Learning to like new things

I find that the more new foods you try, the more adventurous your palate gets. I think this goes for kids and adults alike, which is why I am pretty insistent that my kids try new things all the time. And I do find that they will not only try, but get excited about trying, new things. Once I brought home leftover flatbread with duck, figs, and blue cheese. Not really standard K-5 fare, but Ethan, upon learning there was blue cheese involved, asked to try it and devoured all of it for lunch the next day.


The truth is tastes change—with exposure, with time, and even with practice. If my kids don't take to something right away, I'll often keep making it, sometimes with different variations, knowing that their tastes can shift. I recently read that kids need to eat the same new food (prepared the same way) something like six times before they will accept it into their eating repertoire. It makes me a little sad to hear parents categorically say things like, "He won't eat it. He doesn't like corn/carrots/mushrooms, etc." I tend to think, "He may not like it yet, but he hasn't eaten this particular dish yet." Who knows?


Over time our tastes mature. I love a big vodka martini now, but as a child it would have made me gag. As a child, I thought Domino's pizza sauce was spicy. Now, I will happily eat things so hot they make me sweat and cry simultaneously. As a child, I did not favor beets or pretty much anything in orange hues (winter squash, rutabaga, cooked carrots). As an adult, beets became a favorite veggie for me without any effort. I had to work a little to like the orange things.


I am a firm believer that you can teach yourself to like new foods. Over the years, especially before I had kids, I would make an annual food resolution which involved adding a new food (generally something I disliked but had nutritional merit) to my diet over the course of a year. I would try a variety of new recipes until I came upon one I liked. Once I found one and became comfortable with the new food then I could expand to other ways of using it. 


Eggplant parmesan opened the doors for baingan bharta, chinese eggplants in garlic sauce, baba ghanoush, and eggplant "meatballs." Tofu was tasteless, until I tried it with peanut sauce and broccoli (see below). Now, Sam and Ethan eagerly gobble down sesame fried tofu with asparagus and shiitakes. Grapefruit eluded me, until I found out that if you remove the membrane around each segment, the bitterness I despised disappeared. When I was pregnant with Ethan, I craved pink grapefruit and ate it, peeled like an orange, nearly every day for a time.
 
I hope that all of you reading this will continue to try new things and encourage your kids to do the same. I know that the next time we go to Zen Gardens in South Burlington, I will be skipping the General Tso Chicken in favor of the house special jelly fish or fried sea cucumber. I am sure if the boys are with me they will ask to try it before I even offer. I love that about them!


Here's one of those gateway recipes I mentioned above.

Broccoli and Tofu in Spicy Peanut Sauce 
from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen.


The Sauce
1/2 cup peanut butter, unprocessed is best
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 Tbs. tamari or soy sauce
2 Tbs. molasses
1/4 to 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper


In a small saucepan, whisk together peanut butter and water until uniform. Whisk in remaining ingredients and set aside.


The Saute
1 lb. bunch of fresh broccoli, chopped into flowerettes
3 Tbs. peanut oil (I use much less)
2 tsp. freshly grated ginger root
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 lb. firm tofu, cubed (I like to press this to get some of the water out first)
Salt and pepper
2 cups thinly sliced onion
1 cup coarsely chopped raw peanuts
2-3 Tbs. tamari or soy sauce
2 freshly minced scallions


Directions (paraphrased)
Heat 1 Tbs. oil in a hot wok or saute pan. Add half the garlic and ginger then tofu. Season with salt and pepper. Stir fry 5-8 minutes then transfer to the saucepan of sauce.


Add a little more oil to the pan. Add remaining ginger, garlic and onions. Season with salt and pepper. Stir fry until onions are beginning to get soft. Meanwhile, heat the peanut sauce gently over low heat.


Add broccoli, tamari, and peanuts to the pan and stir fry for 5 minutes or so, until bright green and just tender. Pour sauce over the saute. Sprinkle with scallions. Serve with rice.


The sauce is also great over noodles.