Palate play

Nancy Tringali Piho, a native of Columbia who now lives in Washington, D.C., is a 20-year veteran of the food marketing industry. When she and her husband became parents, they didn't want to default to the chicken nuggets and french fries diet for their sons. So they committed to a long-term strategy to teach their children to appreciate a variety of foods and flavors.

Piho shares her tips and secrets in a new book, "My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus: Raising Children Who Love to Eat Everything." She writes with a sense of humor and draws upon real-life situations, yet frames her advice with nutrition, research and thoughtful discussion of issues. She draws upon the wisdom of chefs, food experts, health professionals and her own experience.

The book focuses on developing children's tastes in the critical early years -- newborn to age 5 or 6.

Food Editor Teresa Taylor talked by phone with Piho, who will be in Charleston this weekend for two events (see accompanying box).

Q: Why did you decide to write this book? How is it different from other books on the subject?

A: I got very interested in the topic, obviously, from having children and having worked so long in the food industry. When I had kids, it really hit me how much of an impact it (marketing) is having on children -- what they're being fed and what they're being given to eat now and how different that is from perhaps the way a lot of us grew up.

I started looking around at other books that had been written. I noticed that a lot of books written on this topic were from a nutritional point of view. They were from RDs (registered dietitians) and they were all about how much fiber a child needs, vitamins and so forth, and how to get that in them every day. There are also a lot of cookbooks with recipes, family-friendly that would appeal to children and sort of a smaller subset group of books by psychologists and doctors.

What I thought was missing was a discussion on taste, the taste of food and how children can learn to eat the way we do just by being exposed to different foods. A discussion on taste and texture and quality of food and how that can benefit children.

Q: One of my parents' methods was the "clean plate club." They encouraged us to be "members" and made that kind of fun. But they also withheld dessert unless you finished the meal. Is withholding dessert a good or bad strategy?

A: It works on my 2-year-old, absolutely. Sometimes I just flat-out say there will be no dessert tonight because you didn't eat your dinner. Experts will tell you ... what seems to work best is if you present the dessert at the end of the meal as simply another course. It's not a great reward, it's not, 'Oh, this is fabulous, here it is,' it's just dinner and then dessert. If you didn't get through dinner, well then, you don't get step 2 ... but not as a reward for finishing.

Q: What would be the harm in reward?

A: It's setting up the whole concept of food as a reward, it can set the stage for a psychological battle. They can begin to hate the vegetables more than they love the dessert.

Q: One of the things you encourage is for expectant and new mothers to eat well and eat a variety of foods, because that sets the stage for the breast-fed baby to like them, too. But what if you're an adult picky eater, what if you don't like those things but you'd like to turn things around for your child?

A: I think what the research would say on that, it's not the specific foods that are exact corollaries ... if I eat collards, my child will eat collards. It's more the broad picture, it's the spices, it's the flavor, it's not the specific foods. So if you do not like broccoli, and you never eat it when you're pregnant and you never eat it when you're breast-feeding, I don't think it means necessarily that your child is never going to eat broccoli. As long as you're eating other things, eating a relatively broad diet, chances are one food, two foods that you can't stand to eat, that's not how it works.

Having said that, I think a lot of women at that stage get in a rut, a mind-set. They remember they tried spinach five years ago, (or) they haven't eaten it since they were a child and they didn't like it then. I would encourage them to try new things. It's certainly a good time to broaden the diet.

Q: Infant, toddler, preschooler: Is any one of these times more critical than the others for influencing your child's eating habits? Why or why not?

A: Unfortunately, probably the hardest one, and that's the toddler stage, only because it can truly can be the hardest stage. I think that's the time parents, in an attempt to solve the problem or put a Band-Aid over it, tend to slip into some habits that cause problems down the line. Not that it can't be fixed at a later time, but that's just a period when the greatest challenges can come up. That's certainly the case with both of my kids.

Q: Typical kids' meals (chicken nuggets, etc.) or junk food -- you might be able to avoid them at home, but how can parents steer their kids away from them in restaurants or when exposed to other situations?

A: I think with the restaurants, my best strategy on that, if you can, we simply do not give them a children's menu. They don't even know they exist.

What we do is order something appetizer size. When they were really little, they shared with us, (but) when they get a little older and they need something, we get a salad or an appetizer, something small for them. Or, now that we've got two, a lot of times we'll just order another entree and let them split it. But rule No. 1, we have really just tried to not go there with the children's menu. That has actually worked pretty well.

You don't want your child to be the pariah. The idea with the kids when they do go out (to other houses) ... it will surprise you what people feed their kids. My general rule is, if they're out at somebody else's house, I pretty much let everything go. But my rule is, we don't do it at home.

Q: Getting kids to eat vegetables is always one of the hardest challenges. What are a few key suggestions you have?

A: The thing that has worked the best with us with vegetables, particularly green vegetables, is to really pay attention to the way you are preparing them. I think we fall into this mind-set, particularly with little kids, that vegetables have to be cooked in the microwave or boiled with water and that's it. Think about going a step beyond that, with roasting them, sauteeing them with a little olive oil, spices or herbs, or stir-frying, something that will give it a little more interest.

That's what I did with Brussels sprouts. Basically just chopping them up and stirring them with a little bit of olive oil, garlic and orange juice. They loved them. That got them into the idea, and then we were roasting them.

Q: What are the biggest mistakes parents make? Why do so many give up?

A: I never said any of this was easy. It's tough. Some of the research shows, particularly with an infant, babies or first exposure, it can take up to 15 times for a child to be exposed to a food before he really will accept it. How many of us want to be rejected 14 times? The best encouragement I can give is to recognize it really is a long-term thing.

Just because right now, everything is falling apart, it's just so easy to go and make some macaroni and cheese and end everything. That's not necessarily the best solution. It might be better to say, OK, he's just not hungry tonight, we're not going to eat, we're just going to go to bed early rather than sliding into things that become bad habits.

It tends to be at that toddler stage because things can get pretty dire.

Q: Some foods look kind of odd, weird to kids. How do you get past that? How about an aversion to green?

A: Turn that curiosity or aversion into a positive. 'Oh, this looks interesting, doesn't this look good.' Just because children initially reject things, it's not necessarily that they've written it off as soon as we write it off for them.

Q: Is there a point when "teaching" might be applied with too much pressure that would cause more harm than good?

A: Sometimes making too big a deal out of it either way can cause more harm than good. Overpraising can cause you problems -- 'Oh, this is so good, isn't that wonderful, you ate your beans' -- that can backfire on you, too, just as much as, 'I'm going to punish you because you didn't eat that.' There is something to be said for a certain nonchalance about it. A lot of times, the best strategy is to just relax about it, not worry about it too much, but at the same time don't cave in or feel guilty, as in, 'They're going to starve to death if I don't make them a sandwich.'

Q: What if your spouse doesn't like food for an expanded palate? How do you get your kids to try it if he or she won't?

A: That can be a problem. I talk a lot about the negative comments : 'Daddy doesn't like this, Daddy doesn't like spicy foods, Daddy doesn't like seafood.' It tends to wipe entire categories. It's something you really have to talk about with your spouse. You have to agree that it's an important issue. If it is worth something to you as a parent, something you view as a positive -- a love of food, a love of cuisine -- you want to give to your kids, I think both parents have to be at least on the same page with that idea.

If Daddy doesn't want to try this, that's fine, but Daddy doesn't need to make a big deal about it.

Q: Kids' taste change over time; they'll like something at first and then decide they don't. How do you keep up that interest in different types of food?

A: I think that's very much to be expected. Virtually every child goes through that at some point. It's a matter of accepting it's where they are in development. My Willie is sort of going through that now. It's a lot of things, outside influences, their friends, they're getting into so many new things at that age. It's one of those times you have to take the long-term view.

Like many phases of childhood, it's not your favorite, but you're going to get through it. Often without a lot that you're doing yourself. The child naturally will come back to it.

Q: What if you are late to the game, you didn't start with an infant. You're starting with a toddler or a preschooler. How can you improve on a child's eating habits?

A: It's difficult. I'm not going to say that every meal will go swimmingly; there's not some magic bullet solution. It's simply adopting the attitude yourself, becoming more interested in food.

I always like to point out the benefits of exposing children to foods in so many different ways. With my son, we just love to sit and look at cookbooks together, food magazines or the food pages of the newspaper. Just making comments about a recipe, a picture, or 'doesn't that look good.' It's just that interest in food. A lot of it comes from the parents. If you personally want to start transmitting that to your child, you have to take it on yourself. Understand it's going to be a gradual process, things you'll have to backtrack over: 'We're going to try this instead of this today, or maybe we're not going to have this in the house anymore, or buying this. Or, we're going somewhere else instead of McDonald's, where we've been going every day or week for a year. There will be some resistance.

Victory is in small steps, and you look for it in small ways.

Tricks of the trade

We asked a few local chefs what they do or have done to encourage their children to like a variety of foods.

Robert Carter, executive chef of Peninsula Grill, father to two boys, ages 7 and 5.

“My biggest thing is ... let them help you in the kitchen. If they help you, they are more apt to try it. Let them stir or mix something.

“The other thing is to cut food up small. The third thing is to talk to them before they eat.

They are much more apt to eat it if they’ve been talked to about what you’re cooking. Then it’s not a surprise to them.”

Fred Neuville, chef-owner of the Fat Hen and Wild Olive on Johns Island, and father to four teenagers (all adopted between ages 4 and 7):

“Hide it! This was the deal when our kids came to us — they would not eat anything unless it was chicken fingers or hot dogs. So what we did was, we had to get their tastes used to eating nutritional food. We started off with basic carrots, onion and celery. We would make a chicken and rice dish and puree the vegetables. So they would get used to eating it without knowing it. After a while, we would make that same dish with diced onions, carrots and celery. And they wouldn’t eat it, but we said, ‘You’ve been eating it all along.’ So they would taste it and like it, so they got over ‘seeing’ them (the vegetables).”

Simon Andrews, chef at the Francis Marion Hotel and father to two kids ages 14 and 10.

“David, my youngest, he didn’t eat anything except chicken fingers or hot dogs. He really liked chicken, so we’re going to call the pork chicken and we did the same the with turkey.

We cook foods that play off what he likes and call it something similar.

“We found out David loves lemon pepper chicken wings, so I made seasonings with lemon and pepper. If we smother it with the seasoning, he loves it.

“Chris will eat anything. It started when we went to Ireland two years ago. We went to a restaurant in a castle and the whole menu was in Gaelic. He said, ‘Dad, you can order for me.’ He ate a full Irish breakfast. It has blood pudding, white pudding, sauteed kidneys or livers. Well, he ate the whole thing. He didn’t like the texture but he liked the flavor. We told him afterward. Once he got over the texture thing, he was fine.

“Once we find something they like, we run with it. The oldest likes eggs because I showed how to cook them. It’s an ongoing struggle.”

Donald Barickman, chef and partner in Hospitality Management Group, which includes Magnolias, Blossom and Cypress restaurants. He is father to twin boys, 16 years old.

“At a young age, they observed us eating at restaurants. We always shied away from the kids menus When they were young, they loved to eat mussels at Blossom. They loved picking them out of the

shells, and for the same reason they liked clams.

“We also steamed whole artichokes at home — any kind of food that was a little more involved than a knife and a fork. It was interesting food you could eat with your hands: the adventure of peeling something down, eating it until you get to the heart, which is the best part. Or grilling steaks at home, things like that they enjoyed, it created a passion for grilled meat.

“Finger food, pork ribs, chicken scallopine ... they really got into pounding the chicken with the hammer. Kind of the physical thing.”