Somewhat proven theory: Including kids in the food process creates good eaters. I often take Ollie to the supermarket with me and I let him pick out all kinds of things to buy. Last week he really wanted to get something from the fish counter, and he picked New Zealand cockles. I broke my “keep it local” rule because when your kid asks for cockles, how can you say no?
When dinner rolled around, I made a linguine with tomato sauce, olives, and capers and cooked the cockles in the sauce. Ollie had fun eating them out of the shell at the table, using one shell to pluck the meat out of another, just like when we eat mussels. He was pretty excited to eat them.
I also include him in the cooking as much as possible, so that he’s part of the whole process. Does this make him a better eater? Hard to say with my limited data set (my daughter eats anything, like she’d eat a raw piece of liver off the floor if you let her). But I do know that including him in the shopping gets us eating things even I wouldn’t think of buying (like cockles!) and broadens the palate of our entire family.