Books, Arts & Manners: Julian, At Least Taste That Carrot, Please

I hear my voice saying those loaded words more often than I care to remember when my children were young. I can still hear my agonized tones, lacking, however, in conviction, since I knew Julian would not taste that carrot unless it was shoved down his throat—difficult with a strong young boy, not to mention unseemly. There was no way of making Julian eat carrots or any other vegetable, with the exception of corn and, later, perhaps an asparagus tip or two. However, he did eat a lot of fruit, so that he was never sick with whatever sickness comes from a lack of carrots and other vegetables, the fruit compensating for this general aversion. The lessons I learned from this were that there is no moral or spiritual stigma attached to not liking carrots, and that there are compensations for everything.

I also learned that children, even very small ones, have definite food tastes just like grownups. Also, that even the noblest examples of their elders in eating (as in other matters) do not inspire them to emulation. The fact that I would rather eat carrots than his beloved canned ravioli did not influence Julian in the least. (He got over the canned ravioli, but did not take to vegetables instead.) However, during two very expensive camp summers in the Adirondacks (you could reach the camp only by speedboat or seaplane) he did learn to like the aforementioned corn and also cherry pie. The asparagus tips, as far as I cared to inquire about them, came when he started dating. Yet Julian cares quite a lot for nice food, even French and Thai food, whereas his brother only likes very plain, simple things. (He is the one who would keep one pea in his mouth for hours, rolling it from cheek to cheek. But he does like peas, even when he has to cook them for himself—frozen ones for simplicity’s sake—since he does not go in for women who cook.) Considering that I, their mother, have written books about very different cuisines, and that all the recipes in these books, hundreds of them, were tested by me and consumed in the home, I cannot help coming to the conclusion mentioned above—namely, that children do not necessarily take their food leads from their elders.

NH

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Nika Hazelton

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I hear my voice saying those loaded words more often than I care to remember when my children were young. I can still hear my agonized tones, lacking, however, in conviction, since I knew Julian would not taste that carrot unless it was shoved down his throat—difficult with a strong young boy, not to mention unseemly. There was no way of making Julian eat carrots or any other vegetable, with the exception of corn and, later, perhaps an asparagus tip or two. However, he did eat a lot of fruit, so that he was never sick with whatever sickness comes from a lack of carrots and other vegetables, the fruit compensating for this general aversion. The lessons I learned from this were that there is no moral or spiritual stigma attached to not liking carrots, and that there are compensations for everything.

I also learned that children, even very small ones, have definite food tastes just like grownups. Also, that even the noblest examples of their elders in eating (as in other matters) do not inspire them to emulation. The fact that I would rather eat carrots than his beloved canned ravioli did not influence Julian in the least. (He got over the canned ravioli, but did not take to vegetables instead.) However, during two very expensive camp summers in the Adirondacks (you could reach the camp only by speedboat or seaplane) he did learn to like the aforementioned corn and also cherry pie. The asparagus tips, as far as I cared to inquire about them, came when he started dating. Yet Julian cares quite a lot for nice food, even French and Thai food, whereas his brother only likes very plain, simple things. (He is the one who would keep one pea in his mouth for hours, rolling it from cheek to cheek. But he does like peas, even when he has to cook them for himself—frozen ones for simplicity’s sake—since he does not go in for women who cook.) Considering that I, their mother, have written books about very different cuisines, and that all the recipes in these books, hundreds of them, were tested by me and consumed in the home, I cannot help coming to the conclusion mentioned above—namely, that children do not necessarily take their food leads from their elders.