Have fun whilst you eat...

[MrCanary]

For those of you who do not see UK TV adverts these days, there is a new one from a national restaurant chain advertising 'fun pizzas for kids to eat whilst they are having fun'. It shows games going on around the restaurant with kids dressed up, running about and apparently having a ball!

My wife and I could not help but think of the contrast between that and the way most French families eat their meals. Perhaps it would be a novel idea to set up a restaurant in the UK where the kids sit down around a table with their parents and enjoy nice food eaten in a civilised way.

Or perhaps as we are both in our 50s, we are just getting old and crotchety... 

[Chris Head]

Yes Mel...you're an old fart but I can't help agreeing with you...I'm still amazed when we have the boys mates around and they all sit down at the table and eat beautifully and natter away like...well, old farts!

Pm'd you by the way Mel.

[Chauffour]

that national restaurant chain should be fined and banned for calling that ...thing.. pizza!!!!!!!!!!!! [:'(]

[Pierre ZFP]

Couldn't agree more.  I'm an old Fart and proud of it!

My big bug-bear is the fussy kid who says 'I don't like that' well have you ever tried it? 'No' well how do you know you don't like it?

My kids were always brought up to try everything.  I always said I don't care if you don't like it, everyone is different but at least try, you may be missing out on the most delicious thing in the world!  This paid off in spades when we had one of their friends to stay, a nice lad but seemed to live exclusively on bread and potatos, quite literally. When presented with a piece of apple pie we got 'Sorry I've never had that and I don't like it' (Apple pie for heaven's sake!!) One of my boys said to him 'Look, just try it, it might be great' Echos of what I'd been saying all along!  So at the end of the weekend, his diet had increased by 50% He couldn't get enough apple pie.  We even got him to try cheese and pate for the first time.  At the end of the weekend, he thanked us and said the food had been great 'I used to be a bit fussy about what I ate' - DOH!!!

[Framboise]

I did the same with my lot Pierre because with four of 'em its just impossible to cater to all their whims and fancies, ie. one hates liver & three like it, two hate carrots& two like them, or that old chestnut "We ALL hate tomatoes..." but trowel ketchup over everything.   In adopting this system they grew up with quite a cosmopolitan diet and are not afraid to try something new.   A friend's son would only deign to eat roasts / pizza / burgers - a real nuisance as she happened to love to cook so her talents were wasted on this philistine's particularly cranky demands.   Oddly enough now he is grown up and his Mum has departed to the Angels bless her, he has finally realised the joy of eating REAL food instead of the muck he shovelled into his face previously and also insists on dining at the table rather than from his lap in front of the telly.   He is an Old Fart at 24!

As a reminder to all of the kids I still have the sign in my kitchen tht states   

                                                 " There are two choices for dinner.   Take it or leave it."

and it will be going to France with me as well!

Yes that particular advert drives me mad too with this silly people having "Fun" as they ram leaden lumps of pizza nto their faces.   Mine would much rather have a good 'ol fashioned Bacon Roly-Poly but they are all too bone idle to try to make one of course!

[Gluestick]

Sadly far too many British families these days don't even possess a dining table. On the knee TV dinners have become the norm, it seems. I have often wondered quite how they get along at times like Christmas for example. Probably a Kentucky Fried Cat mega-huge take home bucket with extra grease for Xmas!

The kids will not learn which knife and fork to use or how to behave at the table. Then their kids will stand no chance.

To me, entertaining friends who share a love of good food and wine is possibly one of the greatest pleasures left in life. However, it is only a pleasure when those one eats with have good table manners.

In my professional life I have had to attend many formal luncheons and dinners: thank goodness I was taught at an early age how to conduct myself.

Our son was brought up on the basis of "This is for dinner: eat it or go hungry!" Personally I couldn't be doing with kids who won't eat this and don't eat that.

My son is now probably a far better cook than I and has developed a keen interest and taste in wine, which he was allowed to try, slowly, from quite a young age.

At the golf club, invariably the wine list is always thrust in his direction when they are out!

My quite younger brother in law's kids were allowed to create pandemonium at home: not so when my niece came to us!

To B i L's total amazement, I had her sat next to me and eating properly at the table with a knife and fork in minutes!

The sad fact is that as McDonalds influenced the eating habit of a whole generation of now hugely obese kids, this vendor of ersatz pizza pies will in all probability achieve a massive marketing success with kids of parents who don't have the necessary strength of character to resist their whinging.

 

[MrCanary]

[quote user="Framboise"]

As a reminder to all of the kids I still have the sign in my kitchen tht states   

                                                 " There are two choices for dinner.   Take it or leave it."

and it will be going to France with me as well!

[/quote]

 

I love that, Framboise, and I am going to pinch the idea........

Mel

 

[Patf]

Yes that IS a good idea. Our 4 used to try it on sometimes but we did all sit at the table together at least once a day. But now we have grandchildren and I'm horrified by two of them in particular. I try not to say anything unless asked for advice as it wouldn't go down well. One hardly eats anything and there are longdrawnout battles with his parents. The other only eats cereals chips and sweets and her parents wonder why she's always constipated. Why are eating disorders so common now in children? I suppose we can put some of the blame on the kind of adverts that you mention, Mel. Pat.

[Framboise]

My grand-daughter is almost three now and I have to say that as she has spent a lot of her life with me because her parents both work, invariably I taught her table manners and using cutlery.  Visiting my children's old junior school a few months ago at lunch time I was appalled at the manners of some of the children supposedly eating their lunches, with elbows akimbo, slapping food around like gum as they covered other kids with their spittings, climbing around the tables during the meal and other such horrors.   Mine would not dream of doing this and yet the Headteacher said that this was how the children thought they were supposed to behave cause they actually know no different, and if the school try to show the children manners, some parents accuse them of "overstepping the mark....".

My 2nd son is 22 and a hardworking young father.  Both he and is partner try their best to bring up their litle girl with manners and politeness, to which one of the first things they bought for their home was a dining suite so that they could all eat together at least once a day as he had done here with us.   Again, they run with the policy of "two choices for dinner......." but they are lucky in that their daughter eats almost everything, however they said that a friend of theirs has a nightmare child who will only condescend to eat her meals If she is bribed wth a bagfull of sweets as dessert.  That destroys the whole point of eating a proper meal does it not?

Jamie Oliver is to be commended for trying to encouage kids to eat  healthy meal at school, yet for a lot of children they have no idea what most of the stuff is that they are offerred and consequently demand their junk intake as they do at least know what that is.    Personally I have always prepared a decent meal from scratch for my lot but I do understand that its not always feasible for many parents to do this, thus kids have a pizza-in-front-of-the-telly, or a microwave job.  

What is wrong is television telling children that grabbing a handful of pizza then ramming it ito your gob whilst behaving like a hooligan is some sort of "Fun", though of course is not "Fun" for those other folk trying to eat whilst a herd of feral herberts run screaming around the trattoria making their own "Fun".   And  I am not quite 50 yet so not ready to have the lid nailed down in the immediate future, yet the social changes in the past 20 years or so really contrast with my own experiences with young children because I would have died with shame had mine behaved as some children do when taken out to eat with their parents.      Nor have I witnessed this behaviour when we have dined out in France - be it at a restaurant or McDo's - it must be a peculiarly British thing.