It has been pointed out to me, by several friends, that BBJ's diet is not the typical diet of a two year old. I must say, I was shocked. Don't all kids eat soup, green salad, dried whole fish and sushi?BBJ has been exposed to pretty varied flavors all her life. We took her out for Thai when she was about 7 months old. Watching us eat, she was less than pleased with her own lukewarm bowl of rice cereal. I added a small spoonful of the curry sauce...and the rest is history. I've made it a practice to give her just about anything on the table that she wants to try.
The other night, I prepared "haahm yuh jai" (salty little fish) for dinner. They are itty bitty fish that are dried, whole, and sold by the pound in Chinatown. To prepare, simply rinse them, put them in a bowl, season with oil and soy sauce and steam them. BBJ loves fish, so when she saw that I was eating little tiny ones...she just had to have in on the action!
Look, Mama - I got a fish!She seriously has no problem using the same words for living animals and the animals on her plate. Fish in a tank are "yuh yuh". Fish on her plate are "yuh yuh". Same goes for cows, chickens, pigs and lamb. Is that creepy?
I will now eat this fish whole...and there's nothing you can do to stop me! I'll spare you the picture from about five minutes later. She decided that little piece of fish jerky was going nowhere fast, and she gave up on it. But I was still proud of her for TRYING it!
Come on now - seriously: which one of you wants to sit down right now and eat a teeny-weeny dried whole fish, steamed until it's nice and chewy? Any takers? Sometimes I think she eats crazy things just because she CAN. I'm constantly taking things out of her mouth, all. day. long. Fingers, keys, coins, stuffed animals, clothes...the kid loves to chew!
I am so envious. I have an 18 year old who still eats nothing but chicken nuggets and pizza. He can eat with chopsticks but he won't touch Chinese food. Makes me crazy that we can't go to a Chinese restaurant together.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy reading your posts about food and Chinese culture!
How perfectly timed is this post...
ReplyDeleteBBJ would totally beat me at Fear Factor. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome--my two-year-old is a really picky eater.
ReplyDeleteYou are wise to have exposed her to all kinds of foods at a young age. In the not-so-distant future she'll hit the 'I won't try anything new' phase (or maybe you'll be lucky and miss that one). Mine are much pickier eaters than they should be- than they would have been if I'd done what you have.
ReplyDeleteThen again, dried fish?!!!!
Sounds like she is getting good nutrtition, any way you cut the fishcake!
ReplyDeleteAnd getting cuter by the day too, methinks.
Okay, I thought Jarrah was a pretty adventurous eater until I read this. Now I realize that it's ME who's not very adventurous. ;)
ReplyDelete