At the Dinner Table

07/10/2007

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
John Muir

Who would have expected that advice from Gourmet magazine (March 2007) would appear in ExchangeEveryDay? But Bonnie shared with me an editorial: "Teach Your Children Well" by Ruth Reichl that is quite provocative (hopefully it will provoke you to comment). Reichl was describing a New York City restaurant dedicated to children's foods, and commented, "the very notion drives me so crazy that I simply can't keep quiet." She goes on to observe...

"For starters, the notion that children are a separate species who require a different diet from the rest of us, pretty much does away with the concept of the family meal. The point of eating together, it seems to me, is not just that we all sit down around the same table but also that we share the food. The same food.

"Children study their parents — that is their primary job in life — and one of the things they absorb is the way grown-ups eat. 'Oh look, Mommy loves salad and Daddy thinks spaghetti a la bolognese is swell,' is one lesson learned at the family table. The message is that these are delicious and desirable foods, and the obvious conclusion is, 'I'll probably like them, too.' But if little Suzy and Sam get applesauce instead of salad and naked pasta in place of meat sauce, the lesson is quite different. What we are really telling our children is 'You won't like what we are eating.'

"And yet we know that what children like is mostly learned. Japanese children are not born thinking rice, fish, and seaweed are breakfast any more than American children are born with an innate preference for cereal. We tell them what they like, even if we don't say it in words....

"Sitting down to dinner, at any age, should be an invitation to the fabulous banquet that is life. The most important lesson we learn at the table is that great rewards await those who take chances. Do we really want to be telling our children, 'Just eat your nice chicken nuggets'? It would make so much more sense to say, 'Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.'"

A Smorgasbord of Ideas

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