I have a feeling tough guy/chef Anthony Bourdain dictates into a digital recorder, then has some lackey at the Travel Channel to type them up. His blog posts read like a stroll through the Umbrian market in his head, which is to say, pretty random:
My one and half year old baby daughter loves olives. And caper berries. And salty parmigiano reggiano cheese. Her love of rabbits (as food) is already well established. But I discovered today that she adores polenta--served with the hot, rendered fat of roasted game birds. And that she goes absolutely bat shit over risotto made with wild nettles. And when her Mom dips a finger in the local red wine, she greatly prefers it to juice. This makes me very proud.Anthony Bourdain Blog | Goodbye To All That [travelchannel.com via dt reader dt, sent outside of work hours, naturally]
link update: David had some problems with the link when he sent it to me, and a couple of readers have mentioned it, too. If the link above doesn't work for you, try this Google search result page instead [google.com]
update: I still had this open in my browser, so I skimmed through the 200+ comments on Bourdain's post. HE IS THE LEADER OF A CRAZY, OVEREXPRESSIVE FOODIE TRAVEL CULT!
At what age are kids supposed to have that type of cheese?
I can't even imagine what being his kid would be like.
Bourdain's blog seems to have been hijacked by a design company? Anyone else having trouble w/the link?
Our daughter was with us visiting family in Italy at age 14mths and we found she had strong preference for foods cooked in olive oil, butter, rich and/or stinky cheeses, olives, wild boar, and all sorts of other tasty delicacies. At 2.5 years she still has a strong aversion to spiciness, but rich/complex flavors (both sweet and savory) are huge hits. Frankly, I'm surprised by the kinds of stinky cheeses she will eat. Her tastes are getting expensive!
I haven't yet offered up any really stinky cheeses, but my toddler seems to be developing expensive cheese tastes. Loves the pricey boutique stuff, and won't go near a cheese-string or mini-babybel, no matter how hungry he is. That's my boy!
My 2.5 year old daughter eats raw onions and serrano peppers. Most kids just don't eat things because we assume they won't.
She just eats what we eat. Sometimes she scarfs it down, sometimes she doesn't eat it at all. It doesn't really seem to be related to what's on her plate.
Although the amount she eats does often seem to be inversely proportional to how much her mom and I like it, how much it costs, and how much of it is left. She always tries to eat most of her mom and my steak.
One of my favorite memories of my daughter is dining out with her in San Francisco when she was one year old. She gobbled up every Sczhuan offering on the table, beaming happily -- with tears pouring down her face from the heat of the hot, hot peppers. Man, was she messy with the rice, though.
She always ate what we ate. I think if meals are congenial, and food is presented as just what's available, most kids will eat what's on offer. PB and J didn't exist in our household, so it's not as if she had much of a choice. They do eat when they're hungry, and if food isn't a battleground, there's just no reason not to.
She did develop much more conventional preferences once she got to be five or so, and held on to them for a few years, but they were neither indulged nor utterly disregarded. Eventually she regained that more adventurous approach to food, which she's retained into adulthood. Good thing, too, since she now lives in NYC, and has the world at her feet, culinarily speaking.