Cooking for kids

Having spent a reasonable amount of time with my Nellie and her 2 children, pictured above at ZooDoo yesterday (which, BTW, is a highly recommended venue for children's outings), I have been in the situation to observe her mostly fruitless attempts to entice the young ones to eat those foods which contain all things vital for growing young bodies. (OK - I exaggerate - it's mostly Miss Nellie who is so pedantic!)

Being someone who is brilliant with her cookery skills and knowledge of many things culinary, Nellie tries the most complex of ways attempting to disguise vegetables and meat products. But Miss Nellie will pick around the edges; chew for inordinate amounts of time on one mouthful of cheese, or 2 bits of cooked macaroni, and leave a plateful of cleverly designed, ordinary-looking, but chock-full of numerous vital vitamins and minerals, food.

I well remember being in the same situation with my five different children. For a mum, filling the kids with the best of good health is an over-riding issue looming large in your head. You are a woman possessed. You feel the whole world will implode if that child doesn't eat that plate of food you've worked long and hard at putting in front of them. You find clever little ways (you think!) to subtly force-feed them morsels of healthy goodies. You thoroughly analyse recipes, plotting ways you can substitute vegies (which the kids won't touch) for sugar in biscuits!

My Nellie regularly makes up her own Fish Fingers - those being one of the few ways the two littlies will allow anything slightly resembling excellent nutrition into their respective tummies - using Tassal offcuts, mashed potatoes and other mashed vegies both yellow and green. They are, in my opinion, the most delectable of meals, and put many chefs meals to shame. The kids sit in their high-chair thrones, intermittently eating or throwing the food on the floor with gay abandon whilst I (starving grandmother that I am!) jostle Bella the dog for the rejects!

Food and food fashions have evolved a lot over the past decades. It will be interesting to see how todays youngsters will cook in the future when it's their turn.