I m not against kids enjoying good food, even grown-up food like sushi or goat cheese risotto balls But being a foodie means having an aroused and rarefied interest in unusual foods; and that, inevitably, means an implicit detestation of regular, crappy foods. I may be the only professional food writer I know who eats Go-Go Taquitos at 7-11 as part of his regular diet; and I would get bounced out of the profession if people knew what I did behind closed doors.
I don t want to be the one to suggest that it s wrong to encourage prepubescent epicureanism in a country where 46 million people are on food stamps but it is wrong. I know no kid is moved by warnings that children are starving in Biafra; but they should be aware that children are starving three blocks over. Not to pick on the Times piece, which is both old and ludicrous, but I can t stop thinking of the photograph, of three princelings being waited upon by what appear to be hispanic servers. The image is one with more than a whiff of feudal privilege, in the context of which the children s choices seem totally gross and un-American.
Happily, there s another way that kids are being caught up in the country s food mania. And it s one which I think should be encouraged at the expense of restaurant meals. That s the trend for getting kids into cooking. Last week the Food Network Magazine announced that it would be creating a new title for children, in which chefs cook with their kids. A new PBS series, Hey Kids, Let s Cook! is heading into its second season, and over the last few years some of the leading cookbook authors, such as Rachael Ray and Rozanne Gold have released cookbooks aimed at kids. This is a trend I can get behind. Cooking is better for kids than eating; it makes them aware of how much work goes into making something good to eat, and it will inevitably give them standards that will make junk food look bad. It s also a kind of emergency home economics for an era when few households have an adult at their disposal full time. My hero Colonel Sanders learned to cook at the age of 7, making food for his young siblings while his mother worked in a factory; sadly, there are a lot of kids like him out there. Who knows? Once these kids learn to cook, maybe they ll become good eaters too, and skip being foodies entirely.
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