Max and I had an exciting afternoon cooking bread together. Cooking with Max is one of those adventures that seems like a great idea until you actually attempt it. He loves the whole process, but seems to feel his role is to grab everything he can get his hands on and throw it on the floor. That said, he often makes a good helper (by which I mean he doesn't hinder the process too much) if his job is to put the lid on and off a pot repeatedly. He also really loves to stir things in bowls, which works really well when making bread. Usually letting him stir things is a little dangerous because he tends to pick up some batter on his wooden spoon and, you guessed it, throw it on the floor, but bread dough is so thick that it tends to stay in the bowl even when you sick Max on it. Since the bread dough was so stubborn, Max took up his third role whilst helping cook: eating. He usually tries to grab whatever ingredient you are currently working with (butter, eggs, sugar exc.) and put it in his mouth. Raw bread dough was no exception.
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Max, unable to throw bread dough on the floor.
Notice he looks depressed. |
As I watched Max bring the dough to his mouth I was reminded of the time my sister's son asked to drink some beer. He was perhaps 2 and a half and was begging for some "pop".
Son: My want pop!
Sister: That's not pop. Its beer. It makes you woozy in the head.
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I think he might have been laughing at me
in this picture.... |
Son: My want woozy in the head!
Greta: Let him drink it. It will taste terrible and he will never want it again.
Sister (to son): OK, you can have some beer, but it doesn't taste good.
My sisters son eagerly grabbed the beer, took a big gulp and then spit it out all over the table. "My NO LIKE that pop!" he declared.
And so, I figured, let Max eat the raw bread dough. It will taste terrible and he will learn not to eat raw baking. I bet you can guess how this ends. Max LOVES raw bread dough. He ate the whole fist full declaring "mmmmmm" the whole time. The lesson in this experience is that I will not be letting him try beer
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Max can barely contain all the bread dough
in his mouth. Despite appearances he
is not about to hurl.
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Kids really know how to experience stuff. I agree with Max. Not only does bread dough feel great on your hands, but it does taste "Mmmmmm". Not as good as cooked, but there is the whole delayed gratification thing that takes some time to learn -- if ever ;)
ReplyDeleteAs a parent I felt a constant pull (which I resisted mightily) to make the children do things the right way. Sometimes there are safety concerns (eating raw chicken or your own poop) and sometimes we justify based on our narrow adult preferences. My own mother would never have let me eat raw bread dough, "it will give you worms," she would say. Yet, she never balked at letting me have large handfuls of cookie dough. The difference... sugar, butter and chocolate chips (I'm sure butter has some sort of de-worming effect).
Plus, raw foods are all the rage, right now. Max is on the leading edge of a trend. Glad you guys had fun experimenting.
In general I agree with your approach. That is why I let him have the bread. I'm not sure I agree with you, though, that raw bread tastes "mmmmmm".
ReplyDeleteI've completely given up with cookie dough - it actually has raw eggs, but trying to keep him out of it is like trying to keep a 300 lbs boulder from rolling down a hill. Any chance butter also has some anti-salmonella effects?