What's the food young children make in other cultures?
In the US it's not crazy for kids maybe as young as 6 to make themselves sandwiches like a PB&J/Ham & Cheese either if parents have an emergency, or to take to lunch for themselves because parents didn't have time. (Or you know, they're neglectful)
So is there a go to food for children to make in other cultures?
EDIT: Sorry for phrasing it like teaching 6 year olds to cook is mainly to help parents. Personal experience of dad going to prison and mom working 12 hour days at early age shined through. So me being taught to cook wasn't "This is a skill that'll be useful as you grow older" but instead was a "Things are going to be rough, and sometimes things won't work out with me being there when I need too, and I want you to be able to be okay in an emergency". So cooked myself food when I was little probably a lot more than others, then when I was a teenager I was cooking dinner for the family a lot.
But makes sense it wasn't the case for others! Still the curious, what other cultures teach their children to cook!
Question frames it as neglect or neglect-with-excuses. Could also be the kids are practicing independence and life skills.
Which I guess may be a cultural difference by itself. :) Apart from the attitude towards it, Norway has pretty similar ones I guess.
Maybe not age 6, but pretty early:
(Most homes have electric induction stoves, so the risk of catastrophic fire injury is low)
Ahh sorry! Growing up was a bit rougher and it shined through, when really teaching kids to cook is super important. I'm 29 now and getting in the habit of cooking at a young age shines through every day.
BUt yeah pretty similar! But cheese in the microwave??? That sounds crazy to me. Everything else sounds about the same! We have top ramen for our soup.
Yeah, that bread with cheese thing is a trip.
My kid asked if he could have a grilled cheese and I said yeah and gather to make it and he’s putting bread with cheese in the microwave.
When the fuck did that become a thing?
I mean, don’t get me wrong I like warm bread with a little butter and some cheese on it, it’s comfort food to me, we used to have it for breakfast in elementary school.
But that uses at least Texas toast thick bread slices and goes in an oven, this little fucker just put a piece of American cheese on a piece of white bread and microwaved it.
Not even two pieces of bread just one!
Maybe not age 6, but pretty early:
My Lemmy app didn't properly format this as a list so I read it as "Fry egg-soup." I found myself thinking, "Fried soup? Damn, Norwegians do soup on a whole different level."
In Mexico it's
This list is about the same as my US kids, not torta but quesadillas, tacos or burritos, scrambled eggs and sandwiches; also noodles with chili paste from leftover spaghetti, which they call "hot noodle" and every single one of them learned early to cook that because they all liked it so much.
There's an entire generation of Americans who were cooking for themselves and using the stove in elementary school because their parents were nowhere to be found. Everyone always forgets about them. They're known as Generation X, or the Latchkey Kids.
Yep, I would make Mac and cheese with cut up hotdogs in it starting when I was 6. It’s still my comfort food.
How was teaching a kid how to make a sandwich neglectful?
In your sentence you say“ If parents have an emergency, or to take to lunch for themselves because parents don’t have time”
How about parents who teach their kids how to make food so they have a life skill?
I have two teenage kids, one in college, and when is about to be in college. Since they were young, they have learned how to cook, make sandwiches, salad, fish, pretty much whatever they want. When they were around five or six years old, we started building out a weekly schedule of food and then budgeting it and going to the grocery store together and buying everything. Now they know how to take care of themselves in life even as a first year college student.
My kid in college shares with me that their classmates don’t even know how to do their laundry or read an analog clock, let alone cook anything for themselves.
I guess my long-winded point is there are actual parents out there like myself who teach their kids how to take care of themselves, including make a sandwich at six years old. We’re not neglectful. We’re not too busy, it’s teaching kids at an early age to take care of themselves and be responsible.
I live in the Netherlands and I learned to make my own lunch from an early age. Can't say for certain at which age, but 6 or 7 sounds about right. I made lasagna when I was 11 and cooked other stuff regularly. My parents always stimulated me being self sufficient. And I saw the same happening with my friends.
Oh do you remember like the very first foods you were taught to make?
Mine were cold sandwiches, then the first cooked things were scrambled eggs and grilled cheese.
Yeah, cold sandwiches were probably the first as well. Then maybe boiled eggs, scrambled eggs were not really a thing in the Netherlands back then. After that I helped out with other stuff like boil rice of pasta. And I remember doing some simple groceries alone when I must have been between 11 or 12. But the supermarkets were only 10 minutes away by foot.
Beans on toast is probably one of the first meals most of us learn here in the UK. Or a Pot Noodle, once you figure out how the kettle works.
Beans on toast, with Boursin on the toast is a thing of beauty.
I've never heard of Boursin, I'll have to try that out at some point.
I always just did a sandwich with kaviar (not the fancy type) and cheese or a sandwich with spreadable liver paste and cucumber
Edit: Swedish
I was a little disappointed at how similar the Norwegian meals posted above were to the US, but Sweden delivered 👍
I'm the US, the first foods I was taught to make were breakfast foods. First the safe stuff like cereal, frozen hash browns, frozen Pop tarts, then (around age six) pancakes and French toast. Deviled eggs were also an early first.
Traditional Danish lunch is rye bread with a variety of spreadings, sliced sausages and patés. Think of a simpler kind of smorgasbord (depending on the content in your fridge). There's a lot of traditional combinations all based on a thin sliced rye bread with butter, the main spread and often one or two toppings that go with the spread.
The kids learn to make these kinds of "sandwiches" in kindergarten, and it comes in handy when they get older and come home from school hungry.
It makes for a more varied choice than toast or jam sandwiches.
Examples: https://imgur.com/a/ZgGGUhy
Apart from simple sandwiches my kids know how to open cans, cook pasta and fry eggs. Oh and make dino nuggets and fries and other stuff in the oven.
In the UK it's tea and toast, a lot of kids by 4 or 5 can make tea and toast.
Do British kids drink tea?
Of course. You have smaller cups of more milky tea as a toddler.
Instant noodles or rice with fried eggs and/or luncheon meat.
When my kids were 4 they got out bread and cheese and made themselves sandwiches. I felt like i must be neglectful, but i was proud of them for being self sufficient. McD's used to have 20 cent burgers on Wednesdays so i would buy a few plain ones each week and put them in the fridge. In kindergarten my kids could get one out and microwave it.
Australian.
Vegemite and cheese sandwiches/on toast. Or Devon and tomato sauce sandwiches. Pretty standard in most houses for young kids.
Interesting! Those are similar to what we have in the US, but sound very distinct. We have grilled cheese or ham/cheese, then probably just bologna/catsup is closest to devon and tomato sauce.