Family’s world culinary tour from A-Z!

A Montgomery family is midway through a culinary tour of the world, without leaving the comforts of their dining room!

After deciding that their regular dining wasn’t quite igniting their children’s palates, passionate foodies Stuart and Georgina Taylor cooked up a trip round the world, metaphorically, with an authentic culinary dish from every country, using the alphabet as a guide.

After starting out with Afghanistan, and a spicy dish called Kabuli Pulao, Stuart has researched his way to the letter N where the family enjoyed a Norwegian speciality dessert – their 130^th country dish since embarking on the ‘world tour’ seven years ago.

Each time they prepare a new dish, the children find out about the country, geographically and culturally, reproduce the flag, and take a photo of the meal and flag as a reminder.

The pair wanted to encourage their children to eat well, taste new flavours, and learn about the world at the same time.

At the start of the project, the couple said, children Freddie and Sophie were a little fussy with what they would eat, being drawn to the familiarity of Spaghetti Bolognese or pizza, but over the years they have started to look forward to each dish and mostly enjoy trying them.

Sophie, who was 18 months old when the adventure began, has become a keen cook and likes to help her dad in the kitchen.

Along the way, the family has been joined by Charlie, now four, and youngest member Hugo, two, who enthusiastically joined the journey from his high chair.

N has also included Namibia which was meant barbecue boerewors (African beef and pork sausages made by The Prized Pig) and kapana (Namibian spiced street food beef), accompanied by pap (African cornmeal), a beetroot, feta and walnut salad; Namibian spiced potato wedges; rice and an African tomato and pepper sauce!

As for their favourite? Stuart highlighted tsebhi sega and hembesha from Eritrea, for “all its fragrant spices and different flavour”.

Sophie’s was Lichtenstein's käsknöpfle because she “loved the taste of cheesy pasta with the apple sauce”.

Georgi and Freddie opted for the different flavours of Japan’s sushi.

The couple plan to continue the global gastronomy, beginning the new year with Oman, and hope to create a book from all of the recipes, photos and flags, to present to their children when they are adults.