The Autism-Friendly Cookbook

Product Information

Steve Silberman, author, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity A delightful guide full of important information for neurodivergent foodies - we've needed this for years! The result was a tasty, wholesome, and comforting meal, with a warm smoky taste from the chorizo and paprika. The Autism Friendly Cookbook will be out on November 21st this year and the team at Perfectly Autistic has a recipe in it too. In the end, I had to go all the way to a tribunal, which rounded off an extraordinarily stressful 16 months. Many autistic people spoke or wrote to me about how they did not learn how to cook or prepare food because lessons were not accessible.

The world would be a very boring place if we were all the same, with no difference, no creativity, no originality. Once you go through the first two stages, you’re left having to go to a tribunal to prove you should have been granted your claim - and most denials are overturned at this point.The latter half of the book will include recipes divided by breakfast, lunch, dinner and miscellaneous – categorised by social occasion and energy level. So I approached Lydia’s book hoping not only to discover some tasty food, but also hoping to learn more about my autistic self. I had always found this activity immensely difficult, but no one had ever suggested that being autistic may have had any kind of connection. Other authors could learn from this about how to make their own books more accessible to autistic and neurodivergent cooks.

A conversation about this needs to start, desperately, especially given we now grapple at the coalface with the cost of living crisis. Resources are lacking for putting together information on sensory issues and how to adapt, or even just the physical adaptations you can make in the kitchen, such as when it comes to using weighted cutlery. This sets the tone for section one of the book, which is arguably more important than the recipe section (and probably could have been a book of its own). I have also added a skills ‘band’ – so if you struggle, say, with timing, then you have more agency in tailoring your food to you. Neurodiversity, with its unique perspective on problem-solving and pattern recognition, becomes a catalyst for innovation.Everyone who saw the cookbook at the Special Olympics qualifier said it is perfect not only for their challenged adult child, but also for their children going off to university or college who aren’t very experienced in the kitchen.