most restaurant kids’ menus offer chicken fingers, and in Niam!, they are presented as “Bird Fingers”. McCluskey points out this is always a “crowd pleaser” and that she “thinks of this recipe as one of our most important lessons because our cooks gain a better understanding of how easy and fun it is to cook healthy food they love from scratch instead of buying a box of processed chicken fingers.” (p. 30) Other recipes for main dishes include Jerk Chicken (which the school ties in with Black History Month), Tacos, Meatballs, Meatlove (aka Meatloaf), and Chili. Some of us began our cooking careers by helping with baking (especially at Christmas), and various holidays offer the Cooking Club members an opportunity to share their talent and showcase their skills. They bake Love Muffins to take home on Valentine’s Day, and, at the annual Christmas concert, several types of cookies are baked and decorated for this “important event in cooking club because the positive feedback the kids receive provides them with so much encouragement to keep cooking.” (p. 49) Sugar Cookies, Gingerbread Cookies, and No-Bake Surprise Cookies are decorated and enjoyed. The cookies featured on the book’s cover are a riot of icing, sprinkles, and decorating sugar, and you can’t help but admire the enthusiasm with which the junior cooks have embellished their sweet treats.

The final pages of the book offer a short but concise, step-by-step description of how to start a cooking club: finding a location with the right space for the club, finding funding to pay for food and cooking equipment, developing a weekly schedule, the nuts-and-bolts management issues, creating the club’s own cookbook (a very useful literacy development activity), making community connections that will enable volunteerism opportunities for club participants to showcase their skills, and finally, promoting the club’s efforts through media, be it print, radio/tv, or social media. No one will know how important the cooking club’s work is, if nobody publicizes it.

My love of cooking began as a little girl, helping my late mom with cookie-baking at Christmas, and, when I received the Betty Crocker’s Cookbook for Boys & Girls for my ninth birthday, I was over the moon. I learned to love cooking at an early age, and this book is illustrated with plenty of photos of kids who are learning to love cooking, too. Many of them proudly wear t-shirts imprinted with designs echoing the black piping and buttons which embellish professional chefs’ jackets, and they wield icing pens with focus and determination.

In a world where food delivery companies increasingly are the source of family meals, Niam! shows that kids can cook, and they can enjoy it. This book also teaches the importance of connecting kids with the sources of their locally produced foods, the how-to of “hands-on” teaching of healthy nutrition, and the valuable social bonds which come from sharing meals with friends, family, and the greater community. Last but not least, for both Northern and Southern Canadian residents, Niam! provides interesting information about the history of traditional food sources and the significant role that it has played within Inuit culture. It is said that food is one of the last traditions to be lost in a culture. Let’s hope that Palaugos and Bird Fingers inspire a whole new generation of young cooks to dive deep into their culture’s food history and fuse the past with the present.