Like most kids his age, when my son was about 5 years old he wanted to start his first entrepreneurial enterprise.
“I think I want to start a business. I want to have a stand outside, and I’ll have a selection of cheeses for people to try. Oh, and I’ll have some lemonade too.” Yes, these were his exact words. I will never forget them, because what kindergartner wants a cheese stand?
In the name of health conscious eating, there are a lot of foods Ron and I grew up enjoying that we never introduced to our kids. And in the spirit of adventurous eating we did introduce them to a lot of culturally diverse foods. The result is kids with palates that largely reflect health-driven choices and refined tastes with a bit of Mountain Dew and Starbursts on the side.
In hindsight, maybe we’ve gone a little overboard on influencing their eating habits.
My youngest, now 7, still tells me the milk at school tastes funny—for him, (he only drinks almond milk) cow milk is strange because it comes from the “you know” of a cow.
I still stand by the food choices on which we raised our kids, but sometimes I am sad when I realize the experiences they’ve missed out on. Like drinking Kool-Aid. The stuff we drank with plenty of sugar and without a worry about how it affected our health.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t my husband and I who first introduced my boys to Kool-Aid. It was their friends who brought over the little packets.
“My mom has like boxes of this stuff,” I heard one of their friends whisper as they dug in the back of the cabinet for a pitcher.
The next thing I heard was the first clue that our kids were having a much different childhood experience than we had.
“Dude, where’s your sugar?” The Kool-Aid kid—who also happened to be wearing a bright red T-shirt with the Kool-Aid guy on it—asked.
One of my boys brought out a small squeeze tube of agave sugar and poured it in the Kool-Aid. From the next room I watched as they then tasted the concoction. My sons’ eyes lit up at their first taste of what was a staple in my childhood house, but their friend spit it in the sink.
My guys didn’t know any different and to this day are more than happy to use agave sweetener or honey to make clandestine Kool-Aid when their friend secretly leaves them a couple of packages at our house.
This underground Kool-Aid trade isn’t the only way my kids have gotten around their limited eating options. I know as teenagers, they get their unlimited fill of Takis and Arizona Iced Tea at the dollar store. And at home we have always had a 90/10 rule referring to the percentage of clean food to total-drool-worthy junk smothered in extra calories.
Even so, I often feel bad that their childhood is so different, much more carefully vetted than mine. So I was glad when I got the chance to bring back a blast—or a spray—from my past.
We were watching The Blues Brothers and Sebastian couldn’t get over a scene in which one of the lead characters randomly produces a can of spray cheese for someone who asked for it.
He repeated the line, “You got my cheese, boy?” for weeks. Then I decided to surprise him and buy some spray cheese.
My kids didn’t know this actually existed.
I sprayed some on a cracker and gave it to Sebastian who said: “Maybe I’ll like it later.” After a couple of attempts he loved it.
Then my oldest tried it and summed up what they all thought. “Mom why did you buy this?” he said with a snarl. “You can’t introduce us to good cheese and then give us this.”
But like his brothers, he continued to pop processed cheese-topped crackers into his mouth. And of course, for several days I found Easy Cheese mysteriously wiped on kitchen counter corners.
Yes, they were real American kids after all, I thought. What really sealed it, though, what made me feel like I hadn’t ruined their childhood zest for indulgence in the name of eating healthfully, was watching them try some foreign chocolate.
My oldest, Sydney, brought back some chocolate fondue for her brothers from her trip to Switzerland. Last night they finally opened it up. It was all fun until someone said it tasted like mud.
One of my sons tried it and dramatically choked after tasting his apple dipped into the thick chocolate. Another son had just as dramatic of a reaction, and then looked at the fondue disdainfully and said, “I hate that thing.” As if the fondue had personally offended him.
Then they tried adding a package of organic, free-trade coconut sugar and stirred it into the fondue. It didn’t make the chocolate any more palatable. They added sugar-free, non-dairy whipped cream, and that didn’t help. Eventually they gave up, declaring that Switzerland’s chocolate sucks or else they had burned it in the microwave while trying to warm it up.
I think that maybe their palates aren’t as sophisticated as they—or we—think. Maybe they have the same Oscar-Mayer, Wonder Bread, Skippy, tastes that Ron and I had as kids, but they just don’t know it yet.
Shelly Cone has let her kids become a little more adventurous when it comes to pop culture food brands. Just don’t tell them exactly what part the “you know” of a cow is. Reach her through the interim editor at clanham@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 9-16, 2015.
