Mr. Neville is visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and Niece 1 and Niece 2. Niece 1 will be five in July, and Niece 2 was 3 in February. Mr. Neville said that they took him to an Indian restaurant for dinner. He also said that Niece 1 and Niece 2 liked the naan and pooris, though they didn’t like the curries. I’m really proud of them for trying the curries, and of their parents for letting them try something other than the usual “kid food”.
I don’t know about my brother-in-law, but my sister at least was not brought up that way. Our parents are the least adventurous eaters in North America. I never got to go to an Indian restaurant until I was in college, and, as far as I know, neither did my sister.
Not earth-shattering, or anything, but I just wanted to kvell over them a little here.
LOVE it! They are GREAT girls!
Congrats on your sister and BIL.
We take my daughter (4) to eat sushi with us. She will try various rolls, but normally doesn’t show much interest. She loves egg drop soup, rice, and edemame, though.
My seven-year-old loves hot-and-sour soup, and I know adults that won’t try that!
Cool! Cool about the girls, and cool about their parents, and actually thank you for sharing. And yay for Indian food.
<not even sneak bragging> My 10-month-old son’s favorite non-baby foods are spicy Moroccan mashed eggplant (zaalouk) and goat cheese. A couple of nights ago he was digging bits of saucy brisket and cornbread with chiles in it, which his daddy carefully let him try. </nesb> Of course when he’s a toddler he might go all normal on me and scream if his ketchup breathes on his mac-n-cheese, I realize that.
I just made (vegetarian) lasagna (with mushrooms, eggplant and tomato filling) and greek salad for the 4 and 9 year old girls of one of my buddies, and their parents.
The girls ate a lot of it which impressed their parents. 
The youngest didn’t like the salad much but ate a lot of the black olives, and the oldest ate everything except the mushrooms.
I feel kinda proud. I hardly ever cook for young kids, and I feel that it’s cheating to make separate dishes for kids vs adults (there are some things I think kids usually don’t like - but not as much as you might think; as far as I can tell, kids mostly don’t really like fiddly food - pasta is good, whole shrimps are not, and they tend to be wary of anything that looks unfamiliar).
This reminds me of a story about my nephew, now age 7, then age 4-ish. His folks love Indian food and so their kids have had it many times. I’d gone with them for Indian one night, and we’re sitting around the table, eating and chatting. I don’t remember what my nephew was having, but what I do remember is this: eyes closed, totally blissed out, he says, “I love this food sooooooooooooo much.”
My 6 year old loves sushi - her favourite though is chowamushi.
She eats curries (indian and chinese), naan, and most other stuff. We don’t cook “kid food” for her, other than to make sure there is no chili (or minimal chili) inside the food she is served.
She has only ever eaten mac n cheese once.
We just went to a local Middle Eastern joint this weekend for the first time, and our kids loved it - I thought the spices would be a bit beyond them, but I guess kebabs and humus suit their palates.
The food was awesome, and they had belly dancing - it was funnier than hell watching my 4 year old son sloooowly hide his face behind his chair whenever the dancer came by our table.
My 18 month old likes olives, dhal and curry laksa. I figure she’s too young to be put off by strange smells and textures, so good to get in while she’s still mailable and it’s all ‘food is fun’.
Bravo for them.
It is good thing to introduce the little ones to different foods. Unlikely anything will harm them.
They may well go through a picky phase, a fair percentage of kids do.
The best advice is to just ride it out. Keep offering it, keep asking them to taste it and reward them when they do, ignore it when they don’t.
If you keep exposing them to different tastes, textures and flavours they’ll probably develop a wide range of likes sooner or later.
My biggest tip? get them involved. I had my 5 and 3 year olds sat on the kitchen counter last night helping to make pizza. We de-stoned olives (me with a knife, them by nibbling around the stone!!!) chopped up onion, tomato, pepper, crushed garlic and olive oil with basil for drizzling, tore up the mozzeralla.
And they were told that they had to try all of the things before they put them on, just to make sure they were “ripe” or “OK” for everyone.
Normally they wouldn’t choose to eat all of those ingredients raw or on their own but were happy to do it as part of the bigger picture.
Bless 'em. they are a struggle sometimes at that age but the simple things like making a pizza or a family meal can be massively rewarding.