When chef Jesse Schenker from Recette in NYC makes his 7 month old son, Eddie, breakfast he’ll make something he himself would want to eat: a scrambled egg white with olive oil, salt and pepper.
When I asked Schenker how he gets Eddie, to taste new foods he immediately said, ‘he’s got to watch you eat’. It’s true that infants learn to eat by watching and mimicking their parents and caregivers. It’s how they learn and how we are teaching them. Of course a chef is going to be happily eating lots of different foods and it follows that baby Eddie would also be open to trying new foods.
This is exactly how Schenker does it: ‘I eat two or three spoonfuls myself and pretend that I don’t care if he’s looking or not…… and he is looking. Then when you give him a spoonful, his mouth is wide open. You get it in there, he likes it and you’re set. He’s so used to watching my wife and I eat, he even wants the other stuff like the airborne my wife was taking the other day.’
What else does Schenker say about his kiddo, Eddie? ‘I don’t want to brag, but he’s the best baby in the whole world- I mean that literally and theres lots of people that can vouch for that. He sleeps well and he eats well.”
