Dear Counselor Chomp — How Do I Get My Kid to Eat Meat?
Dear Counselor Chomp,
How do 2 vegetarian women, who have been so since they can remember, and have no clue really even how to make a hamburger, successfully introduce their two-year old daughter to meat?
Our daughter has type O blood which typically does well with meat and while we don’t want to push it on her, we also don’t want to over-soy her, and we do want her to get enough protein.
We have tried chicken noodle soup, and we have tried chicken nuggets. We tried some turkey sausage that we microwaved and it came out looking like a piece of shoe leather.
Needless to say she wasn’t thrilled about that, or any of those—especially as mommy wasn’t tasting, though I tried my best to ooh and ahhh and say “yum!”
Anyway, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
— Trying to do the right thing in New Hampshire
Dear Veggie Mom,
Below are some observations I’ve made about my own two-year old and his approach to dining, not all of which pertain to meat eating, and they may or may not help you. But first, I think it bears mentioning that food is love is food, and if you don’t make something with love — and if you are a vegetarian you probably don’t love making meat because you feel like you are supposed to — it’s not gonna taste that great.
So perhaps the tips below are moot, and you should rely on a restaurant trip with friends or a visit from a loving and carnivorous friend or auntie who loves to cook, if there is someone like that in the mix, to introduce your daughter to meat. Or, do you eat eggs? My son gets 90% of his protein from sitting on my lap and eating my scrambled eggs. Salt, pepper, milk, cheddar, cooked in butter, who could resist?
My Observations
At this age, process can trump content. Kids love DIY. Or as my kid succinctly insists, ‘SELF!
* Henry is more likely to eat broccoli if I provide him with a little kit on his place. Broccoli florets, but also, a blob of butter and a pile of grated cheese. He can swoop the broc through the butter then smoosh it around in the cheese, and then he’ll eat it and can’t wait to try again. If I buttered and cheesed it for him, it might be ignored, and it might be thrown on the floor.
* Providing little bowls of condiments is a great way to let kids do it themselves, and to have them try new flavors in a way that they can control. My little tamarind sauce, mango-chutney lover has also been seen drinking vinegary, chile-flecked scallion pancake sauce, he loves duck sauce, and he is every intrigued by little dabs of hot sauce I let him have. If it comes in those packets, he wants to taste it, too! The salt cellar on our table is also a good DIY prop, though I try to keep an eye on that one.
“A little bit of anything mixed into something I recognize and love probably isn’t going to hurt me.”
That must have been what Henry was thinking last week when he agreed to eat collard greens wilted with anchovies on orechiette.
“Hand to God,” as people from Boston like to say. That really happened.
He’ll eat tiny bits of meat if it’s ground up into rice. It seems that he will eat anything at all if it’s in something else he likes enough. Flecks of smoked salmon stirred through spaghetti, roasted cod with balsamic vinegar flaked on linguini. Rice and noodles are an easy sell, so don’t fall for making the same old same old red sauce or butter. They will try more exotic fare if it’s paired with something irresistible.
Cinnamon is next to godliness.
This spice smells great. Henry loves oatmeal and applesauce with cinnamon, but he also loves cinnamon’ed savory food: tomato sauce, and picadillo tacos, and lamb with lentils come to mind.
Tacos are a fun shape.
Henry’s love of tacos could admittedly be attributed to nature or nurture, but he sure does like to roll up tortillas with things in them and wave them around and then bite down. Again, it’s the process of participating in what we are doing.
Quesadillas are like tacos, but they have a secret space to hide things.
Don’t hesitate to hide carrots, collards, spinach, or anything you can in a quesadilla. That white Mexican melty cheese is delicious, but its basically mozzarella. Hide with aplomb and get them used to new flavors that way.
Choose the umamiest.
Vegetarians rarely fall off the wagon so they can resume a grim life of eating eat boneless skinless chicken breast. No, they come back to the fold for our hot dogs or bacon. So when introducing a child to meat, consider, as you cited above, a little sausage (see tip below) or some well-seasoned ground turkey. I make a picadillo recipe with ground turkey, cinnamon, capers, onions, garlic, almonds, and raisins, and it is well-loved in our household, because it’s fun and interesting, though Henry will probably be 65 before he tries my turkey meatloaf. It’s good but it’s not lip smacky and it doesn’t look like confetti and it doesn’t smell familiar and like breakfast cereal, due to the presence of cinnamon, nuts, and raisins.
Sausage tip:
Don’t microwave them! Cook them in a pan, though, and that will go a long way. It will put a “fond” on the meat, which is a slight caramelization not specific to meat: think about what would happen if you cooked a banana slice in a skillet — a little sticky delicious brown crust would form. Yum! That crust is a lot of what makes meat taste delicious, too.
We like the Shelton’s brand, though Henry is partial to Swift’s Premium Brown and Serve frozen links. If it makes you feel better, Swift’s has a version that says “natural.”
I buy that one, but it does not really make me feel that much better.
To get your question answered by Counselor Chomp, email it to churchchomp at gmail dot com.
Pavlova!
While you and I have been struggling to finish our taxes, the Australians and the New Zealanders have been continuing the fight over which nation invented pavlova, the graceful, light, and airy dessert created in honor of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova’s visit to Oceania in the ’20s or ’30s.
It’s the sort of argument that never goes away, much like the one you may remember from an innocent visit to Belgium, when you may have been cornered, and forced to eat frites, and been the recipient of a highly defensive lecture whose thesis statement was that frites are not, in fact, an invention of the scheming, bald-faced liars to the South.
Travel and the associated arguments may be tiring, but pavlova is perfect.
The first time I had it was when a New Zealander friend of my sister’s came to stay with our family when I was still in high school. Kesia brought her a bright smile, her beguiling accent, and a desire to share her country’s national dessert with our family, who is always up for more national desserts.
I’ll eat anything with meringue — baked alaska, lemon meringue pie, etc. — but I know that to some people, meringue doesn’t seem such a transcendant concept.
Those might also be the people who also hate Peeps.
“Will your parents eat a dessert that is not chocolate?,” I queried of my husband, on the occasion of their most recent trip.
“Why would we bother to find that out?” he wondered.
I decided to do some scientific inquiry.
Pavlova is a meringue topped by cream, strawberries, kiwis, and whatever else you might desire in the fruit world. The meringue is altered by the slight presence of vinegar. Wow! That sounds creepy but it’s exactly the sort of aspect that makes a perfect and pure substance, such as meringue, actually interesting.
I tried this recipe, copied from the Food Network and originally appearing in Gale Gand’s book Butter Sugar Flour Eggs. I followed it “to a ‘t,'”,though I forgot to have the egg whites at room temperature, and used dark brown sugar rather than light. I also used blackberries in addition to other fruit. I’m not going to say that the meringue didn’t shatter a bit. It did, but all was forgiven when we tasted it.
The answer to my question was “yes, the in-laws eat desserts that aren’t chocolate when they are presented with desserts that are not chocolate.”
And it was even better the next day.
PAVLOVA
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup egg whites, at room temperature (from about 4 eggs)
- 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 tablespoon raspberry vinegar or red wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 cups heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
- 2 kiwi fruits, peeled and thinly sliced or 1 cup of another ripe fruit, such as peaches or nectarines
- 10 strawberries, green parts trimmed off, thinly sliced or other berries, such as raspberries or blackberries
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or using a hand mixer), whip the egg whites, cream of tartar and salt in a clean, dry bowl until foamy. Add the granulated sugar, cornstarch, vinegar, and vanilla and continue whipping until stiff, smooth and glossy, about 8 minutes more. On a sheet of parchment paper cut to fit a sheet pan, use a pencil to draw or trace a circle 9-inches in diameter. Line the sheet pan with the parchment, pencil side down (you should still be able to see the circle). Spoon the egg whites into the circle, using the back of the spoon to smooth the top and sides of the disk. Bake in the center of the oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat to 300 degrees and bake until the meringue has puffed up and cracked on the top and the surface is lightly browned to the color of cafe au lait, about 45 minutes more. Turn off the oven, prop the oven door open, and let the pavlova cool in the oven at least 30 minutes, to room temperature. This ensures a gradual cooling, which protects the delicate meringue.
Whip the cream and brown sugar together until stiff. Spoon it in the center of the cooled pavlova and spread out to within 1/2-inch of the edge. Arrange the slices of kiwi around the edge. Arrange the slices of strawberry in the middle. To serve, slice into wedges with a serrated knife.
Pilates, Twice
Recently, I went to see my new, expensive, Russian, Madison Avenue gynecologist. As I reclined in her highly civilized exam room and looked at a Belizean beach scene looping on a flat screen, she looked at my C-section scar, which has been decreed by every doctor or nurse who has ever seen it, in a seemingly sincere way, as “beautiful!” This time, I cleared my throat and rolled my eyes at the assessment. And while she continued to examine me, she reminded me of the less-controlled sorts of trauma and tearing that a body avoids with a Caesarian, and told me that she sees a lot of the other sort.
“There is a reason you mothers deserve flowers on Mother’s Day, you know” she lilted in her starched and candy-striped Thomas Pink blouse.
If it seems like she was separating herself from the mothers of the world, it’s because she was: it’s worth an aside to say that none of the female ob-gyns I have had in my employ have decided to have children of their own.
But, back to me, and my story.
While a female belly—whether it is one of the highly muscled or more marshmellowian variety—is a canvas for subtle curves and slopes, abdominal surgery increases the likelihood of the sudden appearance of a stark sort of flap, where never a flap was seen before. It’s not large, necessary, but it is of a different shape and character than other curves, due to its flaplike nature.
My flap is a mark on a map of who I am: my son’s mother. It’s certainly not the worst thing that could have happened to me, in part because I have long put my stock in things other than my bikini body. Still, it surprised me. And when I showed it to my sister, who was a veteran mother, and asked if it would go away, she, who could no longer speak, shook her head “no,” then laughed at me. I realized then that this is something that a lot of women deal with, and yet don’t talk much about. Instead of talking about their flap, they tuck it down into their waistband.
I know, I know, some of you are reading this, and thinking, “Wha? I have 3 children, I don’t have a flap. Why doesn’t this person stop writing about beef brisket tacos and concentrate harder on the flap?”
And to that, I exhort thee to UNSUBSCRIBE! And, once that is done, go congratulate yourself, naked, in the mirror, and leave the rest of us on TEAM FLAP alone. There are a lot of us on this team, and we could kick your skinny butt.
A few months after my c-section, I found myself in a complaining conversation with an old friend about this very thing: the condition of my stomach. Our conversation was via email.
She’d had twins a few years before. She wrote me cheerfully that all she’d needed to do was “pilates, like twice,” before things were back to normal for her stomach.
So for several months I felt like whatever the unfortunate characteristics my post-partum self were, that they were due to the fact that I hadn’t been to pilates, like twice. How much of a lazy, prideless lout would someone have to be to not solve all of their problems by going to pilates twice? I’d been to yoga, twice. I’d gone to the gym, twice. I’ve been to Zumba, twice. And all of these things a lot more times than that! But pilates, which has always seemed to me like yoga with no soul, with no sacred aspects, with no pleasing rhythm, with no wisdom of the ages, I had been to exactly no times in two years, and therefore, I was stuck in the category of people whose personal failings were evidenced in the form of a small ball with no air in it lying around on their midsection.
Sooner or later, I saw that woman, the pilates advocate. She was, and is, beautiful. That is not in question. However, I was stunned. I don’t mean to knock anyone, but it did not seem like she had erased all evidence of childbirth through her two-time pilates method.
For years, I have not managed to go to Pilates. However, we are now in the era of school. And when I went to the gym the other day, I had, rather than the 40 minutes I usually have when at the gym, I had two entire hours. I spent the first one at a pilates class.
I regret to say it but I must admit that it helped.
I’ll report back after the second.
A Favorite Condiment
There is a product called Honey Nut that is Turkish and incomparable.
First of all, look at it.
delightful looking, delightful tasting
It’s a jar lined with artfully arranged nuts, packed tight in honey. It is so much fun to look at it!
And while I’ve never been the greatest fan of honey — to my palate, it tastes flowery in an often unwelcome way — this is wonderful: in addition to the pistachios, hazelnuts, almonds, and walnuts, there are some powerful aromatics in there which temper the overall effect: black cumin, apricot seed.
I don’t know if this is Turkish code for honey, but it lists bee milk and bee pollen as ingredients. I think there is coconut in there, too.
It’s fragrant, healthy, protein rich, crunchy, sweet, but also slightly complex, due to the unusual stuff in there. Furthermore, it’s pleasing in a sort of geological way, because different strata actually taste different.
Some people put it on sundaes. I think that it was born to make yogurt acceptable. (Ice cream is already acceptable, obviously.)
If you live in Brooklyn, it’s available at King’s County Candy and Nut on Newkirk Plaza, in addition to the Eastern Market on Coney Island Avenue between Aves H and I.
It’s also in my pantry, but it’s going fast.
Is there anything at all that I do not like about Honey Nut?
No, there is not.
Fireboy
The mania surrounding firetrucks is . . . predictable.
“Right on target!,” our neighbors claim when the 2 year old boy runs up to them and stops, breathless, trying to get something obviously important out of his mouth. Fire . . .TRUH!
Predictable or not, some of the clamor associated with this passion fills me with delight. Sometimes, Henry makes a list of fire-related objects. Fire TRUH! Fire HOUSE! Fire HAT! Fire WOOF. (dalmation). Fire DADDY! (Those are the guys who actually ride around on the trucks.)
And lately, since he has started a pre-school dizzyingly full of other little boys, an experience on which I will write more on shortly, Fire BOYS!
Yesterday, we parked the car in front of a BMW that had flashing lights. And then I realized that it was smoking. First just a little, and then more and more smoke pouring out from under the hood. No one was inside of it. I moved our car, looked for the owner of the beamer, and then finally called 911.
We sat outside and waited.
I started thinking about how, on the street where we live, we sometimes walk by a duo of cops, a man and a woman. Henry calls them the policedaddy and the policemom-mom.
While we waited for the firetrucks to arrive, I asked whether there could also be firemom-moms.”Sure!,” he replied, using an expression he debuted this week.
The firetrucks came — two of them, both full of daddies. They assessed the smoking BMW and determined that it wasn’t about to blow up, and then rode away immediately.
Henry and I went back inside and as I got him ready for his nap, he asked me for some firemilk.
Wait, could I be a firemom-mom?
His dedication and attention to public service and public servants may wane. In the meantime, he goes to sleep with a plastic firehat in his crib and a police car where he can see it as soon as he opens his eyes.
Church Avenue Chomp 