I would be interested in knowing how you've developed curious palates in your children. Were they born this way, or do you have certain house rules that promote adventurous eating?First a disclaimer: I'm not an expert in the area of feeding children. I doubt my children eat any better than most other children and I probably let them have more junk food at times than a lot of people would.
For our family, eating preferences have really been all about exposure to lots of different foods -- both at home and when we eat out at restaurants. I always figured that if Indian children eat Indian food and Thai children eat Thai food, my children are more likely to enjoy those foods if we feed them to them from the beginning and continue to eat them regularly.
My kids aren't much different than other kids in their tastes though really. They aren't wolfing down super spicy foods and they'd love having French fries once a day if I let them. My son's favorite dish at the Thai restaurant is noodle based. Their favorite Indian "food" is a mango lassi, not a curry. Their tastes are only as adventurous as their parents and perhaps not as adventurous as their father's -- you wouldn't find either the children or me eating sushi or raw oysters for instance, even though Justin will eat both and even though the kids do eat fish fairly regularly.
I do try to make lots of different things (both in terms of different kinds of foods and from lots of ethnic backgrounds) and when we eat out at a restaurant it is often Greek, Thai, Indian or something else along those lines. This is not to say we never hit Sonic for a burger. Everything, both ethnic foods and fast food come in moderation.
I usually make the kids try a bite of whatever we are eating -- and there are lots of things that the parents really liked that never get made a second time, because they are so strongly disliked by the kids. I'll even do something I said I would never do -- I will at times make food for the kids that is different from what I make for myself. At those times though, and they aren't common, the kid's food is related to what the grownups are eating and easy to make. For instance, since my children don't like fajitas, I'll make them a quesadilla, but I might make them try a bite of the chicken and bell peppers I used in the fajitas.
Sometimes my childern utterly surprise me though. For instance, the bigger kids both like spanikopita and stuffed grape leaves a lot, which I never would have guessed. And my husband and I were a bit surprised when we went to a tiny Ethiopian restaurant and the kids couldn't eat the injera bread fast enough and insisted on taking every scrap of it home with us.
I figure no matter how much they are exposed to it, some kids will never like certain foods -- be it broccoli or tuna fish or peanut butter, etc. There are things I hate eating -- peanut butter, sweet potatoes and cantalope being on the list. I never, ever tell them that those or any other foods are gross though and I try never to suggest that something is too spicy, too mature, etc. for them. Two of my children will eat every black olive in sight, while one would consider it contaminating to be in the same room with a black olive. But along the Green Eggs and Ham principle, they'll never know for sure what they like if they don't get a chance to try things out and the more things they try out when they're little, the more things seem to stick later on, in my, so far, limited experience.
If the kids don't like something, that doesn't mean they won't see it again and have to taste it again later, though I take their current food favorites into account when coming up with meals. Tastes come and go. The boy who requested nothing but "hot, cooked egg" for breakfast when he was two won't eat an egg now unless it is drenched in cheese and inserted between two slices of toasted English muffin now. Sometimes the Middle Girl would rather eat nothing at all than ingest the food on her plate. When they hate something totally yummy and wonderful, in the end, we tell them not to worry, that their mouths probably haven't grown up enough to enjoy the food and that they can check again when they are bigger.
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