A few days ago I added a maybe somewhat headlong comment to one of Deb's last posts. In short I claimed that, as a parent with a small child, you're often better off ignoring the advice a lot of people give. I must admit that's probably way too harsh, and I'm sorry if I offended someone with my opinion. What's right for me might be wrong for someone else (exactly one of the reasons for my opinion on the matter, logic eh?). But this got me thinking: why do I have such a black/white opinion on this matter? It has probably a lot to do with my being an Italian in Germany. When you have your first child you're inevitably on the insecure side: everything is new. Relatives friends and even strangers feel they should advise you: most of the time with good intentions but sometimes just to be annoying. That in itself can sometimes make you even more insecure. But when the advices come from both Italian AND German child rearing mentality you just get mad. These two go together like water and oil. And that makes ME probably quite intolerant on the subject. Maybe now I start to see a way to "emulsify" ;-) the two. I can't avoid being a bit more partial to the Italian way, at least in some respects. Still the way Germans rise their children has many positive sides. Except one: what really annoys me is the food/eating tips you get here.
Doctors and nurses here promote a healthy but quite boring "feeding plan": start with carrots for the first month on solids, then add one new item every month. The bottom line is: children don't need variety, they eat what they get and that's it. And above all: no spices, garlic or onions please! I must admit we started following this plan too, but I'm happy to say Saami completely tore it to pieces. After one week on carrots he started eating less and less till we started giving him something else. From there on we kept the usual safety rules that one usually observes for children (like no cow milk and bread before they're one, to reduce allergy risks) but introduced all the ingredients we thought would not harm him. And we started finding out what Saami likes: after all we have food preferences, why shouldn't children? Now we know he loves sour foods, especially yogurt and pickled baby cucumbers, eggs, pasta and mushrooms. His ideal dish: scrambled eggs (eggs and yogurt mixed together) with mushrooms, maybe with a side of boiled or mashed potatoes. It disappears in less than five minutes.
That doesn't mean he doesn't eat in a varied way. Luckily for us Saami found our cooking always interesting so he always wants to see what we are doing in those pots and possibly have a taste. I have the feeling this curiosity has widened the choice of foods he eats quite a lot. Since he's old enough now we usually let him taste everything we cook and sometimes that brings to nice discoveries concerning his tastes. After giving him a tiny taste of the green curry I wrote about we discovered he really likes spicy food, although I'm not sure a 1 1/2 old kid should eat that spicy :-). Actually that makes me curious: how do children eat in other parts of the world? Are there rules, prohibited foods and such? This brings me to another question in connection to the opening pic: how are children in your part of the world educated to table manners? And most of all (for the Asians between you) when do you learn to use chopsticks? Saami saw us eating with them and wanted to have a try himself.. as you can see it didn't exactly work, unless you count food-stabbing as a proper way to eat with chopsticks :-)!
BTW if you're wondering why Saami's face is scratched let's just say that hiding into a fence shrub, especially if you're less than 1 meter high, is not a good idea :-)
Way to go! After a month of complete rejection of all foods mushy and flavorless, we started feeding our child what we eat. She now eats like a champ and is actually becoming adventurous. She, like her parents, is NOT an Atkins' eater. She loves starch. We don't eat enough veggies but since we're ALL eating together, we've actually started eating more veggies for oursake.
Posted by: dave | March 05, 2004 at 07:52 PM
alberto, this is spooky (again...)
i just went back to the computer after a few days and decided to read a few blogs i like before writing my post on - guess what - baby food!
the undercurrents of food blogging ;-)
ciao
Posted by: carlo | March 06, 2004 at 05:38 PM
As you may know, this topic is very interesting to me in light of my just having a baby. One of the things I was making myself crazy over while I was pregnant were food labels, especially in food marketed towards babies and children. The amount of salt, sugar and preservatives and chemicals is apalling. I decided that Ellie would eat what we eat when the time came for her to eat solids. We'd take the precautionary steps of not introducing certain foods until immunity to certain allergies built up but I'd much rather do it my way than be told to give her something I don't think is good for her.
As for chopsticks, my husband is Asian and so I've already informed him that the task of teaching Ellie how to use them falls on him. ;o)
Posted by: Deb | March 07, 2004 at 03:54 AM
Dave: nice to know there are others sharing a similar experience. We can't give Saami what we eat because he's still a little "underprivileged in the teeth dept." :-), but we're looking forward to it. He sure is attracted by what's on our plate.
Carlo: :-), le coincidenze della vita? Interesting post, and good luck with the upcoming fight against "baked beans and co."
Deb: It's interesting to read your comment because it depicts almost an opposite situation as mine. In Germany baby food has to comply to really strict "standards", almost no preservative and no trace of chemicals, especially if labelled Bio i.e. ecological. Sugar can be a problem though. Still the commercial baby-food is/tastes terrible. Good luck with Ellie when she'll starts on solids. It can be frustrating at first (we had to paint our kitchen again ;-)) but it's only a matter of time till the "little monsters" start to behave :-).
Posted by: Alberto | March 07, 2004 at 11:14 PM
My oldest friend married a Chinese man and has lived in Taiwan for almost 20 years -- her kids learned to use chopsticks just like Saami is in the photo -- by goofing off with them, by watching their parents, and with a little help eventually. I have wonderful memories of feeding Anya noodles with chopsticks -- she's open her little mouth just like a bird and wait for one of us big people to feed her some noodles.
Posted by: Charlotte | March 08, 2004 at 12:22 AM
hi alberto,
another late comment to a previous post... I do apologize... sometimes I just can't seem to fit all the blog reading into each day!
I think almost all Chinese babies are started on rice porridge/congee at a pretty young age... some as early as 3-4 mths?
the porridge is really cooked down to almost a liquid. and this forms the basis for introduction to all other foods, with no or little risk of allergy. vegetables like carrots etc are cooked in the porridge and mashed into the gruel... then later, fish, chicken, pork or eggs are added to the porridge and so on... next step would be very soft steamed fish or chicken with porridge... it makes for nice variation in tastes and nutrition... then it's just a natural progression to eating whatever the adults are eating, with chopsticks or not, depending on family environment.
and before we know it, they are happily eating up noodles and even spicy food.
very few Chinese babies eat ready-prepared (i.e. store bought) baby food... or at least I don't of any : ), so I actually don't know what these taste like.
Posted by: Renee | March 08, 2004 at 06:30 AM
Charlotte and Renee: thank you for the interesting info. I always wondered about the chopsticks, now I know.
Renee, regarding the babyfood... you're not missing anything ;-))
Posted by: Alberto | March 08, 2004 at 03:53 PM