Ratat - oeeewie!

My kids are not big fans of vegetables. I’m sure your kids are. Everyone else’s kids seem to be. I have friends whose children will eat grilled asparagus, roasted beet soup and sautéed kale. Please! The only way I can get my kids to eat kale is in Veggie Booty – and I don’t think that powdered-kale-covered-crunchy-corn-puffs count as a vegetable, exactly.

The pediatrician says don’t worry. If they eat broccoli and carrots they will be just fine. Well, my kids will eat carrots, raw only, and broccoli – with lots of butter and salt added. I hope that still counts. Apparently if a nutritionist were going to pick two vegetables to eat these two would be the winners.

But my husband and I eat all of our vegetables. We are stellar examples of vegetable lovers. My husband loves salad and has one every night with dinner. All summer long I’m cooking and serving and eating with gusto all the interesting and tasty vegetables that I get from my share at my local CSA.

My children do eat a lot of foods that some people might find exotic. They love burritos, for example. Chinese food is a favorite as well. I can even take them –willingly and without bribery of any kind – to Dim Sum in Chinatown and there are some adults that won’t go there with me. That is what is so infuriating. I know they would like them if they only would give them a real try. But they won’t. And I can’t make them. Believe me, I’ve tried.

When I was a kid I ate everything. Really I did. You can ask my mother. But I didn’t like zucchini. I don’t know why, but somehow I just set my mind against it and I would not eat it. No amount of cajoling, no rational talking to, nothing would sway me. I didn’t like zucchini. I kept it up too. Well into my 30s I still thought “I don’t like zucchini” Then one day I brought one home from the farm, sliced it very thin and sautéed it in olive oil with sea salt. It was so delicious. I was as amazed as anyone. How could I suddenly find a deep and abiding affection for a vegetable I’d detested my entire life?

For one thing – because I knew that I didn’t like it I had never tried it again as an adult. I had only my childhood experience to go by and it simply did not occur to me that I might feel differently about something if I tried it again as an adult.

I guess this explains why experts tell you not to make a big deal about eating or not eating a specific food. Either they will try it or they won’t and if I don’t make a big deal out of it there might be more chance of their trying it with an open mind before they turn 33.

So for now it is lots of carrot sticks and buttered broccoli, but I do believe that someday my children will be digging in to my homemade ratatouille alongside my roasted turnip and my green salad.