Eat Every Bean, and Pea on Your Plate

We try to be good role models and instill values like kindness, wisdom, and courage in our children, but when it comes to Dylan and Grady, the one constant is this: they're good eaters.  They might not always exhibit empathy or completely grasp what it means to be courageous, but cleaning their plates is something they totally get.  Is a healthy appetite a value?  Probably not, but one could make a weak argument that it's at least a virtue.

Our kids like pizza.  Freaks.

Our kids eat what we eat, but we've been lucky because they've never been picky.  In preschool, the most common comment we received when we'd pick them up was, "Wow, Dylan/Grady ate all her/his lunch!"  We were probably hoping for accolades for their bitchin' finger painting skills, or praise for really hitting the high notes on the ABCs song, but we were pretty proud of empty lunch pails too.  Recently, the kids have actually expanded my palate.  It was Dylan who encouraged me to save the heart from a buck I'd shot because she'd read a grilled heart recipe.  You know what?  It turned out to be our favorite cut of venison.  Now she wants me to save the tongue from the next deer I get, and is eager to try kidneys and head cheese if I ever make it.

Guess who loves carousel sushi?

My buddy shot a black bear this year and generously gave me a chunk of backstrap from it.  I've only tried bear meat once before and it was horrid.  I wanted to give it another shot, and besides, Grady was really psyched to eat a bear.  So, I grilled it up and the four of us sat down for Sunday dinner and dissected its flavors like a bunch of Top Chef judges.  Was it good?  That doesn't matter, but I'll tell you that we ate the entire cut, and saved only one slice so Dylan could bring a bear sandwich to school the next day.  (And yes, it was good.)

I know what you're thinking, we're ranchers, do our kids eat mountain oysters?  The answer's No.  We're adventurous in our eating, but we're also not on Fear Factor.  I'll catch hell for saying this, but any food that has to be fried to be edible is really just a bullshit food.  Besides, my brothers did the, "Open your mouth and close your eyes, I'm going to give you a big surprise," trick on me when I was 8.  I was expecting chocolate, I got a pickled testicle.  I've never gotten over that.

I'm just happy that our kids are down for trying just about anything we put on their plates.  Dylan's drawn a soft line against onions, but I think only because she felt like she had to have something she didn't like.  Grady hates tapioca pudding, which I don't get, but I think it's a texture thing for him.  We'll see what happens when I mash up a cube of head cheese.   Hate it or love it, at least I know they'll try it.