Weekly Column: They Might Surprise You!

Man, do I hate mushrooms. Raw onions, too.


My childhood was spent, to a surprisingly large degree, avoiding those (and a few other) supposedly inedible bits of culinary terror. I was the very definition of ‘picky eater.’ And honestly, I didn’t expect much different out of my own children.

It seemed to me that children, by their very nature, are picky about food. I brought my own prejudices into my parenting and assumed I’d have constant battles on my hands over what they should and should not eat.

Imagine my surprise when I learned otherwise. I still remember the first day it dawned on me that my child was capable of trying – and liking – new, unusual flavors.

I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Piles of diced onions, bell peppers, celery, and carrots graced my countertop as I prepared to sauté them for a hearty pot of soup. Colorful bites of food surrounded me and I liked it that way – I’d outgrown some of my pickiness, finally appreciating the vast supply of flavors available in fresh produce.

But with a two-year-old darting around my ankles, I remembered that as much as I’d wish her to appreciate the same vegetables I did, it wasn’t likely to happen. She was too young to like the crispy bite of a cucumber or the sweet crunch of a bell pepper. I wasn’t sure if her tiny teeth could manage the work of pulverizing a raw carrot, much less navigate the bulbous broccoli on which I loved to snack. But then again, I’d never offered her the chance.

That day, she watched intently as I chopped away at a stack of green bell peppers. When I scooped them into a bowl, she reached up quickly, stealing a bite. My first instinct was to stop her; first of all, it wasn’t snack time (the horror!), and second of all, I didn’t want to clean up a pile of barely chewed pepper when she decided it was nasty (which she would inevitably do, I trusted) and spit it on the floor.

Somehow, mothering genius overcame controlling tendency, and I decided to see what would happen. I put an innocent smile on my face as she ate the pepper. She chewed with half of a scowl on her little brows, and half of a grin on her little lips; she’d gotten away with swiping a bite of something she probably wasn’t meant to have, and she knew it.

After swallowing – a feat I never expected her to achieve – she sweetly asked for more. Bewildered, I handed her a pile of peppers and watched her munch on them contentedly.

What had just happened? I wondered. That was a green pepper! And she LIKED IT!

Emboldened, I gave her a slice of carrot. A few stern chomps later, she’d swallowed the bite and asked for more.

Clearly, I’d been babying her. Of course her teeth were strong enough to handle a raw carrot. Of course she could try things I assumed she wouldn’t like. This was my hurdle to overcome, not hers.

Not always, anyway. As she’s grown, I’ve let my firstborn child try whatever she wants to – onions, olives, mushrooms, tomatoes – and she’s successfully formed her own fledgling opinions. Olives and pickles are a giant ‘NO THANK YOU.’ Lettuce and cucumbers are a sweet ‘Yes, please!’

Her tastes are different from my own. She definitely has her own areas of pickiness, but I try not to influence her preferences with mine.

Which means I avoid swatting it out of her hand when she attempts a bite of mushroom.


[Online version.]