If your child showed an interest, would you let them try new foods that you didn't like?
I took a salmon dip to Rick’s family reunion. I had it in a strawberry cream cheese container I reused. I’ve found that the family tends to shy away from a more formal presentation, like a nice bowl or something. They seem to prefer things that come out of crock pots and store bought. Out of the 60 people or so, Rick’s dad is the only one who has tried it, and he is gobbsmacked crazy about it. We send what’s left (which is always most of it) back with him every year.
Anyway, I was getting some and a young lady (who is a close family member) and her son, who was about 3, were opposite from me in the food line. Her son said he wanted to try some of what I was having.
Mom looked and said, “Ew Jacob! It’s peers at the container it’s strawberry cream cheese!”
I said, “No, it’s salmon dip.” Note to self, cover up any labeling in the future.
She wrinkled her nose and made a face and pulled the kid away.
Some kids like it, some kids don’t. 3 of my grandkids like it, including the 2 year old. He loves it.
Would you have let your child try it? No, he isn’t allergic to fish or dairy.
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I would be more than supportive. As long as something isn’t too bad for you, you should try as much as possible.
Discouraging exploration, in almost any form, is oppressive. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence. It should be encouraged…
IMO….
One of the worst mistakes in my life, was not trying crawfish sooner. I was intimidated by the appearance. Now, I could eat a thousand in a sitting. Extra,extra spicy please!
I would make it especially disgusting so that they are turned off of it for decades to come.
^^^ Go to my computer question Raggy!
Can you at least tell me what the picture of my most recent post is showing me?
Depends on where they get them and who pays. I would not want to pay for and prepare/fix these foods and then throw them out. They want to try them while at the neighbor’s or a friend’s, OK by me!
If you’re making something new, just make enough for yourself and let your kid try it if they want to. Nothing says you have to cook huge amounts of anything all the time. There were some foods that each of my kids didn’t care for, so when I cooked I would just cook enough for me, my husband and the two kids that liked whatever. Not hard to do at all.
Sounds like weird parenting.
Of course I’d let them try what food they want to. I might possibly share my own tastes or opinions/info about the ingredients.
In the case of salmon dip, I usually like those.
It is so good! A can of sock eye salmon, 8oz cream cheese, green onions, table spoon of smoke sauce and lemon juice and viola!
The Mom is a very picky eater. It’s pretty much McDonald’s chicken nuggets and French fries to this day, and she’s 21 or 22. Has 2 kids now.
I need to depart from your question and say that it’s very rude for anyone to make a face, say “ew!,” and race away from food you’d prepared. Salmon’s expensive, and you put time and effort into creating and sharing a dish. I don’t eat meat or fish, but I’d never insult anyone in that manner. If someone doesn’t like a certain food, that person should shut up yet be grateful for all you’d done.
Yeah, that family has a problem with rudeness. I once gave her mother a cut glass serving bowl with a silver rim for a wedding gift. She made a face when she opened it and set it aside without a word. It was one of my favorite pieces too. We didn’t have the money for a new present so I gave her something from my collection.
Later she told me that one of the kids dropped it and broke it. I have a hard time believing that thick glass could break dropped from a kid’s height. I figure she threw it away or something.
I let my grand kids try anything they want, I always say if you don’t try it, how do you know if you like it, or not? Was the same way with my own two back in the day.
If they want to try it why do you have to say ”if you don’t try it, how do you know if you like it”
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t, but I try to encourage them to at least try new things. As opposed to, I want that, and then, well never mind, it looks yukky. Went thru that with my middle grand daughter and green peas, now she loves the things, shoves them down like it’s her last meal. LOL
My husband told the kids that peas were rabbit poop painted green! Guess who won’t eat peas to this day. LOL!!
@Dutchess_III Might have to pass them up myself, after reading that!
Right? I still like them, but I only eat them in unusual circumstances. There is a frozen dinner that has turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes and peas with a pearl onion in them. That is SO good. I eat every last pea.
I’ve been thinking about the “How do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it,” line. I remember my Mom pulling that on me a few times. The brain is a funny thing. If you have it set to believe you won’t like it, then being nagged into trying it will do no good. You may try it, but since you already “know” you won’t like it, you don’t like it, and that’s the end of that.
In my experience when the choice is the child’s, and the child’s alone, with no coherence and nagging, they are far more likely to decide whether they actually like, or don’t like something based on how it really tastes, or the texture.
Also, them being super, duper hungry when introduced to new foods is more likely to have a positive outcome. That’s how my middle child finally decided she like cottage cheese when she was about 18 months old. SMH. I was floored! OMG, she tried something new and she liked it!!!!
You got that line back in the day? With us, it was always “Its a sin to waste food, there are people starving in the world”. While I had empathy for starving people, I hated and I still hate navy beans.
LOL! We got the “starving kids in Africa” line too, until the day my little sister snapped, “Well box this up and send it to them then because I don’t want it!” Well, that made perfect sense, didn’t it! Don’t cook any for her and send the money you saved to Africa. They never said it again.
But, for the most part, they didn’t bug us to eat whatever. Except that God awful corned beef in cheese sauce poured over toast. They called it SOS. That shit almost literally made me sick. When I was about 12 I guess my dad thought it would be helpful to tell me what SOS stood for.
When he told me I just glared at him shocked, and he laughed. THAT DID NOT HELP! I literally would go hungry (but just until breakfast the next day) rather than eat that shit.
I remember my dad telling me about eating SOS in Europe during the war. But compared to their C Rations, he said it was fairly decent. LOL
That’s where Dad’s love of it came in, from the navy.
In elementary our school served a hamburger version of it. I don’t remember if we were given toast or something, but OMG it was SO good. I just ate it with a spoon, and took other kid’s if they didn’t want it. (Ah, the good old days. Giving food to another kid was better than throwing it out, right?) I have tried and tried nad tried to duplicate it, but I just have had no luck.
Yeah. just like the school rolls, best I ever had.
All the food we ate in school would probably be illegal now.
Oh man. There was this one tiny school in a tiny town about 20 miles from here where I used to sub often. Sometimes you walk through the doors in the morning and the air would be filled with the heavenly smell of home made, freshly baked cinnamon rolls! That meant we had cinnamon rolls and chili for lunch. The chili was probably home made too.
Get that job back! Why would you ever leave a feeder like that?
It was a temporary position. The lady is still around making cinnamon rolls. It was the smell that leveled me. I was always hungry because never ate breakfast so that smell was just WHAM!! The cinnamon roll itself….I can walk away. Unless it’s still hot. Which they weren’t by lunch time.
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I would always encourage a child to try something. I tell my dau ghter just take one bite and if you don’t like it, you never have to eat it again. She often will still not try the food, but I encourage her because you never know.
I also agree with what’s been said above, that it’s very rude for a child to make faces at food or say they don’t like it, to the host.
I remember a few years ago one of my good friends invited me and some of her family to dinner at her house. She made a chocolate cake for dessert. Her father was a chef and a professional baker, and she baked like a professional, too. The cake looked and tasted beautiful. When she passed out the cake to everyone, one of the teen boys that was there told her he didn’t like chocolate cake. I remember thinking that nobody ever taught him you don’t say that to the host. Unless it’s something really repulsive, or you’re allergic to it, you take it and shut your mouth. Eat a few bites and say you’re full. She felt bad when he said it and she said if she had known, she wouldn’t have made a chocolate cake. Of course, very few things are going to be loved by everyone. To me, a guest should always be gracious – “thank you so much for inviting us. Everything was delicious.”
Well, the mind is a powerful thing. In my personal experience being told to try a bite, and then being pestered to try a bite, just made my certainty that I wouldn’t like it that much stronger. So when I DID take a bite I didn’t like it. I didn’t even really taste it. I was just upset at being bugged to take a bite of something I didn’t like.
If a kid passed up chocolate cake I wouldn’t feel the least bit bad. I wouldn’t care at all. I wouldn’t care if adults passed up my food. I would care if they made ugly comments about it, though.
One time we were eating at Rick’s daughter’s house. She made this one potato dish that I knew I didn’t like because she’d made it before, although generally speaking I like potatoes. IMO, it was really quite awful. But I guess everyone else liked it. To me it was just soggy and gooey.
I don’t think she even noticed that I passed. There were a lot of other foods to chose from and my plate was full…until Rick started bugging me to “try it! try it! It’s really good! Try it!” That, of course, brought the spotlight down on me and the fact that I didn’t want any, and it really pissed me off! I murmurered “No think you” at least twice and finally silenced him with with a glare.
My daughter, “Hey Mom why don’t we ever have watermelon?”
Me, “I don’t like it and I do the shopping”
I have to give them a reason to eventually leave my house lol
Well, just quit feedin’ them altogether @tranquilsea! That should do the trick!
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