To help fill in while we are on summer vacation, here’s a guest post from Le Anne Ruzzamenti.
My son has been a picky eater since he turned three and as we near his seventh birthday, we can still only count a handful of vegetables and fruits that he will eat. While he’s not the extreme picky eater who refuses most foods, he is the cautious kind who feels most secure with the foods he knows and isn’t excited about breaking from the norm. In fact, whenever trying a new food (even if it’s a dessert!), his face will scrunch into an unpleasant “I can’t believe I’m trying this and I’m gonna hate it” look until he’s chewed a few times. Then he’ll flash me a thumbs up, down or sideways (you can guess where the thumb points for new dessert foods).
So how is it that this picky eater begs us to take him for sushi where he orders tuna nigiri and sea steak and gobbles up raw fish? (more…)
My son can be picky, but sushi is actually his very favorite thing and always has been. People always seems startled to see him eat it at restaurants, but when you think about it, it’s a perfect toddler food: it comes in finger-food sized pieces, it’s mostly rice, it’s sweet and salty, and the fish is soft and tender. It’s cooked fish we have to try to coax our son to eat, by saying, “This is just the same thing you like in sushi.” So far, we’ve only gotten him to branch out to seared ahi, but maybe actual fully cooked fish soon. . .
You are right Anna. I do think the raw fish is something parents try not to introduce until later. But it really is a kid-friendly food.
Oh, I suppose some people do worry about raw fish. Maybe that is why we got funny looks when he ate sushi at 10 months old.
Personally I didn’t worry because good-quality sushi restaurants tend to have very high standards for food-safety and cleanliness compared to most restaurants, and the chefs work right out in the open. Also, at least in this country, by law the fish used for sushi gets flash-frozen immediately on the boat to kill parasites
Anyway, my son had so many allergies back then that sushi was our only option for eating out.