Saturday, October 30, 2010

Passport Party Activity with International Foods


We celebrated another birthday this month, and I added another twist at the last minute.  One might even call it a theme.  But I'm not usually a theme kind of party thrower, so bear with me.

Since we like to eat Asian foods around here, I thought I would serve some of our favorite internationally inspired dishes.  Plus, since we were expecting a dozen children, we would serve hot dogs frankfurters.

So here was what I came up with for our global tour dinner:

1.  Frankfurters (Germany)
2.  French Bread (France)
3.  Steamed Sticky Rice (Vietnam)
4.  Potstickers / "Jiaozi" (China)
5.  Dried Mango and Pineapple Slices (Thailand)


Not having any veggies was regrettable, but I was trying to keep things simple.

Of course, making a pinata and passports on the same day as the party does not qualify as keeping things simple.  Anyway, here are the passports:


Guests were instructed to eat and sample the different dishes first and then come back to collect "stamps" for their passports.  The stamps we used were obtained from free resources at the LCMS website.  My daughter cut them out.   We provided glue sticks and school glue for the adhesive, though printing the images on sticker paper would be a great time saving option.

Time constraints limited us to six country stamps, which turned out to be plenty.  However, for more stamp opportunities I thought of adding:
  • a pinata for Mexico
  • some origami shapes for Japan
  • some South African rooibos tea

This passport activity could be used at a variety of occasions, from an educational meal with family and friends, to a potluck event, or even as part of a geography lesson.


Have you ever sampled cuisines from multiple countries in one meal?  
What was the occasion?

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6 comments:

Unknown said...

What a sweet and charming idea! To answer your question, I've never done something like this before, but I will now :). I'm thinking there might be all kinds of ways to use this, like for the night before the first day of school or to celebrate a less festive holiday. Very cute.

Jhona O. said...

It sounds like a wonderful time was had by all! It's a great idea. Everything sounds yummy:)

asian~treasures said...

My kiddos (my oldest, especially) thought it was great!

Anonymous said...

I love this idea! How fun! We are doing geography studies. This would be something fun to do along with them!

Katie from ABC&123: A Learning Cooperative said...

Fun! Food is always a good way to get kids interested, and everyone else too! This will be one of our featured activities in next week's Show and Tell. Thanks for linking up!

Anonymous said...

I love this idea. I think we may just have to start a food passport!