My youngest son just messaged to tell me his mate was cooking for someone tonight. They are making a stew but with potatoes cooked on the side because their friend doesn't eat stew with potatoes. Jamal was spluttering in disbelief.
In our house you eat what you are given. Its a point of pride that you eat what you are given, no matter what, unless its actually going to make you hurl. And as an interesting social experiment I think I can say this has been a success.
Both my kids are slender but muscular. They never overeat. They have favourite meals but they always say thank you for their dinner even if its their least favourite food. They will eat anything except bananas (youngest) & cooked cheese (eldest) as those things to genuinely make them a bit pukey. I like that once a year they try their most hated food to see if they have managed to make a break though in the year.
We dont waste food. We appreciate it.
Final story. We were once in Greece when the kids were pretty small, maybe 8 and 10. We were served with a whole fish (huge, oven baked) and boiled sheeps head. They never batted an eyelid. Someones made the effort to make you food then the least you can do is eat it. I am still proud about it now. It still makes me smile when I think about it.
I guess they will be just right for one of those dreadful reality TV shows
I live on cooked cheese. I had a brother in law who didn't like cooked cheese and my sister didn't like pizza sauce. I don't know how they ordered pizza. Once, when I was a student, we were sent to stay with families in Slovakia. They told us to eat everything we were given. They gave me a large glass of buttermilk. I just couldn't drink it. Chunky milk...bleh.
ReplyDeleteBleh indeed. That would be a hard one for me to keep down as well.
ReplyDeleteAhdel loves cooked cheese but it really doesnt love him. Cheap pizza where they scrimp with the cheese is best of all!
Reminds me of when we were on holiday in Portugal and had a meal out. My daughter (aged about 6 years old) ordered the fish, the waitress, very concerned, managed to make us understand that it wasn't in bread crumbs or batter. My daughter still wanted the fish so we ordered it. It was huge but my daughter ate every last scrap.
ReplyDeleteThe waitress came out absolutely beaming and offered us free desserts all round.
It turns out all the staff had had a bet on whether my daughter would eat the fish and another when she did start eating it on whether she would finish it.
None of the staff had thought that an English child would eat fish never mind eat it all, so the waitress won both sweepstakes-- enough money to treat us to ice creams and enough money left over for her to still be beaming from ear to ear.
We did try to refuse the ice cream as it was her money, but she was adamant.
All the staff came out to say goodbye at the end of our meal, smiling and waving.