It's Rex Manning Day! It's Rex Manning Day!

[apocalypsos]

Otherwise known as Bulk Trash Day, otherwise known as Dumpster Diving Sans Dumpsters Day. My parents have a big pile of trash on their front lawn and people have been picking through it all day. By the time I took my desktop and one of my TVs up there most of it was gone, with the exception of a big pile of old wood-frame windows (apparently there were even more there before) and the keyboards from the three or four old computers my dad put out there.

I doubt my desktop's going to be out there very long. It's a main drag and it still looks good, so good riddance and good luck to anybody who wants it. The only thing that's wrong with it is the CD drive popping out occasionally, but that's something they can easily get fixed.

*

Down With Picky Eating -- A Parent's Tale From Beijing

I don't know about his supposition that people will be more open to eating strange foods if they have no other choices. It just doesn't feel right. I mean, yeah, there's something to it, but it feels like it kicks having a general love of food right in the shins.

I can't afford a lot of strange new foods. I usually stick with what I know I can afford -- Pepsi (my addiction), Cheetos, chicken jambalaya, canned veggies, tomato soup, peanut butter sandwiches, Banquet chicken dinners, etc. But I love food and I'll try anything once. Who knows? Maybe I'll like it, maybe I won't. Can't hurt to try it once. And if I try it and like it, like sushi, that's one more thing I can have, and if I try it and don't, like with Vegemite, I get a funny anecdote out of the deal. It's win-win. :)

If his kids had grown up in America, that would be one thing, but he's raising them in China, where even he admits the variety is wider and yet different from American food. You can't pat yourself on the back because your kids will try anything when they don't even know what parmesan in a can is and don't make it sound as if it's something they WOULD try, if given the option.

And the story about him paying his kid a buck to try a slice of salmon is familiar -- my dad once offered to buy me a little stuffed dog if I tried a prune. I didn't like it, but the dog was cute.

Comments

[minim_calibre]

I've been having this whole food conversation elsewhere today! His view is contradicted by science! Which has researched kids eating habits and found that, shockingly, it's mostly genetics that determines who is picky and who isn't!

(Vegemite, even if you don't love it, makes a great stock base for soups. In the event that you've found yourself with a jar of the stuff.)

(As I used to eat those boullion cubes when I was a kid, Vegemite was right up my alley.)

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Heh. I didn't think I'd like Vegemite -- and yeah, I really didn't -- but I wasn't about to say, "Ewww," without trying it first.

There was a pretty awesome pizza recipe on the first episode of Top Chef that had Marmite in the sauce that I have been meaning to try. I just need the spare cash, I guess. :)

[scary-being-me.livejournal.com]

My father dared me to eat a raw steamer once when I was a kid. It was...unpleasant.

[snacky]

I just wanted to use this icon. :D

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I think that's fair. :)

[jtersesk.livejournal.com]

I think that food that you're exposed to regularly cannot be considered strange. So while we in the US might find scorpions and goat testicles to be strange and gross foods, those are normal to eat in other places. It's not that his kids are more adventurous, just that they haven't been conditioned to think those foods are weird to begin with. It's just about what's around you.

[crevette.livejournal.com]

As a parent of an American child who will eat most things (she doesn't like steak, but will devour beef and brocolli with the exact same steak she turned her nose up at the day before, but otherwise) I think part of the issue is parents who coddle their children.

I know a woman who makes her child a totally seperate meal Every. Single. Day.

The fuck? That's a child who is exerting control over the household and running wild with it. And the parent is letting her do it.

If there is no dietary reason for your child to NOT eat what the family is eating, then the child gets served what everyone else is eating. If they don't like it, they go hungry. The kitchen closes at six.

Liv when through the picky phase and met with the above brick wall. She then thought it smart to THROW UP at the dinner table when there was something she didn't like.

Little did she realize that meant that she was sick and sick children go to bed right then and there.

There were three (?) nights of her in bed at 5:30 PM screaming, "BUT IT'S STILL LIGHT OUT! THIS ISN'T FAIR!"

She figured it out pretty quickly after that. There are still things she doesn't like to this day, but she'll take the bare miniumum of it, eat it quickly and then move on.

Of course, this is the kid I have to take a second mortgage out to afford her trips to the sushi bar.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

My mom grew up in a house with a sister, five brothers, and two tough parents. If my grandmother made something, you ate it, like it or not, and it's been the same way with nearly every single one of my cousins. (The sole exception being my youngest cousin, who's spoiled rotten and gets whatever she wants. My grandmother is looking down from Heaven and gritting her teeth at that.)

I once had to sit at the kitchen table for hours because my mother made tuna casserole and I haaaaated it. I eventually managed to get it down -- ew -- but she never made it again.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

Dude, when we had bulky pickup some guy was taking all our metal junk while I was still putting shit out. It's hilarious, and yet I don't wanna tell you some of the neat stuff we've found while bulky-pickup-diving.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Apparently my parents were watching TV last night at nine and they heard people outside digging through their pile. Hey, as long as your crap goes away, right?

I drove around town and gave everybody's pile a good once-over, but nothing really struck me as worth it. Everybody must have gotten the good stuff yesterday.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

I don't know about his supposition that people will be more open to eating strange foods if they have no other choices.

Historically, that's how it's been. When people reach starvation level - eat it or die - that's when strange foods start entering the menu. For example, until the mass starvation at the end of WWII, whale consumption had been limited to a few small villages on the coast of Japan. The Americans established the industry as a way to feed the large masses of people who no longer had any jobs, farms, or any way to get themselves food.

It's definitely the perspective thing, though. US food culture is atrocious. Being a white kid raised in China compared to that is definitely a privilege.

[darcydodo]

I think this is my favorite line: "It’s possible Italians are so haughty about their cuisine that they think even their breast milk is superior."

[scottique.livejournal.com]

You just inspired me to watch Empire Records.

SO I DID.

:-D