My grandfather was a goofy man. If he was laughing hard, he would make a noise that sounded like a donkey with asthma. Almost a snort, almost a wheeze. He was a teller of tall tales, and could say the most amazing lies with a straight face and keep grand kids believing him until one of us would recognize that little gleam in his eyes and realize that he was spoofing us. He was great! In his way, he encouraged us to always find the funny side of life. When I was a child, it felt like he was encouraging us to be almost wicked and irreverent; but in retrospect, I know that laughing in the face of adversity can really help one get through the struggles.
As well as his wicked humor, my grandfather taught me a love of gardening and nature. In the winter, we would go through his gardening catalogs to find all of the strange new varieties of vegetables and flowers. He would show me apple trees that had three different varieties of fruit and explain grafting to me. He showed me the different kinds of asparagus and told me that if you want it to stay white, you just cover the plant so it gets no sun. He taught me that some plants like acid soil and that you should add leaves or pine needles to make them happy. He taught me that the second year cane on blackberries bears fruit; and if you step on the first year cane, it won't kill the plant. He gave me the gift of gardening and encouraged my curiosity on that topic.
The other day, I saw a gardening program for kids that will encourage them to garden and to look at trying different kinds of vegetables. I joined the WNEP (Wisconsin Nutrition Education Program) nutritionists and the Boys and Girls Club at one of the community gardens. The Boys and Girls Club brought a van load of 3rd-grade kids (usually 14--but only 5 the day I was there) to the garden and, did a scavenger hunt to teach the kids how to identify the different vegetables. They weeded, watered, and harvested and brought the veggies they found to the pavilion where the WNEP educators were waiting to take over.
There, they learned how to prep the vegetables they had harvested and helped make a simple cooked vegetable dish in an electric skillet. The featured vegetable in this Italian vegetable skillet was zucchini, but while they were working on it, they all got to sample some raw sugar snap peas. All five of them tried the peas and only a couple of noses crinkled up in distaste. When it came time to try the vegetable skillet, all of the kids and adults gave it a try. Out of the five kids, only one picked out the zucchini after he tasted it, but the rest took at least a couple of bites of this foreign veggies. Three kids actually ate all that was on their plates, and two went back for seconds.
Out of those five kids, there was one who had never tried zucchini but said he would ask his mom to buy it and make it. He was very involved in the process of making the recipe; and during the question and answer time, he was able to recite the different ingredients. I had no doubt that he really would like to have it again and I hoped his mom would get it and try it with him.
My grandfather planted the seed of gardening in me, and each time I saw him there was a conversation about gardening, and different varieties we saw in our gardening catalogs. That conversation helped that seed to grow and flourish and my love of gardening has been my gift from him and my gift to others. The seed of trying different vegetables got planted in these kids with this kind of garden experience; but like any seed it needs to be fostered in order to make it grow. If this young boy tells his mom that he wants a zucchini to make this dish at home and she tells him, "No, you don't like that," that seed will dry up and die.
So, parents and non-parents...I challenge you! Try a different vegetable that you have never had. If you don't know how to cook it, find one of the millions of recipes online or in a cookbook in the library and let your family be part of the cooking process. You don't have to buy a lot of it to get a taste--just a bit will do, but try it both raw and cooked. Talk about this vegetable with your kids or family and ask some questions. Did you like it? Are there other ways to prepare this? Did you like it raw but not cooked or cooked but not raw? Would you like me to buy this again? Did you like it enough to put this in your garden?
If we plant the seed early and nurture those seeds, nutritious habits are bound to grow; and what parent does not want to raise healthy kids?
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