For 12 years, I got off easy, raising twin boys who are effortlessly healthy and fit and will eat anything. They used to do adorable things like "sneak" extra slices of bell pepper from the fridge.
Then, 3 years ago, I was introduced to real-life parenting, when my then-8-year-old step-son came to live with us. He is also adorable and I love him, but it is a real challenge sometimes, to affect healthy habits with him. For one thing, he will not eat the fresh fruit I send in his lunch box, no matter what I've tried. He knows I try and will discreetly toss his fruit in the trash can in his bedroom, to please me with the illusion that he ate it at school. (Unfortunately, this makes his trash smell after a while and kind of defeats the purpose, but I try to appreciate the thought behind it.)
Recently, while grocery shopping with me, he quipped that if I would just buy "expensive, exotic" fruit (like his mom, in California, evidently eats), he'd be more inclined to eat it. With his mom, there's a lot of emphasis on the importance of the 4 E's: expensive, exclusive, exotic, eclectic. My husband and I can't really afford those priorities...and don't really care. But all differences in values aside, of course I wanted to know specifically what fruit - within reason - he considered "expensive and exotic" enough to eat, at lunch?
Kumquats were on his list. Kumquats were on sale. Now we have a big bag of kumquats. This morning, I made enticing-looking fruit salads for all the lunch boxes: sweet red grapefruit, purple grapes, kiwi slices and kumquats. Then I tasted one. Y-U-C-K! I have been bamboozled. For all my kid's theorizing about what he'd like to eat - based on how exotic he thought it was - left to his own devices, his tastes are those of a plain, old-fashioned junk food junkie: refined sugar and carbs, refined sugar and carbs. There is no way he's going to eat these things. Neither will anyone else around here. At least, not as fresh fruit.
So what else can you do with kumquats? Does anyone have a good recipe for, say, Kumquat Beef and Snow Peas? Help!
I did. First, I tried one with the rind on...and I really liked it! Who would've guessed that the rind is sweet? Then I lined up all of our kids and had them try one. My step-son said it was "OK". I laughingly told him I'd received the advice, from my Mothering site, to make him finish off the whole bag. Without batting an eyelash, he said that would be fine. However, I've sent him one in his lunch each day, along with a handful of Craisins. He hasn't touched them. So, we're still telling him since he won't eat fruit at school, if he wants a snack when he gets home, it's fruit!
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