What unexpected foods do your kids like?

[Imicola]

Sometimes I'm surprised by the things my DD (6) will eat, so I wondered what unexpected hits have you found with your kids at dinner time?

Last night I made a chicken and vegetable barley stew, and it was all gone! I had expected it to be rejected, or at least the veg picked out, but nope.

Saag paneer for my vegetable dodging DS15. I haven't made it for a while and this week DS has been asking me for it and when I'm planning on making it!

100% dark chocolate for my DD 14. Tastes of nothing to me but it's one of her favourite foods. Also cocoa nibs. Pure cocoa basically.

My grandson is 2 and eats absolutely anything apart from his mum's homemade minestrone soup for some reason.
His latest thing was chicken with black pudding. I've never known a child be so keen to eat everything.
I keep telling her how lucky she is!

I was surprised when dd was a toddler and liked olives.

My five year old loves moules and also on a recent holiday was eating lapas (limpets) by the plateful.

Refuses however to eat something as simple as pizza!

Give DS a pint of prawns and he'd dehead and prepare them to eat in record time. He also had a penchant for smoked salmon and olives at the time.

He was 2.

I was just about to type this! Only green olives though.

Mine will pretty much eat any curry with rice as long as not too spicy. Chickpea curry, Thai green chicken curry, etc. Yet is not fussed about simple things like pizza or jacket potato!

Bloody snails. We ordered them for her in Paris for the shock factor and she loved them. Wants to share her love of snails with me.

Paneer and cauliflower curry!! And one loves any shellfish.

Oddly though, they won't touch mashed potato.

Dd ate her first artichoke at 2 and loved it. Think it was throwing thé leaves into the bowl on thé table that did it.

Blue muscles in their shells. The weirdo.

Olives, but only the cheap black Tesco ones in brine. Both of them love them, and get through a jar a week between them. Neither me or dh like olives so no idea where they get it from.

My son loved caviar

Loves*

DD7 absolutely loves seafood sticks / crab sticks. I can't go to the local one stop without buying her a pack. We went out for Chinese a couple of months ago and stole her Grandads crab and sweetcorn soup.
Strange thing is she won't eat fish fingers!

Same! My 3yo seems to like pickled food - gherkins, olives, sandwich pickle. It's surprised me as I don't think even I liked them at that very young age.

Ds aged 2 is going through such a picky phase but is absolutely obsessed with black olives (I have to ration them out otherwise he would eat ridiculous amounts of them as they’re his favourite food!)

Pickled eggs.

Capers, sauerkraut and olives

We have had more than one discussion about whether capers are a suitable breakfast!

DD1 will merrily eat olives, decently spicy curry, stilton and parmesan just straight, and is fiercely protective of her right to lick the pesto spoon. The topping on a fruit crumble, however, is a complete non-starter.

DD2 is actually pretty similar, but the shock value has worn off a bit.

Dd(7)- gherkins, will go through multiple large jars in one sitting so they are hidden at the top of an inaccessible cupboard now, I oddly had cravings for them early in my pregnancy with her. Also caviar, smoked salmon and clams and spinach have always been top of the list.

DD was a dream when it came to weaning, ate everything and anything. So nothing really surprised me for the first 2 years or so as it was just the way she was - although I was maybe a bit taken aback by the time she wanted to eat a full pot of tartar sauce when we were eating outside a pub when she was about 1. Then the fussiness started to kick in and a lot of stuff went on the ‘not a chance’ list. Her two favourite things remained olives and prawns though, have always been able to guarantee she’ll eat those - I didn’t eat/ like olives till I was in my late 20s/ early 30s maybe and I’ve only just started coming round to prawns in the last couple of years since making them for DH and DD so often. So those ones surprise me.

My SIL cooked for us at the weekend and made a really garlicky tzatziki that DD (now 4) was obsessed with. That’s pretty much all she wanted to eat, with flatbread and of course olives.

We’re hopefully through the very fussy phase now but I’m still a bit surprised when she eats any veg that is still in its recognisable form rather than hidden like I had to for ages. Or maybe relieved is a better word.

Oh yes parmesan that’s another one DD loves, would eat fistfuls of it if I let her (sometimes I do but I do feel a bit guilty about the salt!)

Parmesan, spinach, ricotta, salmon, mackerel

DS2 is autistic and had severe ARFID when he was younger. He pretty much hated eating full stop and it was a full time job getting enough food into him through trial and error of pretty much any food in existence. But one morning he started crooning for humous - almost singing the word, and ate a bowl of it when I gave him some. Them asked for more at lunch and dinner. He was about two at the time and I had no idea he even knew what it was. He quite likes it now, but for a while when he was two, it was the only thing he'd eat.

Sounds like olives and smoked salmon are quite common - my DD also loves these. I always assumed it was the saltiness. Also pickles...she does like a good dill pickle!

We've tried paneer and she wasn't a fan. She wouldn't even put a mussel in her mouth when we had those! But I might try again with some of these ideas...curries, mussels, paneer etc.

I thought of another couple - polenta chips and katsu curry surprised me!