What if trying new food was always this easy?
In preparation of a destination vacation for next year, we have been introducing our girls to new food on a regular basis that they may encounter during our trip. With two naturally picky kids, this task is absolutely no easy feat so when we tried marinara sauce on the girls’ noodles tonight, we were pleasantly surprised by the kids’ acceptance of spaghetti in all of its glory. Maybe the success was thanks in part to the prep talk about how it is just like pizza sauce or perhaps it was a mess left behind on their faces. Sometime during this tomato sauce being celebrated, I could not help, but to remember the awful experience of trying new food that so wrong for me as an elementary school clarinet player. Let’s say trying this awful food ended up causing a incident on a stage in front of a couple hundred people.
In the fall of 1991, I had been selected to a honors elementary school band and our big performance was playing for the grand opening of a new elementary school in the school district. I remember quite clearly dressing up in a white top and a black skirt and how badly I had to be at the new school by five pm to be seated on stage. However, my dad had decided to make dinner before we went and made something that I could not stand smell, let alone eat. The meal was canned tuna between two dry slices of toast and my dad had it set in his mind that day was going to be that day he was going to enforce the clean plate club policy. I tried to contest the containments of the meal and insisted that I would go hungry, but my old man replied that I would thank him someday for this. I gagged, I cried and eventually the evil sandwich had disappeared, leaving a horrible taste in my mouth. Once my dad was pleased, we drove to the elementary school where I walked on stage during the first song causing most of the clarinet line to move over one seat. Although my embarrassment was temporary, I never forgave him for that one and I have not picked up a single tuna fish sandwich since.
It is safe to say I will not be forcing my children to eat tuna or the only other meal I refused to eat as a child. After all liver and onions is an acquired taste which I do not have desired at all. Getting my children to try new foods has been a delicate experience so any time there is a victory, it is a big deal. So following the W tonight, baths were given, the dishes were washed and the clothes were pretreated. Maybe next we’ll pick something less messy!
