Creating a Food Snob

As I find myself making my two year old daughter a turkey, bacon, mozzarella sandwich with pesto on a spinach wrap, I'm keenly aware that I'm creating a food snob ~She likes a tuna melt with cucumbers, sour cream, and dill too!  She's as picky as most two year olds but she also has unusual tastes... such as eggplant parmigiana. Kids eat what they know though, so she comes by it honestly.

Though I consider myself a foodie, I'm a picky eater.  (I don't like spicy foods and I have texture issues too.)  I am however, a good 'trier'.  I'll try anything once (ask me about calves's brains, or maybe... on second thought, don't).  I like to cook and experiment with flavors and spices and so does my husband.  We also watch a ton of Food Network in search of new methods and ideas.  My husband and I are notoriously selective when ordering when we go out to dinner.  We hate ordering things we could make (and make better) at home.

The love of cooking, I received from my grandmother.  While her meals weren't fancy she made things from scratch and enjoyed doing it. She taught me how to make a Béchamel by the time I was seven.  (What better way to get a child to eat vegetables than by teaching her how to make her own cheesy-garlic sauce to cover them, right?)  She also wasn't afraid to try things or adapt her recipes either. When I discovered a love Asian cuisine, we learned to stir-fry together. I remember when microwaves came out and my grandmother was one of the first people I knew to have one.  We experimented with it all the time; my grandmother was determined we were going to figure out a way to make omelets in it... but we never did.  But all of this reminiscing got me thinking, that a lot of my food snobbery got started in my grandmother's kitchen.  Most of all, it started with the bread.

My grandmother and I used to walk to the super market once a week and we would buy fresh bread.  Toast was one of the few things I'd eat for breakfast, as my stomach is not interested in food in the morning and wasn't even at that age.  But I only ate toast for my grandmother.  My mom?  No way.  It took them a while to realize that what I was objecting to was sliced, store bought bread.  There is a huge difference in taste between the two, having to do with the preservatives companies put in to extend the bread's shelf-life. 

As I got older, this dislike of store bought bread turned into a dislike of sandwiches as well. It didn't help that I dislike all the ordinary condiments either (mayo, relish, mustard, or ketchup).  By high school I was eating salads or yogurts for lunch. Then in college I discovered wraps and condiments like brown sauce, grain mustard, and hoison, and sandwiches took on a whole new dimension for me. 

My bread snobbery culminated a few years ago with my husband buying me a bread maker.  It's been heaven!  Now I make all kinds of bread from herbed to chocolate.  The only thing I tend to avoid is sourdough, but mainly because it's too much work (my grandmother and I tried once and I remember it being a tedious process).  I'm eating toast (and bread) again.  I still prefer wraps over sandwiches, but I eat the latter with more frequency.

However, the lack of store bought bread in our home brings me full circle to my daughter.  For me, it all started with the bread.  I'm trying not to give her my bad habits, but I can't help but wonder, how will this second generation fresh-baked bread girl turn out?