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!
In Mexico it’s
- Quesadillas
- Tacos of any leftovers
- Torta of any leftovers
- Cereal (I think this one is universal)
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.
My favorite meal was cooking a hotdog on the open stove flame, campfire style. That charr was so good.
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.
- Sandwiches
- Toast with butter
- Cereal
- Fruit from the fruit bowl
- Microwaved bread with cheese
- Leftovers with ketchup
- Carrots from the fridge
Maybe not age 6, but pretty early:
- Fry egg
- Soup (from bag, add hot water)
(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:
- Fry egg
- Soup (from bag, add hot water)
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.”
Ve make søup from coffee and fresh salmøn. Then ve fry the søup tu kill the fish.
Now do the one about the moose!
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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.
There’s no rye bread with herring in your photo, the Danish don’t eat that? The Dutch do, topped with some chopped onions. Though my kids don’t like rye bread, it is getting old fashioned over here.
Curry-pickled herring with raw onion and caper on rye is the first dish served on our traditional Christmas lunch. Served with snaps.
Fish generally don’t go to well in a lunchbox. The most common are mackerel in tomato with mayonnaise and cod roe with rémoulade, but most kids would frown at it. Also, it requires a fork and knife to eat. The traditional lunch box sandwiches are made to be eaten by hand.
I just found some random photo from the web. Apparently it’s difficult to find a photo of our common lunchbox hand-served-rye-bread-open-sandwiches. Most are of restaurant high topped “smørrebrød”, which also requires knife and fork.
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.
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 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 👍
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.
In the Netherlands open faced sandwiches are pretty common snacks kids will make. Slice of bread commonly with toppings like ham, gouda, hard boiled egg, etc. Also peanut butter is a popular topping for bread, though having it with jam is a lot less common than in the US.
A very specifically Dutch thing would be piece of toast with butter and then literally sprinkles on top (like you might put on ice cream). The Dutch eat a shitload of that stuff. Also popular on buttered toast or rusk are little anise seeds coated in sugar, referred to as muisjes.
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.
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.
