Читать книгу The Food Our Children Eat: How to Get Children to Like Good Food - Joanna Blythman, Joanna Blythman - Страница 18

Children in restaurants? Perish the thought! Our traditional ‘serious’ restaurant culture is not like that in other parts of the world, where children and restaurants are seen as two facets of normal life that can happily cohabit. British culture has always viewed restaurant-going as something special and unusual – an overwhelmingly sophisticated adult activity. As a nation we do not always find it ‘chic’ to have children around when we go out to eat. We tend to see them as philistines who ought to be fed separately in the privacy of their own homes until they attain civilised adulthood.

So we can’t pop out to the accommodating French bistro, which will prop up children on cushions and serve them moules marinière and a massive napkin without flinching. Nor can we drop in to family-run Italian ristorante, where adults cluck with approval as your baby noisily sucks up linguine with tomato sauce splattering everywhere. Neither is it like India or China, where family groups meet in restaurants and feed prime mouthfuls of their food to the youngest members.

It’s not unknown in the UK for some restaurants to have explicit ‘No children’ policies, while to take a child to others may entail pleading, negotiation and compromise: ‘Yes, we will be finished by 8.45 pm (so as not to disturb your business clientele),’ or ‘Yes, we will accept a freezing table more or less out in the lobby where no one else can see us.’ Many other establishments simply make it so expensive to bring children – by refusing to offer half-portions or make any concession to smaller appetites in their price structure – that they effectively prevent them from coming, without saying so in so many words.

The good news is that the climate is gradually changing – if only because some restaurants are enlightened enough to recognise that today’s child diners could be tomorrow’s clientele. Some fashionable and very ‘grown-up’ city establishments even become child-friendly zones at weekends, making positive efforts to attract families. Few restaurants fail to provide a high chair (especially if parents ask for one when booking) and many pubs that serve food no longer ban children.

But nevertheless, parents who would like to introduce their children to decent restaurant food from an early age still cannot count on a warm reception, and may fear a negative reaction based on past experience. However well behaved they think their child might be in a restaurant, few parents find it relaxing to be in an environment where they worry that staff eyebrows may be raised and fellow diners may ‘tut’ at the first sign of any restlessness or a querulous voice. So rather than run the risk of embarrassment and assume the stressful responsibility for seeing that the child behaves impeccably, many parents opt out and either don’t eat in these establishments themselves or leave the children at home when they do, thus limiting their children’s food experience.

But is this a problem? Aren’t there plenty of less serious but perfectly acceptable ‘child-friendly’ restaurants at the cheaper end of the market which welcome children with open arms and cater for their every need until they matriculate in the world of adult dining?

You know the formula. They are cheap and approachable chain eateries. If they are out of town, there will be lots of free parking conveniently outside. If you are on foot, it can seem that there is one on every accessible high-street corner or in every food court. They are coming down with trolley parks, high chairs, feeder cups, bottle warmers, microwaves to reheat baby food, nappy-changing facilities … every conceivable bit of kit that adults with children might need. Bustling and noisy, they enable you to eat anonymously without feeling that the eyes of all staff and diners are on you.

And let’s not forget that added incentive which any child will adore. Every day in these restaurants is like Christmas Day because you get a present to take away. We are not just talking about the usual giveaways, such as paper hats, balloons and badges which advertise the restaurant’s existence and link it to cuddly characters designed to appeal to children. We are talking ‘collectables’, a covetable free toy which encourages loyalty (and repeat visits) in order to complete the set. That’s a strong pull for young consumers.

It sounds so perfect for both child and parent … until you get to the food. The heart of the ‘child-friendly’ repertoire? Something fried with chips or something starchy. There’s burger and chips, Kiev and chips, fishy shapes and chips and sausage and chips, all slathered with copious quantities of sweet and salty brown or tomato sauce.

Vegetarian leanings? Try a bean burger, fried veggie rissoles, mini-pizza or refined white baguette with garlic butter. Want to avoid chips? Try fried hash browns or deep-crumb crunchy croquettes for a change.

Feeling thirsty at the thought of that little lot? Why not try an attractively priced whole-meal package, with its ‘free’ fizzy or diluted ‘contains-no-real-anything’ drink thrown in for added value?

So what you get when you step across the threshold of your average ‘child-friendly’ restaurant is a depressingly limited range of the ubiquitous children’s processed foods with a few stodgy snacks and fillers thrown in. It revolves around established ‘kiddie favourites’, formula food that children see all around them. Food that is predictable and ubiquitous. Food that does nothing to extend their horizons. Food that poses no new challenge whatsoever.

Most parents recognise that the food in such establishments is not that great – downright unhealthy even – but, under pressure to find a place that makes it easy to eat out with our children, we convince ourselves that it doesn’t really matter.

After all, children don’t live on restaurant food. Yes, we know that it is full of fat and sugar and heavily processed. As adults, we suspect that the raw materials are not exactly the finest around but, once in a while, what’s the problem? The food is affordable and even though there may be little or nothing we ourselves want to eat, these restaurants are convenient and children seem to like them and see visiting them as a treat.

But are they really such a treat for children? They may say they like eating out in this sort of place, even plead to be taken there, but we need to meet this almost inevitable positive response with a large element of scepticism. For many children, such establishments cannot help being anything but a treat simply because they are the only restaurants to which they are ever taken. Eating out – wherever it is and in whatever circumstances – is always going to be more exciting for a child than just another meal at home.

If we examine what the children actually eat when they visit these restaurants, their enthusiasm for the food may be illusory. A significant part of the meal may end up uneaten because the anticipation is more fulfilling than the reality. The food element may often be ignored in favour of more rewarding diversions, such as playing with the free toy, making endless trips to the toilet, playing in the ‘kiddie playpark’ outside, or watching the toddler at the next booth who has got his head stuck under the table.

We need to address not just the limitations of children’s experience in such restaurants but also the potential breadth of experience on which they are missing out. If this is the only kind of restaurant that children visit, they are getting no taste for the fascinating world of food that lies beyond their own homes. They are deprived of the opportunity of being seduced into trying something new just because it sounds, looks and smells fantastic – something different which extends their domestic food horizons.

When they are taken only to busy, fast-food outlets, they are also isolated from the stimulating sociability of sitting in a restaurant and the chance to enjoy the slower ritual which surrounds the delightful process of eating. Like keen readers stuck for ever on the same formula-book series, they are being denied the chance to discover something initially more demanding but ultimately much more fulfilling.

In fact, confining children only to formula ‘child-friendly’ restaurants is a huge missed opportunity. Handled well, most children can rise to the challenge of eating in a real restaurant serving real food. Even if a taste of real adult eating out is only a rare treat for a special occasion, it can nevertheless be one of the most effective ways of widening children’s food horizons and combating the ‘tunnel effect’ described on pages 71–3.

In the right restaurant, under the right circumstances, even the most conservative child can learn to eat more adventurously than anyone might expect, and the more open-minded child will relish the opportunity. Turn to pages 226–31, The Fascinating World of Restaurant Food, for ideas about how to make the most of eating out and ensure that restaurant-going is a happy experience all round.