Hold Your Nose


Truth be told, I didn't think that turkey sandwich looked all that appealing either, but it was lunchtime and that's when you do the eating. And if you don't particularly like the school lunch, Derrick, well, you still gotta try to eat some of it so that you don't collapse in a heap in the middle of math from hunger and lack of good nutrition. I found myself in a rather extended sandwich discussion with Derrick that consisted of these things:

How Derrick only likes turkey, not ham and thus was not eating his sandwich

How I was pretty sure that the turkey-colored meat was turkey and not ham because it was not ham-colored

How Derrick only likes turkey

How it was turkey, just eat some and see that it is turkey



After this turkey/ham impasse, our discussion turned to the other contents of the plastic school lunch tray besides the meat. When Derrick said that he didn't like the salad either, I let him in on the holding your nose trick. Sometimes you just have to get it down whether you like it or not to prevent the aforementioned collapsing during math. He managed a bite of the salad with his nose pinched tightly, but there was a limit to the effectiveness of this technique. Taste now not a factor thanks to the nose-holding, temperature was the issue. "I don't like cold pasta. I only like warm pasta."

Kids are just funny about food! I suppose that many adults are funny about which foods they like and don't like, and that many tastes we have as adults can be traced back to that one incident with the peaches. But they're just so odd with their tastes! I was passing out cheese sticks at snack one day and Brian shook his head. "I don't like cold cheese" he said. "Well, what kind of cheese do you like then?" "Warm cheese."

And just last week, I encountered a child who doesn't like the most child-friendly food of all times! Daniel explained as his lunch sat uneaten that he didn't eat pizza, though he was cajoled into taking a few bites. "What kind of lunch DO you like, then?" I asked, still amazed at this seven-year-old shunning pizza. "Bacon" he replied. "And fries."

Any picky eater stories out there?
Photo from Anna the Red

4 comments:

Nate said...

I think I was a rather picky eater at times, but my sister was pickier, although she really liked ketchup. So, if there was something that she didn't want to eat and she had to do so, she'd put ketchup on it. (I can't remember the details.) I do remember my main food nemesis as a child: au gratin potatoes, which I re-named "all rotten" potatoes.

Sarah Garb said...

Oh yes, I love the rotten/gratin controversy :) When I was a kid I was really freaked out about swallowing a bone in my fish, and would go to great lengths to ensure there were none in a given bite.

Sarah said...

I recently treated my fifth graders with ice cream. One girl declared she didn't like ice cream!! How can you not like ice cream?! What is the world coming to?!?

Sarah Garb said...

Didn't like ice cream?? That's unheard of!

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