Bread and Jam - and Frances, and Ellyn, and Jessica

Me: You're full of beans this morning.

Miss M.: No, I'm full of lobster.

I can only think that this is because we've been reading (and re-reading and reading again) Bread and Jam for Frances before bed. Because, after Frances remembers that there are all sorts of wonderful things to eat beyond bread and jam, she trots off to school with a lobster salad sandwich. Maybe lobster was cheaper in 1964?

Frances is often held up as a poster child picky eater, but it's hard to argue that she really is - her bread and jam kick doesn't even last two days. The book starts with breakfast, at which meal she chooses not to eat her egg - there is no indication that she's refused everything but bread and jam prior. At dinner that same night, she chooses not to eat her veal cutlet in favor of bread and jam - and confesses to having traded her lunch for a friend's bread and jam. At breakfast on the second day, she isn't offered an egg - because, her mother says, "you do not like eggs." At lunch on that second day, her friend has an elaborate lunch with sandwich and pickle and hard-boiled egg and fruit and dessert, while Frances has bread and jam. At night on the second day, when presented with bread and jam, she realizes that "What I am / is tired of jam" and so has spaghetti and meatballs for dinner with the rest of the family.

And on to the finale - her own complicated and elegant lunch at school, complete with doily, a tiny vase of violets, celery and olives, a tiny basket of cherries, and the afore-mentioned lobster salad sandwich.

Meals with our small child are the typical mix of cajoling and rejoicing. She'll scarf down risotto like nobody's business, but steak? Nah. Hot dogs and cheese sandwiches, yes. Peanut butter, no. Sometimes we'll resort to white lies: "This is Pat's chicken - she told me how to make it." [Pat's the cook at school.] The chicken in question was a butterflied charcoal grilled chicken, with all the black stuff cut off, and ketchup on the side - and Pat had nothing to do with it. And the kid ate that chicken.

Mostly, I've tried to take to heart the Ellyn Satter dictum: "The parent is responsible for what, when, where - and the child is responsible for how much and whether." She's not going to starve. Sure, I wish she'd eat some more vegetables, but I'm not going to start pretending that pureed cauliflower is ricotta and neither am I going to lace chocolate chip cookies with chickpeas. And hey, even fancy organic hot dogs are cheap! If she starts demanding lobster salad sandwiches, we're going to be in the poorhouse.


[This is loosely in response to the Parent Bloggers blast in connection with the release of Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.]