To have made my teenager eat a piece of courgette?
15! year old daughter (NT) has become increasingly fussy with regards to vegetables. And it's got to the point where she will eat some things in some dishes, but not in others. For example:
Cucumbers - these have to have the centers removed, but has no problem eating them grated in tzatiki, or sliced and prepared (without being deseeded) in fancy Japanese dishes.
Tomatoes - will eat with seeds removed, or will eat whole when cooked down to nothing. Cherry toms will not eat, unless on pizzas or bruschetta, but will not eat in roasted vegetable melee.
Mushrooms - eats large Portobello mushrooms, or chopped up very small but has started picking out bits of mushroom from dishes. But will eat on pizza.
Peppers - will only eat green peppers, unless it's on a pizza or in chilli. But that can change at the drop of a hat as the other day decided that cooked green peppers were no longer the acceptable.
Courgettes - will eat grated in pasta dishes, or cooked with feta as fritters, but will not eat sliced and cooked.
I could go on. You get the idea.
I believe that everyone has some 'get out of jail free' cards when it comes to foods. I don't like forcing foods on people if they genuinely don't like them (I hated mushrooms and parsnips as a child). But this chopping and changing depending on a whim has pissed me right off. It fucks up my meal planning, makes extra work, wastes money and is just ridiculous.
Today I stood my ground. We've had tears, we've had tantrums, we've had threats of pocket money withdrawal permanently. I put one piece of steamed courgette on the plate and insisted she could not get down until it was eaten.
I won. It took half a hour, but by God I won.
Was I unreasonable?