“It’s nice having food in your tummy!” three-year-old Andy chirped happily, as he stuffed macaroni in his mouth. After a full day of school, errands, and grocery shopping, dinnertime descended as swiftly as nightfall. What was on the menu tonight? Sauteed prawns in butter sauce? Sirloin steak and grilled asparagus? Haha nope! Surprise, we were having chicken! Again! For the third night in a row! The only one complaining tonight was me. I would’ve killed for lasagna.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to spice things up. I’ve made dozens of different dishes, from pork to beef to fish. At this point, I’ve tried everything except kangaroo! Without fail, every variant has been met with derision and turned up noses. “I don’t like this,” six-year-old Molly said about my homemade meatballs, “it tastes like yucky garbage food.” How devastating. “I don’t want this,” Andy whined about the quiche (to be fair, I didn’t like that one either). There’s only so much abuse my confidence can take, and after a while I gave up on variety, and we’ve been eating chicken ever since. Chicken and mac and cheese, chicken and tater tots, chicken and shattered dreams. If broken ambition could feed people, my family would never go hungry!
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I was a picky kid back in the day. I liked what I liked, and nothing was going to change my mind. I’d ask my mom for “toast, unburnt, with the crusts cut off and butter on top.” My lovely mother would roll her eyes, then grudgingly oblige. I remember her pleading with me one dinner to try eating a single grain of rice! Thankfully, I grew out of my pickiness, and now I’ll eat anything (and I most often do!)
I guess all I can do with my kids is keep trying. There are millions of different recipes; they MUST like ONE of them, right? I can’t eat plain chicken every day! The world is full of fabulous tastes and smells; what a shame to limit yourself to a four-pack of chicken breasts. Molly and Andy need to experience flavor diversity; they’ve got the rest of their lives to decide their favorite meals. A more varied palette isn’t going to kill them; in fact, let’s start tonight….. I’m ordering pizza!
