Glue and snouts for dinner! Why being picky is not a lifetime sentence
My kids have never eaten baloney, cottage cheese, or plain Cheerios. They’ve never been subjected to rhubarb, which I’ve heard is so awful it must be engulfed in strawberries or the unfortunate gobbler may die of grossness. They’ve never known the earthy-oozy tastes of soy milk, bleu cheese, feta, tofu, or tapioca pudding.
Gosh, those are some picky kids!, you might think.
But I’m the person who doesn’t like any of the above. I never buy, prepare, or serve foods that have been on my ick-list for decades. Pickiness begets pickiness, so I’ve witnessed my prejudices become a part of my kids culinary sensibilities. Blame Me.
My family is known for having dark hair, blue eyes, and a certain panicked look on our faces when cottage cheese is near.
I’m not worried for my kids, though. They will be challenged by opportunities to eat new foods as they grow. I was. I found myself in the warm kitchen of a cook possessing dramatically different tastes while visiting my husband’s grandparents for the first time.
For breakfast one morning, I was served biscuits and gravy, a standard all-American hearty breakfast. I was 25 years old and had never eaten the combination of speckled glue and browned and crumbled pork snouts over bread. Please. My father thinks white gravy is vile, along with dumplings and all casseroles but tuna. The idea of putting chicken on pizza was so ludicrous to my dad when the trend began that I suspect he marked it as a sign of the fall of western civilization. Because of my dad’s strong food aversions, my mom didn’t bother cooking anything other than steak, potatoes, fried chicken, and German food.
My husband’s grandparents were wonderful and welcoming that June morning 13 years ago. I knew I was going to eat every last speck of my first platter of biscuits and gravy. I loved their grandson and I already loved them. I took a bite, for them.
One food aversion died that day. Now I make biscuits and gravy for dinner occasionally, especially on cold winter nights.
I won’t be sliding plates of feta-dotted anything or rhubrarb pie under anyone’s noses, though. There will be no after-dinner bowls of tapioca until I am six feet under or I I’m ashes scattered artfully in an Anthropologie.
Does this make me a bad mom? I don’t think so. There are plenty of experiences and objects I don’t bring into our home because they don’t reflect us as individuals or as consumers.
If a kid came home from a friend’s house raving about an amazing mystery food called tofu and asking if we could pick up a loaf or brick or conglomeration at the store, I’d say no. Tofu can be found elsewhere. I hear it grows in the gutters of Boulder, sometimes creeping up old brick buildings. Fun fact: You can tell down by which side of a rock tofu grows on.
As long as our meals are balanced, I won’t worry. Enjoying what’s on our plates is far more important than wishing something wasn’t there.
Love this post. Why? Because I am notoriously picky. Of course, I don’t really think of myself as picky because I only buy what I want at the store but in the end, cottage cheese and hot oatmeal will never be on my shopping list.
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I have to constantly remind myself that my children’s currently picky taste buds will continue to grow and develop well into adulthood. Heck, after a lifetime of hating them, I just started to like green onions within the last couple of months!
I think it’s perfectly fine not to serve stuff you don’t eat yourself. In our house, you won’t ever find a tomato or pickle on your hamburger and there’s no watermelon either.
On the other hand, there are plenty of things that I do eat that the children haven’t developed a taste for (and that includes tofu!), but maybe they will someday–either from being exposed to it at home or because a girl who has captured their hearts makes them feel it’s all worthwhile. I know this happened with my parents and with my husband and me, too.
LOL! Tofu grows in the gutters of Boulder! Tofu – blech! Who says you have to eat Tofu when there are so many other GOOD alternatives for protein, like meat?! I came from a meat and potatoes family, but also one where we had to finish everything on our plates or we couldn’t leave the table. Made for some long nights. But, it also helped me develop a wider appreciation of foods. I don’t have many foods on my “won’t touch” list besides shellfish. Funny, I married a Cajun who likes to slurp raw oysters and suck crawfish heads – Yuck! I’m happy to let my daughter develop a taste for shellfish and more so that she can enjoy all that life has to offer, but I won’t buy it or prepare it. If hubby wants to, fine with me! Because when I’m shopping it just doesn’t cross my mind to buy things I would never eat. I’m sure that’s true for us all.
I have always been picky, especially about green food, but I’m better than I used to be. I still don’t like broccoli, lima beans or cucumbers. But I will eat a salad now, provided it has been slathered with a good dressing, preferrably balsamic viniagrette.
But I LOVE feta cheese! I make a pizza that actually has chicken, bacon, tomatoes, feta, mozzerella and fresh basil that is to die for. You would love it, Gretchen! Even my super picky son, who thinks that hot dogs is its own food group, loves feta cheese. He’ll eat it right out of the tub.
So yeah, if there’s hope for a picky girl like me, there’s hope for anybody.
)
Gretchen, you make me laugh!
We really aren’t picky eaters here, and we have a wide variety of foods in our repertoire. That being said, you may starve if you ever come over for dinner!
All of the foods you listed are foods we love!
I was raised in a good ol’ meat’n’potatoes farm household where the only spices were salt, pepper, and whatever fancy stuff goes in homemade oatmeal cookies. All our veggies were fresh from the garden. I thought kids who didn’t like spinach were weird until I saw what it looks like out of a can.
It wasn’t until I went to college that I discovered all kinds of wonderful foods, and I’ve never looked back. Luckily, my husband and I love the same wide variety of foods.
We are really lucky with Claire (3 yr old). She loves most of the foods we do…even things you wouldn’t expect! (Szechuan Asparagus is one of her favorites!!) For a while, she would play this game where she would pretend to be picky about the food, but in reality, she just didn’t want to eat them FOR ME. For DADDY, she’d gobble them up as if they were going out of style. Little booger.
I don’t force her to eat something she doesn’t like, but she has to TRY IT first. We’ve talked about The Green Eggs & Ham book more times than I can count.
Great post!
I was just about to invite you over for tofu and tapioca. I guess I’d better think again…
Thanks for helping me find up!
I do enjoy some tofu (prepared correctly) and I think cottage cheese is an acquired taste. But baloney? GROSS. Blech, yuck, yech, no. Despised it as a child and will not allow it in my home.
I wouldn’t worry to much about the culinary tastes of your kiddos. My parents abhor avocados and I don’t think I ate my first one until I was in college. I cannot get enough of them now! I would eat them daily if they weren’t so expensive (and I’m thinking calories more than dollars here).
My mom and brother are uber-picky as well. Your kids may come out from under it…I sure did! I experienced all sorts of new things called “fruits” and “vegetables” in college, and now I include them in my family’s meals. I also got to try ethnic foods, from simple Mexican (yep, tacos were WAY out of my family’s realm) to more exotic Kurdish and Indian. And I like almost everything I try!
Now…you’ve made me hungry for some rhubarb crunch…