Kidchen Passport

There's a way to get to know the world that doesn't need a map or a plane: it runs through the table. What a people eat tells their story — the geography they were dealt, what the land and sea give them, and the ingenuity of generations who learned to turn all that into flavour.

That's the idea behind Kidchen Passport. At each stage, the kidchefs don't come for a recipe: they come to understand why a country cooks the way it does.

Why Japan perfected rice and raw fish on an island surrounded by sea. Why spices changed the routes of ships and the way we season. Why corn and beans feed half the world, from Mexico to Cape Verde. And why a leavened dough or a resting loaf are, deep down, science happening in their hands.

They cook, they taste, they sit down to eat what they've made, and they stamp their passport before travelling on. By the end of the year they'll have travelled the world without leaving the kitchen — and learned far more than just cooking.

Ages 5 to 12, in Lisbon. One stage a month, lunch included.