favorite / most hated foods as a child?

[Milagai]

this question has been in my mind since reading a thread a while

ago on another (non-desi) part of egullet.

people were describing their most beloved / hated foods as

children, and most of the latter seemed to be veggies that

were cooked and served at home.

hmmm. my personal memories are very different, i still ADORE

veggies like okra, green beans, beetroot, etc. that my mom made.

and veggies i didn't like as a kid (eggplant, spinach) are now among

my favorites, perhaps due to nostalgia...

and most of the kids around me seemed the same way.

how come?

so, here are my hypotheses:

1. indian cuisines handle veggies very well in home cooking so

kids are not put off by tasteless glop seemingly served in many other cuisines.

so kids raised with indian cooking are more likely to like veggies

than kids raised in those other (which?) traditions...

2. my mother was an excellent cook and my family is anomalous

in the kids' love for veggies; even for those raised in india.

so many kids' raised with indian food don't like many veggies

and i'm rare in my love for veggies....

3. other explanation? (we'll rule out the idea "milagai is wierd"

a priori as being patently false and absurd)

so, will you share:

1. what were your favorite / most hated foods as a child?

2. what food tradition (indian - which area / non indian - which

specific one? ) were you raised with?

i3. f you have partner / kids, what are their likes / dislikes?

my answers:

1. i loved okra, green beans, onions, potatoes,

most veggies really. loved most dals. adored "fancy" cooking

like chhole ro rajmah or paneer or anything nonveg (EXCEPT liver or fish or

other strong-animal-smelling stuff). these were rare items.

2. i hated: eggplant (looked icky the way

mom made it), spinach (boring and sort of bitter),

lauki type things (unless in a kofta) also boring

and the aforementioned smelly animal stuff.

3. i was raised with a 75% south indian vegetarian diet,

with the other 25% any other indian stuff. back in those

prehistoric times non-indian food was read about in enid

blyton books, but we didn't know how to get our hands on things

like sausages. ham, etc or what to do with it if we did.....

i was well into my late teens when i finally saw these exotica

"in the flesh"....

indian chinese food was about as "outlandish" as we got.....

now: my family is veg, so we're still going strong with

familiar items,

my 7 yo dd's vegetable

tastes are very similar to mine (adores broccoli / asparagus

paruppu usilli, green beans poriyal, anything with potatoes, etc).

my almost 3 yo ds - too soon to tell. he loves junk food

(shares that with me)

spouse is not indian, but adores almost all indian veg cooking,

convenient since i do 99% of the cooking....

though we also experiment with all sorts of other dishes very often.

assuming hypothesis 1above is supported) in

what other cuisines do kids love veggies and also enjoy

them as adults (i would guess chinese, italian, thai, korean, ....?)

sorry for long and very rambling post, but am curious....

milagai

[Episure]

Milagai, this is an interesting topic and deserves childhood regression.

As a crawler I remember licking my favourite hole in the wall with exposed bricks to satisfy my Pica cravings. To prevent me from overindulgence, some progenitor must have applied chilli powder to the brickwork. That didnt do much to deter me as I have maintained my taste for Chillis..........gave up the brick dust cravings, still miss the texture though.

Growing up I would run away from mushy vegetables like gourds and pumpkins. I guess I wanted texture again!

And I could never understand why people didnt have anything better to do than go through the masochistic exercise of eating Karelas(bitter gourd). I love Karelas today!

I too grew up as a vegetarian and was one till the age of 22.

Since then I eat everything and in the three elements I make exceptions for airplanes, human beings(save a very few ), ships and submarines.

Recently, my Nephew from the Carribean islands came and stayed with me.

His 2 year son was so unbelievably hyperactive, that I thought he was the combined reincarnation of Road Runner and Tasmanian devil. Guess what I think was fuelling him? .....A rather un Indian diet of Tofu! A great way to add protein in a vegetarian child's diet, thanks to his Phillipino amah. I now recommend it to all my friends who have toddlers.

Come to think of it, why should it stop at the baccha log?

Your views? Anyone.

edited to add this 'freely associated' line from Pink Floyd:

"If you don't eat yer meat, you can't have any pudding. How can you

have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?"

And it's from the album 'another brick in the wall'.

Edited July 29, 2004 by Episure (log)

[Monica Bhide]

Milk

[rajsuman]

My mom loves to cook and my dad loves to eat and try new dishes. So my brother and I grew up eating different things. Of course, 70% of the time, she cooked Konkani dishes. But the rest of the time, it could be anything:Chinese, Punjabi, Gujarati, Pakistani, Italian. I guess that's why I'm more of a home-foodie rather than a restaurant-foodie, i.e., much as I love eating out, ultimately I want to cook those foods myself at home.

Things I didn't like growing up: Milk (still don't) and Chicken(I loved the curries that it was cooked in, but I couldn't bring myself to like the chicken). Other than that, I don't remember hating anything else. I must ask my mom - perhaps she'll remember something I don't.

Suman

[gingerly]

grew up omnivorous( pan indian/panned indian and a dark, colonial shadow cast itself across the table)eating whatever was put in front of us,and that varied from the sublime to the ridiculous.-no real issues other than some selective lactose intolerance-couldn't abide milk but in any other form ,it went down just fine thank you.no fussing and certainly no 'yucky!'tolerated at table though if someone really had issues with something (like meat)arrangements were made.i think at some level,'think of the starving millions' still lurks in my subconcious enough that i won't really get my k's in a t beyond a certain point.(i may have to hand in my egullet papers now )most memorable first and last encounter with a food involved the self explanatory egg flip.5 seconds.brinjal also not a great favourite and deep gloom descended when suji halva appeared in the guise of dessert.not keen on dals as a kid but enjoy them now.still have a bad reaction to the smell of cold dal though...

all time favourite -tough but i think plain rice with a bit of ghee and some dry fried keema would be a strong contender.and a good masala dosai.

just a thought Milagai-very few people i knew growing up ate vegetables as a side to a main of meat so there wouldn't really have been much choice if you didn't like vegetables per se,

these days i hone my masterplan to slip fish into the schedule as often as possible without raising an alarm.

and i was a weird kid-only one i knew who loved karela from very early on.

[Pompollo]

This type of thread is always interesting. I saw similar elshere in EG, but I like the twist this time to analyze why?

First of all, as a kid my:

special favorites: home-grown tomatoes, corn on the cob, baked squash. I was strange as I usually ate all veggies except:

Yuck: asparagus, green peppers, long-hot Italian, fried green peppers and STILL THE YUCKIEST FOOD HAS GOT TO BE LIVER IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, FORM OR CUISINE!

Now I like and eat all vegetables. My taste buds started to change when I was in my 20s, and when I tasted peppers and asparagus they weren't as bad as I remembered them.

Analysis: This topic is centered around Indian, and that Indian kids eat veggies because they were made to taste good (the veggies, not the kids!). I grew up Italian, in terms of food. But the same theory applies in general, and that is, I liked my home cooked veggies because my mother, grandma, aunts knew how to make them taste good. I always thought the same applied to Chinese too, meaning most Chinese kids eat their vegetables becuase they are cooked to taste good. Same can be said of Thai, Malay, Korean and many other cuisines but sadly not for the bland and boring standard American or British foods.

I always thought about why American kids don't eat their veggies. The answer came to me one day. With nothing more than a pile of mushy, overcooked carrots, potatoes, peas and green beans on their plate, with no more imagination than the come-all, end-all pad of ubiquitous butter placed on top, it's no wonder everybody hates veggies in the States (and most likely the UK and northern Europe too).

My theory goes beyond Indian food--it has to do all with flavor. Italian food/veggies are not based on spice (like Indian food) but on herbs: basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, mint. But the idea is that veggetables are treated so they have FLAVOR. and taste good.

And that is what is so lacking in your standard, stove-top, plain-boiled USA vegetables.

And I still hate liver...... It's beyond being saved with either spcies or herbs.

Edited August 2, 2004 by Pompollo (log)

[tryska]

hmmm...like gingerly, i would say my experience was pan-indian as well, definitely omnivorous, and being mostly in the US, lots of meat.

my favorite foods was "karuppu curry" (meat that has been presure cooked with spices first, then dry fried - apparently i gave it that name when i was a kid), beetroot or white radish dal, okra, bitter gourd, drumstick sambar and sangati, masala dosas, idlis and peanut chutney.

least favorite - uppama (sp?). and plain dal with no chunky veggie bits in it. definitely no to kidneys and liver.

[jw46]

when I was a kid?...can I remember that far back?...lol

Disliked

Beetroots...Tolerates em now

Rutabegas.......Thought my Mother used them for punishment...

Asparagus..didn't have that too often...but still remembers...

Cauliflower...stared at otherwise empty plate for hours refusing them.

Liver...well, except for grandma's liver dumpling soup...

Most of the childhood dislikes were due to my Mom's limited desire to experiment and my Dad's disdain of almost every ethnic food, Spaghetti was a treat...

Once I learned that veggies don't have to boiled to a mush, (after I left home) I enjoy more of them, but they are rarely the "Star of the Show"...Only a marginal omnivore...

Liver, properly prepared, Calves Liver about 1/2" thick, soaked in milk, (no lactose intolerance in this boy)...dredged in flour and seared in bacon grease that onions have been fried in....Nicely seared on the outside, inside warmed thru, but very red...Like you would like Tuna cooked...Now, I consider Food of the Gods...

My Grandma died without writing down her liver dumpling soup recipe, and as much as my Mom and I have to tried to re-create it...good, but definitely not Grandma's...Perhaps the missing ingredient is Grandma's love...

[aneja_r]

As a child I hated milk and all the veggies cooked at home. But my stay in the hostel cured me and now as a grown up I like all the veggies , even milk.

[Monica Bhide]

As a child I hated milk and all the veggies cooked at home. But my stay in the hostel cured me and now as a grown up I like all the veggies , even milk.

Welcome to eG! And of course to the India forum -- where are you posting from? Do tell us a bit about yourself

Welcome!

[aneja_r]

hi, I am sorry I didnt introduce myself earlier. I have recenly joined this forum. I found this site by google search (I was looking for indian food forum). I am a doctor by professsion and have a very busy schedule, that means I do not do much cooking but I am passionate about reading recipes and everything about food. I live in delhi.