Kids Cuisine

Editor’s note: Erika and her family are working their way through the alphabet by trying a new vegetable each week.

The asparagus adventure has been revealing to me. Over the last week or so I have prepared asparagus about five times — each way different from the other. The first preparation was simply roasted in a hot oven with salt, pepper, and olive oil. Roasted asparagus didn’t even warrant a taste to my children. Clearly I needed to work on presentation… maybe I even needed to hide it a bit. The second round led to an asparagus-pesto lasagna, where I did not even tell them asparagus was included. They ate it, but it was clearly not their favorite thing to eat.

For the next method I turned to Easy-To-Elegant Asparagus Soup. This one they liked. I pureed the asparagus into oblivion and they both ate it up — my son more-so than my daughter — lapping up the last few drops with relish. That led me to believe that they enjoy the asparagus flavor, but maybe they were having difficulty with texture when cooked. I served it up raw,stems peeled with some ranch dressing to dip in, and they loved it. Each of them ate several stalks with gusto, declaring their love for raw asparagus.
I had one final preparation in mind. I wanted them to know they were eating cooked asparagus, but I wanted it to be something they couldn’t wait to sink their teeth into. I sunk to the depths of pork-fat and wrapped those delicate asparagus spears with a strip of bacon before baking them. Yes, you read that right, bacon-wrapped asparagus hit their plates for one final challenge. They were both instantly intrigued and picked up the stalks for a nibble. With one taste, my daughter instantly declared that this was the best way to cook asparagus. Then she got caught up in the texture. With several teeth missing from her smile, it was a bit challenging for her to bite through the stalk, and eventually she ended up setting it to the side, never to go back. My son ate a few bites, and then proceeded to nibble the bacon off the asparagus.

My first conclusion as to asparagus is that bacon is not the way to go. While it was insanely delicious, I am certain that the layer of pork-fat completely negates the health benefits of asparagus. My second conclusion is that my children don’t care much for the texture of cooked asparagus. I can work with that. If it means soup or an asparagus pesto sauce, I can do that for them. I even have a crazy idea of pureeing some and combining with mashed potatoes for a unique spring side dish. Overall, though, if they love asparagus raw, I think I’ll let them eat it raw. It takes very little effort to leave out a few raw stalks for them and peel the tough ends. I think the asparagus challenge has proven quite successful. It got me thinking outside the box, and it also opened up my children’s minds a bit when they knew I wanted their honest opinions. We are now on the prowl for our B vegetable, and I think this time I’ll let the kids pick from a list. Any suggestions?