By now, you might have picked up the January 2014 issue of beijingkids featuring Beijing restaurants that serve different world cuisines. If you’d like to continue that food exploration in your own kitchen, here’s a fun way to engage your kids.
I came across this article, which features clever designs used to promote last year’s Sydney International Food Festival. Ad agency Whybin/TWBA created different world flags using common ingredients from that country’s cuisine.
The red, green, and white of the Italian flag (pictured above), for example, is represented with cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and spaghetti. To put your own spin on it, you can try switching out the pasta for mozzarella or another white cheese.
If you’re stuck for ideas, the Whybin/TWBA campaign also features food flags for Vietnam, the US, the UK, China, Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Switzerland, Australia, Spain, South Korea, Lebanon, Japan, Indonesia, India, Greece and France. Some of the ingredients are much harder to source than others – blue swimmer crab, anyone? – but they’ll get you started.
Here are a few more suggestions, ranging from the serious to the not-so-serious:
Canada
Make the red parts out of bacon, smoked meat, or ketchup chips and the white part out of cheese curds or Montreal-style bagel chunks. Mmmmmm, a delicious heart attack.
Sweden
Make the blue parts out of blue candy – Swedes have a notorious sweet tooth – and the yellow part out of bread or yellow cake.
Russia
Make the red part out of beets (heavily used in borscht soup), the white part out of sour cream, and the blue part out of blueberries, which can be used as toppings on pancakes like blini or as fillings in dessert perogies (a type of dumpling).
If you give any of these a try, email us your photos at danamercado@beijing-kids.com.
Photo by Whybin/TBWA via Visual News
Dana is the beijingkids Shunyi Correspondent. Originally from the Philippines, she moved to Beijing in 2011 (via Europe) with her husband, two sons and Rusty the dog. She enjoys writing, photography, theater, visual arts, and trying new food. In her free time, she can be found exploring the city and driving along the mountain roads of Huairou, Miyun and Pinggu.
