French, English, and Spanish Foods.....

I'm looking for some help.  I'm currently teaching 5th graders about the lasting effects of colonizations from the three main colonizers. (Is that a word?)  Anyway, I"m considering making our last day before Christmas a celebration of the foods that we eat based on the countries.  (Our standard is to understand the lasting effects of colonization as it relates to architecture, people, and food.)  

So, they need to be things a 5th grader can help a parent make, and something that they can easily bring to school to share with kids. 

I was thinking of these....but I'm looking for some more help on "traditional" foods and easy to make. 

Spanish

FLAN

SPANISH RICE

REAL SALSA

French

CROISSANTS

CREPES

French Onion SOUP

English

POUND CAKE (recipe in my book talks about how it was eaten at the time of colonization)

TEA

We will mention fish and chips....but really not possible.

Help me out!

Thanks,

French

Petit Fours - These are actually kind of difficult to do right, but a cheat method would be to have the student make them as cupcakes and just ice and decorate the tops.

For England, what about Stew & Dumplings for the non-dessert food?  They could always use canned stew if they weren't really a cooking family, and dumplings can be improvised from biscuit mix.  In fact, I think some biscuit mixes come with instructions for making dumplings on the box.

Quick clarification... Spanish cuisine does not have 'salsa', this is more of a Latin American thing...

For Spanish food, consider Paella, tortilla Española (similar to a frittata), chorizo, churros served with hot chocolate...

Hope this helps..

Original Post by v_avila:

Quick clarification... Spanish cuisine does not have 'salsa', this is more of a Latin American thing...

For Spanish food, consider Paella, tortilla Española (similar to a frittata), chorizo, churros served with hot chocolate...

Hope this helps..

 Seconded.  The tortilla would pretty easy to make, but requires lots of olive oil! Parents would definitely need to supervise.  This is how I was taught to make it anyway:

1) Slice up enough potatoes (and onions, if desired) to completely fill a small frying pan.

2) Place potato slices in the small frying pan

3) Pour olive oil into the pan, covering the potatoes and fry/saute the them. (This is where the parental supervision would be most needed. I've made huge messes at this point in the past. Hot oil everywhere if you're not careful - not fun).

4) Drain the olive oil away. Save it if you're making more than one tortilla.

5) Add spinach, cheese or whatever else you like to the potatoes.

6) Break and mix 3-4 eggs as if you were going to scramble them. Pour this into the pan to fill in the crevices and cover the potato mixture.

7) Allow the tortilla to cook most of the way through. At about 90% cooked, flip the tortilla and allow it to finish cooking. The method I was shown was to place a plate face-down on top of the pan and in one smooth motion flip the pan and plate so that the tortilla is now on the plate. Slide the tortilla back into the pan with the less-cooked side on the bottom of the pan.

8) Flip the tortilla onto a clean plate using the method described above. It should look pretty with rounded edges. Some serve it with ketchup.

thanks all. and point taken on the salsa....i was just thinking about the ease of making it.

Thanks!

Mmmm... English food. The only things I know to make are fairly labor intensive but something like Shepherd's Pie is pretty easy to make. 

English Food:

Bangers and Mash - Mashed potatoes and sauages in onion gravy (easy)

P.S I second the shepherds pie!

French:
-Mini quiche- can be bought frozen and then baked and eaten either warm or cold.  Or made, but thats quite a bit of work. 
-Baked brie (or unbaked) with bagguette and escargot. (The first escargot I ever had was from a can with added garlic butter, surprisingly it wasn't half bad).