Musings on children's food choice

I should be congratulating myself after my second last food shift at my older son's parent co-op nursery, but after a conversation with another parent I was left rather bemused and unsure of what I should think. My butternut squash and cougette risotto seemed to have been fairly well received, with the usual few children not touching a bit of the food at all. However I was told that some children didn't eat, although the rather small amount of leftovers coming back to the kitchen informed me otherwise. I was also told that it was because some children didn't like to have different ingredients mixed together, as you of course would in a risotto. When I asked, this parent also said that she would normally serve up food with the food presented separately to maximise the chance of children eating the bits that they liked. I have no personal grudge against this parent for what she said, but it left a funny taste in my mouth.

Should I expect children to generally have food served separately on their plates so that they can easily pick out what they wanted to eat? I'm not so sure. Granted, if I was serving up a roast dinner with distinctly components, such as roast vegetables, meat and gravy, spuds, all having been cooked separately as per tradition, that has to be acceptable. But if I want my children to grow up appreciating food in all its glorious variety and all sorts of cuisines, not only knowing pasta and tomato sauce (though a great staple it can be! - or steamed rice and stir fry as us Chinese often end up eating day-in, day-out), they shouldn't we try to let them eat what we eat? Part of that must involve parents and children sitting together at the same dining table as often as possible and sharing the same fare. If I'm cooking risotto, then they ought to have risotto, as 'mixed up' the ingredients may be. If they are offered homemade minestrone, then they'll have to decide what to do with the beans they they don't have a care for. The hope is of course, that one day they will gradually reach the point of appreciating the whole dish and be tolerant of the bits that are less desirable to their taste buds, or even grow to like them.

It was exactly the same situation this evening when I served up my tomato and fish stew with pearl barley. I was struggling between cooking something that I knew my older son would scoff down, as opposed to pearl barley, which he had never been too keen on. According to the theory of the nursery parent I mentioned above, I could be causing my son to starve if he refused to eat the pearl barley and hence much of the rest of the dinner. It did take a little coaxing, but the fish juices and tomato combined seemed to have penetrated into the pearl barley enough for it to carry a nice, strong flavour. The pearl barley did go into my son's mouth spoonful after spoonful, and while he didn't finish it all and did first pick out the fish, carrots and potato which he favoured, he tried the pearl barley. That's all that matters to me.