Welcoming Kids Into the Kitchen
Louisa adjusting the recipe flavors.
There was a very good article in today’s “Philadelphia Inquirer” on how to raise your kids not to be picky eaters. Tanya Wenman Steele, editor-in-chief at Epicurious.com shares her strategies for introducing children to a wide variety of tastes and flavors from the time they can eat solid food. That’s been my approach since my Annie and Louisa were little. Steele offered a few tips I wish that I had thought of such as asking little kids for their ideas on how to prepare ingredients, giving them a sense of inclusion in the meal and possibly avoiding power struggles over food.
A perfect example of how well this works was yesterday’s dinner. I prepared a recipe for a pasta salad that included prosciutto, fresh spinach, jalapeno stuffed green olives and feta cheese. I expected this dish to be filled with flavor, but when it was all mixed up, it tasted too flat. I asked Louisa to taste the dish and she agreed. She felt it needed lemon juice, which would have been a reasonable correction. Sadly, we didn’t have any lemons in the house. So instead she used some of the brine from the olive jar and adjusted it to her taste.
At this stage of the game we don’t have power struggles over food. In our case it’s just a matter of continuing the introduction of different ingredients. The real accomplishment in this case extends beyond one dinner. By including her in the process she learns to trust her own taste and to feel confident in the kitchen, a skill that will last a lifetime.
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4 Responses to “Welcoming Kids Into the Kitchen”
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If you continue to let her “participate,” we know what the result will be: More Meat!!
And I’m sure you won’t mind that, will you?
I think you could have spiced that dinner up with some capers. Actually, to me it sounds like a bit more salt could have done the trick.
You’re totally right. When I asked Louisa to adjust the seasoning for me, that’s what I intended, but didn’t say. Instead, she took it in a different (and equally good) direction with her suggestion.