BABY FOOD

by Francesca Arniotes

Picky eaters are made, not born. As with many things, affluence doesn’t necessarily breed happiness and can in fact be counter productive. In most of the world people can’t, or choose not to, spend money on prepared food for babies. In most of the world, Baby’s first solid food is simply a baby-friendly presentation of whatever the family is eating, that being as you can probably guess something local, seasonal, and home made. Asian babies eat rice, fish and seaweed. Irish and Germans puree potatoes, vegetables and meat. In India, children’s first solid food is even mildly spiced since many spices aid digestion. How about hummus and baba ganoujh?  Wouldn’t that  be more interesting than a jar of pureed peas or instant rice cereal. Our palates start developing as soon as solid food is introduced. Stimulating textures and flavors can be every bit as important to the development of a happy human as mobiles and Mozart.

As a new mom, I received lots of advice from the parents and grandparents. When it was time to start our daughter on solid food it should be, in the best Italian tradition, “pastina”  –  tiny macaroni stars dressed with butter, grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and a beaten egg. (They didn’t need to remind me; honestly, I’ve never outgrown it!) We had a little handcranked foodmill and everything we had on the table got ground up for the kids. They grew up to be happy foodies and I’d like to take credit for that!

Still, kids often go through periods of refusing to eat. That’s the time to get creative. And a bit silly. My grandmother used to make us “silver dollar pancakes” which delighted us as we popped dozens of them into our mouths. Of course today, kids wouldn’t know what a silver dollar was, so that won’t work. But mini-anythings are cute and usually sell well. Mini muffin tins are a very useful investment that are not just for muffins. Use the food processor to chop up carrots, onions, zucchini and some greens. Put in some parsley or basil. Add a couple of eggs and a tablespoon of flour, salt, and a pinch of baking powder. A little olive oil carries flavor and adds needed healthy fat. Get the processor going until those eggs get full of air and then pop the mix into your oiled mini muffin tin and into a 400 degree oven. In about 10 minutes, you’ll have mini veg souffles that are too cute to ignore. Make potato pancakes. There are lots of recipes around. A tip though: be sure to use a clean kitchen towel and squeeze the water out of the grated potatoes. Then do variations: grate colorful vegetables like beets, red onions and carrots and mix with shredded kale or chard. Bring silly books to life: read Green Eggs and Ham together and then make some by adding pureed spinach to beaten eggs and scrambling. 

Sometimes it’s all in the name.  Walrus Salad.  Ants on a Stick. Cat Butt dumplings. I’ll explain that last one. A few years ago my granddaughter was completely off eating anything except sushi. One weekend when she and her brother were staying with us, I had an idea. Since they were both in the pee-pee-poo-poo stage of humor, I suggested they find the cat and see if they could get a good look at her butt. While they were chasing her around, poor cat, I whipped up a filling of ground pork, scallions, shredded napa cabbage, sesame oil, soy sauce, ginger, garlic and sherry. I always have wonton wrappers on hand because they are great for emergency entertaining.  Well, the kids were positively giddy when they succeeded in their mission. So we all began to make cat butt dumplings. A spoonful of filling in the center of the wonton wrapper, wet the edges with our fingers and fold into a triangle. Then with a flick of the wrist we joined the pointy ends, the center puckered into folds and voila! I told them they’d look even more realistic once they were steamed. And they did! They couldn’t wait to gobble them up! When they went home, I got a text from my daughter asking what in the world they were talking about as they were insisting she make this great new dinner item. We never laughed so hard! And they are still on the list of favorites. 

If you’re curious about the other things I mentioned, Walrus Salad is cubed apples, diced celery, and walnut pieces.  Use granny smith and a sweeter apple and even a third variety. Don’t worry about peeling them. Make them all little cubes of the same size so it’s easy to put  several in a spoonful. Sprinkle with some sugar and lemon juice. Dice the celery a bit smaller than the apple pieces. You can toast the walnuts for extra flavor if you want to or just add them as they are. Then toss everything in a bowl and add a nice sprinkle of salt and just enough plain yogurt to make everything nice and yummy. The original Waldorf Salad is made with mayo. Ants on a Stick can be anything from nut butters or cream cheese and raisins on a rib of celery to the Chinese “ants climbing a tree”  dish which is rice noodles with bits of ground pork clinging to them in a delicious sauce.

I leave you with an example of not-great-moments-in-marketing to unfamiliar cultures: In Africa the contents of jars and cans are pictured on the label. With so many languages and so much illiteracy, shoppers pay no attention to the words. When Gerber’s chubby-ckeeked baby appeared on jars being given out to mothers, they were horrified.