SC - Children's feasts

[Phil & Susan Troy]

Jeanne Stapleton wrote:

> I would think a wise parent would be prepared with snacks,
> etc., knowing their own child better; but I can also see the
> concern about not letting the child "ruin their dinner" and
> thereby waste food and the money paid for the feast ticket.
> I'm not in favor of waste, and I'm in favor of teaching kids
> "waste not, want not" early.

Often I've been in a situation where my kid is ravenous, and everyone is
seated, and the first course just doesn't arrive in any kind of a timely
fashion. The dried krajana sausage (kind of like commercial kielbasa but made
from actual meat, like chunks of ham in a sausage casing) comes out, along with
whatever cheese, olives, fruit, etc., are left over from our lunch basket.
Usually a lunch is available at local events, but just to be on the safe side,
we usually pack a basket of reserve supplies. It's saved lives on occasion, but
I've noticed glares of considerable envy from adults in the vicinity when we
are forced to get it out.

>
>
> Also, as horrific as the general selection of fare proposed may
> seem--mac and cheese really isn't all that bad, especially when
> done as "macrows" rather than out of the blue box with the
> powdered mix (best use for that:  projectiles at the appropirate
> moment at a Barenaked Ladies concert!  :-)).  The list of con-
> venience foods provided *is* pretty much all some kids I know
> will eat; and while we may wring out hands and look askance
> at the child's future eating habits and limited horizons, the fact
> is in the here and now, that child's weekly lunch and dinner fare
> is...Chef Boy-ar-Dee, Kraft, Oscar Meyer.

Get thee behind me, unclean spirit!!! The sad fact is that this is pretty
accurate in many cases...

> I know quite a few kids who are adventurous eaters; the famed
> story about how Countess Morag's second son got into a fellow
> diner's hot Thai curry from the lofty perch of his high chair when
> the diners were otherwise occupied and sucked several bites
> down before anyone noticed...and seemed to love it!  I don't
> know if Duchess Verena is still on this list, but her elder
> daughter's list of acceptable foods was pretty much cheeseburgers
> and macaroni and cheese, and her younger wanted sushi for her
> fifth birthday...

I seem to recall my son eating five of those little rib lamb chops at around
age five or six months...last night he was quite enthused over the calamari
fritte with spicy tomato sauce, and at this very moment, as I write this, he's
finishing up some iron steak with onions and black mushrooms in oyster sauce,
over rice, with a side of dry-sauteed baby bok tsoy. He's not your average
seven-year-old, but I'm glad to hear he's not alone in his unusual diet.

> It isn't possible to please everyone, and I don't think the point is
> even to try,but to try to come up with a reasonable approach
> that has some humanity involved.  To me, the approach of offering
> a selection of the more familiar foods straight from the
> feast kettles--meatballs, plain rice, bread, beef stew, carrot-based
> organisms--for children at an earlier hour than the main feast, at a
> time which is *not* subject to whatever may be transpiring in court
> at the time, seems like the soundest approach.

Yeah, the last is a good point, one I tried to make but may have left
unstressed: it's one thing to expect adults, who are in this organization
voluntarily, to sit through courts and other delays before being fed. Children,
who are often at the event primarily so that their parents can attend, are
another story, and expecting them to wait an unknown time upon the vagaries of
courts and the whims of the muckety-mucks is a little unfair.

At the moment we in the East are lucky: our current King and Queen have two
small children, so there's very little of that nonsense in this reign.

Adamantius
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com


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