Globalization

We plan to raise the girls to understand they are global citizens, and I’m hoping this will include multiple international trips while they are young. But I don’t envision any 8+ hour flights anytime soon and they’re a little young for lessons in foreign policy, so for now I’m just trying to make sure they develop a varied palate.

We started off with what is technically Chinese food, I guess, but it seems so basic it hardly counts: tofu sautéed in a soy sauce/honey/fresh ginger sauce. In a pinch, I can buy a side of brown rice from the Chinese restaurant down the road, throw in some broccoli, and have a sure meal. Of course, they are well versed in Tex-Mex, which I guess kind of counts as Mexican food. They’ve been eating guacamole since they were eight months old, and Monkey will happily down an entire cheese enchilada for dinner.

About six weeks ago I decided it was time to branch out. We tried Indian food first. The girls had a good snack before we left home so the food experience could be purely experimental. Twin Daddy and I both got Chicken Tikka Masala, medium spicy on the sauce. Monkey loved the naan (bread) and was dipping it into the masala sauce like a pro in no time. Turtle wasn’t so keen on the naan but she did really enjoy dipping her Ritz cracker into the sauce, so that was a great start. We had the same meal a second time around and Turtle enjoyed the naan that time, and they both had lots of rice with sauce and even a few bites of chicken. Then I made an “Indian stew” I found in Parents Magazine – I’m sure it has a real name but that’s what the magazine called it. Its primary base was yellow split peas and potatoes. The girls loved it but apparently I still need to develop my palate.

A couple of weeks later I found an “instant” Mujadara meal at Whole Foods. It’s a Mediterranean lentil and rice pilaf, and it’s delicious. The girls devoured it, so I found a recipe online and made a big batch for us – it’s so easy; it’s just lentils, rice, onions, cinnamon, cumin and olive oil. Things went so well with the mujadara that we thought we’d try out a Greek restaurant. The girls liked dipping their pita bread into the tzadziki (cucumber sauce) – they’re really into dipping right now. They had a couple of bites of falafel and kind of picked at some of the other things, so it was ok, but not the rousing success I had expected. Still, I got an extra side of the tzadziki, mixed it in with the leftover mujadara we had at home, and that was a hit.

Now, I have to admit, for me this was just building up to the moment when I could introduce the girls to the food I would eat every single day if I could afford to: sushi. I thought I would be crushed if they refused sushi, so I had to see how they reacted to other foods first. Based on their openness to at least trying the other foods, I thought it was safe to venture into my sacred territory. We went to a little Thai/Sushi restaurant down the street and kept it simple (and cooked, of course): a California roll and a Philadelphia roll. I sat next to Turtle; Twin Daddy sat with Monkey; Aunt V. sat across the table wondering how her sister turned into a silly yuppie who feeds her toddlers sushi.

I pulled a little piece off for Turtle and she took it, kind of played with it, and ate it, seaweed and all! That was enough for me to call the meal a complete success. She didn’t eat much more of the rice and seaweed – she didn’t like how the rice was so sticky she couldn’t get it off her fingers. But she did eat the “innards” of a piece of California roll (avocado, cucumber, crab stick) and Philadelphia roll (smoked salmon and cream cheese). She and Monkey also had several bites of my tofu Pad Thai. Monkey had a similar reaction to the sushi, trying little bites of the rolls and the innards. She was more interested in Twin Daddy’s chicken fried rice, though, a meal to which she’s more accustomed.

My hope in all this is that if we introduce them to enough flavors now, when one or the other gets to that weird toddler stage where they insist on eating the exact same thing for weeks on end, it will at least be something interesting, like sushi, and not lame, like toast. And so to that end, for the first time on this blog, I’m issuing a call for suggestions – which kid-tolerant Austin restaurants serving global cuisine do you like? Leave me a comment and we’ll (try) to give them a try! And I’ll let you know if my little experiment in globalizing toddlers’ taste buds works.