June 2, 2007...9:37 am
Cutting off fingers
Jake and the yakitori. He picked this photo “because of the eyes.”
The first time my kids ordered chicken fingers at a restaurant, I was relieved. I wouldn’t have to badger my smaller two to eat dinner, while my wife and I enjoyed the restaurant’s real food.
By the 10th time my kids ordered chicken fingers, I was starting to have some doubts. Certainly I appreciated enjoying my dinner in peace, instead of lobbying my picky offspring on a bite-by-bite basis. But were we really teaching them to hold out at home?
As with many parenting questions, how to get your children to eat a decent diet doesn’t submit to simple answers. But here’s a New York Times article on how some parents and restaurants are working their way out of children’s menu ghetto.
For all the fretfulness I’m obligated to express over the health implications of this pandemic — chicken fingers are often fried, and are often accompanied by fries — I’m much more rankled by its palate-deadening potential. Far from being an advance, I’ve concluded, the standard children’s menu is regressive, encouraging children (and their misguided parents) to believe that there is a rigidly delineated “kids’ cuisine” that exists entirely apart from grown-up cuisine.
The author, David Kamp, goes on to explore a few examples of restaurants and food corporations that are stretching the envelope a bit.
And here’s one family’s list of rules for keeping dinnertime sane at their house. We personally have tried many regulatory frameworks, and haven’t kept many besides “You have to try some of everything” and “Clean your plate or no dessert, if there is dessert.”
Your little darlings may cheerfuly ingest all you place before them, from brussels sprouts to sushi. If that is the case, please go right ahead and keep that to yourself.
2 Comments
June 2, 2007 at 11:59 am
I never saw the point of kids cuisine. from the time they could burp, Maddy and Max were fed hot dogs, grapes … wait, I wasn’t upposed to say that, was I?
Seriously, I have fond memories of clamping their baby chairs to the table of the old Saigon Cafe on Bailey Ave, of Max chewing on the quail at the late lamented Vietnamese joint on Main Street and Maddy keeping me company at the area’s first sushi bar on NFB at 18 months.
Nicole and I have always thought that if we feed them what we’re eating, they won’t get crazy. It must’ve worked to some degree - Maddy’s in cooking school. But Max still won’t eat tomato sauce.
Go figure.
June 29, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Had the great experience of dinner with my kids (and Max’s girlfriend Jen) at Artisanal Bistro in NYC the other night. It was grand sharing fondue and a plate of artisan cheeses and charcutertie with such adventurous eaters. And the gougeres! I have wonderful kids.
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