It's not as horrible as you might imagine, according to Alice Waters' daughter, Fanny. She doesn't even pine for McDonald's french fries! (Is that really so hard for people to imagine?) Greta surprised me the other day by digging right into what we call egg and bacon pizza, or pizza with pancetta and an egg cooked in the middle.
Exotic? Perhaps.
I didn't expect Greta to try it. But she dips toast in her egg and s
he likes pizza, so I guess it was an easy bridge for her to cross.I remember reading a story about Fanny's first day at school. She reported to her mom that they served "sorbet, but they called it sherbet!"
Funny that Chez Panisse Desserts (written by Lindsey Shere, not Alice Waters) calls all the sorbets, like the raspberry one we made, sherbet.
Below is a video of an interview with Fanny and her mom. I love how Alice Waters always put a real cloth napkin in Fanny's lunchbox. I'm thinking I'd lose a lot of napkins this way.
or this 
11 comments:
My kids have grown up with very very little junk, and they pine for expensive take out.
And ice cream, always ice cream. But the oldest, who had the least junk the longest, will not eat bad ice cream or bad chocolate, so there has to be something to it.
Your kids can use cloth napkins at home. Or they can sit by Carla : )
Just watched the interview, and it makes me crazy. Why do we treat children like mental defectives around food? Feed them crap, and expect them to have real palates? Why not just feed them food? Ugh ugh ugh. I just want to toss julienned carrots at the interviewer.
Stomps off thanking the powers that be that I don't watch TV either. . .
I really like how you've used something from the real world as evidence for the subject of your blog. Dumbing kids down with food is like talking down to them, don't you think? Is feta cheese that exotic? Why would anyone crave wax birthday candles, otherwise known as Mick Dick's fries.
Ha! I know--my kids would never even consider Mickey D french fries. When it's fried potato takeout they're jonesing for it's Gregoire's potato puffs.
http://www.gregoirerestaurant.com
As for TV news...(cracking up at the julienned carrots)..fast food for the brain, eh?
I should say that my kids do have plenty of sweets, and Ev has the occasional In N Out burger (Clem and Greta won't eat them).
I try not to vilify any kind of food, but I do scoff at the idea that kids will automatically prefer highly processed food to fresh and minimally processed food.
Oh, and while I don't watch TV...I do manage to find plenty of things on the internet to waste brain cells on.
Boy there sure are a lot of comments on this post! Oh, wait, they're almost all mine. :)
Did you ever read Ruth Reichl, the editor of Gourmet, on her son who would only eat white food? Eventually an old, wise sushi chef helped steer the kid to some sushi choices that were delicious, and still all white. I think of this every time Poppy has a dinner of potato, bread, and bananas. Rebellion comes in many forms.
I see have fallen prey to that cloudy vision of parents of older children. Now that Ev is 10 and eats almost anything it all seems so easy! And yet I was at my wits' end in October with dinner. I lavished my time on it and the kids hated it. I wanted to take my plate to another room and eat by myself.
My experience with the project of this blog--letting the kids choose the menu, choose the food at the store, and choose what they wanted to eat of what they had made, and the perspective of having an older kid who has learned to like most things has made me believe that one day they will eat everything even if they don't eat what they choose to make (as in the onion panade and trout salad). And even when last night at a restaurant Greta ate only...mini beignets with strawberry, lemon and chocolate sauce.
I should have put a smiley face in my comment to show that I think the Ruth Riechl parable is pretty darn funny. I love to see what your kids are trying -- it gives me hope! Hey I have a post request. Maybe you could post sometime about the nitty gritty of how you organize your kitchen projects. How many times a week to you expect to cook with the kids? (Or is it just serendipitous?) Do you have to shop every day? Do you have to go out of your way for specialty stuff like trout? I think you're right that it helps to have at least ONE kid who is likely to eat what comes out. :)
Your girls are so lucky! They may grow up to be to food what the Polgar sisters are to chess.
Ok If someone can put real napkins in their daughter's lunch box I can do that at home. Nancy Martin and others in my family already do it. Here goes!
Post a Comment