In this thread, YWalker states “If children will eat nothing else, they will eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” I happen to agree with that statement. But it got me wondering - what do kids in China consider the universal food? How 'bout Iceland? Morocco? England? The Netherlands?
'Fess up, people. What do you non-Americans feed yer kids as the default food when they won’t eat anything else?
Growing up Indian, the generic sort of “fine, if you won’t eat ANYTHING else tonight…” food was either plain rice with homemade yogurt, salt, and pepper, or bananas sliced up in a bowl of milk with a bit of sugar. Bland, harmless, squishy, comforting. I still have it sometimes, even though I’m in college. 
Well, I hear tell the Ozzies consider their Vegemite to be the equivalent of PBJ. I got turned on to it by a former resident of Sydney, and now I can’t get enough of the stuff! But don’t try eating it by the spoonful!
Israelis feed their children bread with chocolate spread. I’ve always found the stuff rather vile, but then, I wouldn’t eat pb&j growing up, either.
Oops, that was pb&j. My parents didn’t try feeding me peanut butter and Jews (happy or otherwise), although I don’t think that I would have gone for that either. ("Here, Gila, it’s that lady from synogogue who’s always trying to pinch your cheeks! With peanut butter!)
Apparently, following an & with a j causes the ghost of the Happy Jewish Man to haunt your posts. Be warned!
You’re absolutely right about the Vegemite. It’s a denatured form of yeast used in beer manufacturing, salty as hell, and not too pretty to look at. What Ozzie mums do is spread it thinly on a slice of bread. I don’t know if they add anything else to it, but I did read in an Ozzie cookbook that sometimes colored sprinkles are used to offset the taste…
An Ozzie friend of mine says that she knows no Americans who like the stuff, which leads me to believe that it’s an acquired taste, just like our PB&J…
In the UK it could be jam, or maybe Marmite, which is the British equivalent of the stuff the Aussies eat. They’re both revolting, IMHO.
Soft boiled egg and soldiers?
Or maybe toast and canned spaghetti? 
I don’t know if they add anything else to it, but I did read in an Ozzie cookbook that sometimes colored sprinkles are used to offset the taste…
Hundreds and thousands, or sprinkles, on buttered bread are called “fairly bread” a staple of all the birthday parties of my youth. Thankfully, I’ve never seen them served with Vegemite™.
Vegemite on vitawheats or some similar crispbread is also fairly standard Aussie kid fare - but they have to be crackers with holes in them so you can squish little Vegemit squiggles through the holes.
UK/Ireland usually come down on the side of Marmite/Bovril or, as stated above, soft boiled egg & soldiers (buttered, sometimes toasted bread cut into 1" strips). Or maybe fishfingers or chips.
Mexico I remember from my Grandma’s house-either beans and tortillas or corn tortillas warmed, spread with butter and rolled up into a tube. Occasionally chilaquiles, which are pieces of tortilla, tomato, chile and cheese (sometimes) all frizzled together in a skillet. Kind of like free-form nachos.
Most other countries I’ve been to and either wanted/needed bland food or saw small children eating the universal (for local) standard seemed to rely on rice. Rice with yogurt, rice with cabbage, etc. Having had ONE bout of traveller’s squits, but married to a woman who can get them at the movies from gone-over popcorn, I have to appreciate this approach.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sir Doris *
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Soldiers? Pray tell…what are they? Sausages? 
In the French version of “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown’s peanut butter sandwich becomes a cheese sandwich.
More food threads!
In my family it was rice and beans.
True story: Me, my auntie and her two kids ages 4 and 7 went to McDonald’s one late afternoon. At about 7 or 8 the oldest started complaining.
“Were’s dinner?”
“What do you mean where’s dinner, didn’t we all go out to McDonald’s?”
“That wasn’t dinner! Where’s the rice! Where’s the beans!”
We Hispanics try so hard not to be stereotyped and then along comes Niki.
[/Bill Clinton]Ah feel your bean-pain.[Bill Clinton/]
I make them once a week and heat them up whenever I want something quick and good. Always around, always consistent and good for you. I’d get pissed about being called a beaner, but shit-I go through a 25-lb bag once every three months or so, and it’s just me and my wife eating. (the rabbits don’t seem to jazzed by them, but get out some cilantro and it’s boing-fest '01!)
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*Originally posted by kiz *
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Toast cut into strips, just the right size for dipping in the runny egg yolk. Not really sure why we say soldiers.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Sir Doris *
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Ohhhhhhh!!! Now I get it!
Reminds me of when I was little and very, very, very fussy about food…if I didn’t like the way something looked or smelled, I wouldn’t touch it, even if my folks “bribed” me! I hated soft-boiled eggs with a passion – so much so that my mom had to force feed them to me! To this day the only eggs I’ll eat are scrambled. and I don’t eat them very often…
Hey, the stove’s on – want some breakfast? 
Ditto here on the yogurt rice, but we’d eat it with pickle on the side. (Note: Indian pickle is briny, spicy preserved fruit and veggies, not at all like American pickle.) I say “we” because my dad would eat it too: it’s comfort food for South Indians of all ages. I was just in a South Indian restaurant in Chicago where they wanted $6.99 for yogurt rice–abominable!
My sister and I also ate plain *idli[/y] a lot (dumplings made of rice and lentils). The adults would eat them with spicy veggies, but the kids would eat them plain or with a little butter.
(BTW, tiggeril, where in India is your family from?)
Vegemite and lettuce sandwiches are a nice variation. It might me a good way to ease yourself into liking Vegemite.
<minor hijack>My great-aunt Marie, who was terrifying and enormous when I was a child (but somehow seems quite small in family photographs from the period), always instructed her young great-nieces and -nephews to cut their French toast into soldiers. “Here are the regiments,” she’d say, slicing the bread deftly with the knife into four or five strips while we trembled with trepidation (was she about to use that knife on US?), “and here are the soldiers,” she’d add, turning the knife and cutting each of the strips into squares.
She was of German parentage, grew up in England, and lived in Wisconsin for most of her adult life, and I cannot tell where along the line she acquired the expression. I CAN tell you that those of us old enough to remember her continue to instruct our own offspring in the fine art of soldier-cutting.
</minor hijack>