Pizza, Plantains, and Moo Goo Guy Pan

Recognizing that food can reflect a nation's history, such as its immigration patterns and conflicts, the U.S. State Department has been known to send a corps of chefs to practice "gastrodiplomacy" with foreign chefs. These cultural ambassadors use food to foster understanding.

Food also can help children develop an international perspective. Thanks to the proliferation of international travelers, foodies, and immigrants a trip to the supermarket now includes an introduction to a sushi bar, jalapeno chilies, exotic mushrooms, cumin, coriander, turmeric, a wider variety of beans and rice, imported cookies, and bottled foreign water and juice. Small World Toys (smallworldtoys.com) provides hands-on-play with a 6-piece set of pizza slices, a red pepper shaker, and more. Just as adults hold wine tasting events, children can hold a tasting of chocolates from around the world. Those SERRV sells at serrv.org come from Ghana in Africa.

     Books, such as those in the library's 641 section, have a wide variety of international recipes. Global Vegetarian Cooking from SERRV includes over 130 simplified recipes that use readily available ingredients. At tv.disney.go.com/disneychannel/passtheplate, children can click on a country to find ways adults can help them prepare international recipes using rice, tomatoes, bananas, and other familiar foods. Vegans concerned about eating the world's animals might like to check out the site of blogger, Kathy Patalsky, at kblog.lunchboxbunch.com and her recipes at findingvegan on Facebook. In Food Journeys of a Lifetime, National Geographic serves up taste tempting reasons why kids can start planning lifelong travel to 500 extraordinary dining experiences around the world.

     Those not inclined to prepare a complete international meal themselves might seek out foreign neighbors, school families, and church members who would like to bring their native dishes to a community, school, or church social. Also, the advertising pages of telephone books list restaurants offering a wide variety of Chinese, Ethiopian, French, German, Greek, Italian, Mexican, Thai, Turkish, and other international cuisine, as well as ethnic fast food fare. Since some restaurants print their entire menus online and in telephone books, children might have fun using a pocket foreign language dictionary to look up translations for unfamiliar items. For children too young to sit still during a meal at a foreign restaurant, there is carryout. Take youngsters along to pick up the food, and they will get a taste of another culture just by seeing the restaurant's decor. They even may see people who have removed their shoes to kneel or sit on floor mats and cushions when they eat.

     About the time children learn to tie their shoes they also can be introduced to the art of eating with chopsticks. The trick is using the middle finger to hold one of the chopsticks steady against the ring and little fingers while manipulating the other chopstick up and down to pick up food with the thumb and forefinger. Servers at local Chinese and Japanese restaurants should be able to provide chopsticks and help children and adults master the technique.There is no better opportunity to try out this new skill than at a Chinese New Year celebration at home or in a local Chinese restaurant. At that time, children also can write their own fortune cookie messages using rub-on Chinese characters in a kit from Multicultural Kids (multiculturalkids.com).