From the earliest days of stories, when hunters told of their exploits around the campfire, to the era of kings in castles listening to the storyteller at the royal feast, to the time of TV dinners, stories and eating have been close companions. So it is not unusual that folk stories are often about food: Jack's milk cow traded for beans, Snow White given a poisoned apple, Hansel and Gretel lured by the gingerbread house.

Exquisitely illustrated by Philippe Beha, Fairy Tale Feasts is more than collection of stories and recipes. In it, Caldecott-winning author Jane Yolen and her daughter, Heidi Stemple, imagine their readers as co-conspirators, cooks, and tellers of tales themselves.