I Am Raising Two Future Foodies

After putting my toddler to bed couple of nights ago, I went and snuggled with my older daughter for a bit.  We don't do this every night but I like to sneak little moments with each child alone so that we can have real conversations.  Like this one.

"Mommy, when I grow up I want to travel all over the world and try their foods.  I want to go to Canada, and Austria, oh, and France! (grabs my face with both her hands and looks in my eyes) Mommy, I am definitely going to go to Poland so I can try every single one of their foods.  (turns head back toward the ceiling) And Russia would be fun!  Maybe China, too.  Wouldn't that be fun?"


I kissed her cheek and told her that it sounded like a lot of fun.

She giggled and said "But I'm not eating Sea Cucumber.  That's the poopy hole of the ocean."  Thank you, Andrew Zimmern.



Some tips for raising adventurous eaters:

1.  Start while you are pregnant.  According to a new study (one of many on this subject), babies start tasting the foods their mother eats while still in the womb.

2.  If at all possible, breastfeed.  And eat a varied diet with lots of fresh vegetables, spices and flavorful healthy foods.  Just because you don't like a food doesn't mean you can't eat a bit of it once in a great while to expose baby to it.  Baby can taste what you eat in your breast milk, after all.

3.  Don't forget the spices.  When introducing baby to solids, remember that spices can be used to give vegetables and fruits a more complex flavor once it is safe to do so.

4.  Keep exposing baby to new foods throughout their life.  Taste buds keep changing as children grow.  We have a rule in our house, you have to take two bites of every new food.  If you don't like it after, you don't have to eat it, but you do have to try it.

5.  Give your child more credit.  They might love more foods than you realize.  Or more foods than you like. 

6.  Never say in front of a child that you don't like a food.  Never.  This was our problem with our first daughter since my husband a couple of times made comments about not liking vegetables and so did a few other friends and family.  Those couple of small meaningless comments led to a battle for over a year where my older daughter did not want to eat any vegetables and of course became constipated and more irritable.

7.  Travel with your child.  It doesn't matter where to.  To another town, another country.  And don't allow them to eat their "comfort foods" while there.  I told my older daughter there were no french fries or macaroni and cheese in Poland while we were there.  She ate other foods and loved it.  The same when we have traveled to West Virginia, Delaware, Georgia, and even moved to Illinois from Maryland. 


8.  Take a cultural theme and build a meal around it.  We have had Swiss, South African, Tunisian, Russian, Mexican, British tea parties, and other themed dinners.  While eating the foods from these countries, we talk about the country and it's culture.  You can make this more fun by making a culinary "passport" which your child can put a stamp in for each country you "visit" together.


9.  Try a restaurant that is outside your norm.  Check out a local Indian restaurant, a Peruvian restaurant or even an authentic Italian restaurant and order something that you don't normally think of when you think of Italian food.


10.  Have a "cultural" potluck with other families and assign each person a different country or ingredient.


11.  To me, this is the biggest tip to remember.  Show your children where their foods come from.  Go to a farm weekly if possible and learn firsthand where foods come from, perhaps even have them pick their own foods.  Go to local food distributor plants or manufacturers and tour their plant, if possible.  Think dairy farms, ice cream manufacturers, candy factories, bakeries, local butchers, a plant where pickles and other canned foods are made, etc.


12.  Let your children help you cook.  They will be much more likely to eat muffins made with raisins, ground flax seed, and applesauce if they can stir the ingredients together.  Or eat a salad if they helped tear up the leaves.


13.  Put on cooking and travel shows.  Your children might not watch it, but they might glance over and see it or hear it.  Ask me how my daughter knows about people eating Sea Cucumber and Andrew Zimmern (see above).


14.  Don't become a shortorder cook.  If your child won't eat it, you don't have to make them something else.  If they are growing fine and the pediatrician has no concerns about them being underfed, you can leave the plate on the table and offer it again when they say they are hungry later.  My older daughter doesn't eat as much sauerkraut as she would "noodles" (fried cabbage) but I won't make her something else for dinner when I serve sauerkraut.


15.  Keep trying.  If my mother had not kept trying, I would not love half the foods I love.



Nie od razu Kraków zbudowano (Krakow wasn't built all at once).  The same goes for raising a child to be an adventurous eater. 

Na razie...


This article is now syndicated on BlogHer!

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Polish Strawberry Bread or Chlebek Truskawkowy

I love picking strawberries.  As long as I remember, my mother, brother,and I would go to a local farm and pick strawberries for hours.  We would go home and she would make strawberry compote, jams, breads, and all sorts of other delicious treats with the strawberries we would pick.

My children from only a few months of age would sit in strawberries fields with Mama as I would pick the ruby red jewels from between dusty green leaves, rinse them with a bottle of water I would bring and give them to my children to eat.  The berries would still be warm and sweet from the sun and we would always leave the fields with my children's faces painted red and smiling, sleepy from the sun.

We recently went berry picking for our first time here in the Midwest and I baked a favorite.  Chlebek Truskawkowy or Polish Strawberry Bread.

I baked two loaves and 20 muffins with this recipe (all 20 muffins disappeared in a day and a half).

They can be eaten plain, or with strawberry jam, butter, cream cheese, or my personal favorite, sour cream with a sprinkle of sugar on top.



Ingredients:

1 cup Butter
1 1/2 cups Sugar
5 Eggs
4 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Cinnamon, if you like (Vanilla Extract, Lemon Zest or even a berry Brandy or Rum could be also used for flavor)
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 cup Sour Cream
3/4 cup Walnuts, chopped (traditionally, this bread is made with hazelnuts or walnuts or plain)
1 pound of Strawberries, washed, trimmed of their caps


Preheat oven 350 degrees.  Grease and lightly dust with flour two bread pans and muffin tray (or use cupcake liners for muffin tray instead).

Place walnuts in a dry frying pan and roast on the stove for a few minutes to bring out their flavor.

Cream the butter in a mixer.  Add sugar and cream more.  Add eggs, one at a time until well combined.

In a large bowl, combine thoroughly flour, cinnamon (if using a wet flavoring, add into the butter mixture instead), salt, baking powder, baking soda.

Add the flour to the butter mixture, a bit at a time to avoid making a floury mess across your kitchen.

Add sour cream.

The strawberries can either be added gently whole or, can be mashed with a couple of tablespoons of sugar and then added gently in. 

Add the walnuts in gently.

Pour batter into pans and bake for approximately an hour.  Cool on wire rack.

Smacznego!