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Introducing kids to chillie peppers

Muzzwell

Muzzwell

Hi, I have been trying for some time to ween my two kids onto food with chillies in it. I am a Brit so curry is a main part of our weekly diet. I have tried to get my kids to eat it with subtle heat with limited success. At the moment I have resigned to just cooking two meals on those fantastic curry days. Do any of you have any tips on how to introduce kids to the wonderful world of chilli peppers. Any one from India.. (how and when do you start kids on spicey food?)

Thanks in advance,

Mark.
 
in my experience as i was growing up, the children would have to be first and foremost is to make them open to tasting new kinds of food. get them to eat first things that isn't a part of their diet and take them to places that are out of their comfort zone. once they get used to that stuff, trying out chilis would be quite elementary for them.

at least that's what happened to me. big reason why i'm a culinary student now is because i was exposed to a lot of cuisines and then eventually becoming a foodie. food is a vice, a lifestyle and soon...my boss. lol.
 
Just start giving it to them and then don't stop. That was the problem with my first couple. They started off naturally liking it. Then for some reason my wife quit giving it to them or warned them too much about having too much spice. Then they didn't want it anymore. With a 5th kid we just give it to here and don't do any warning. In fact I'm quite sure she took a bite out of my caribbean red the other day growing in the kitchen and there was no wild crying or anything. I found it on the table with a bite out of it.
 
In Korea they start feeding the babies KimChi (somewhat hot) as soon as they can chew it. They start by giving them the "white" parts of the cabbage as it's a bit tamer. Hell ,,,even the dogs eat Kimchi over there....
If theres no option to what's on the table, the kids will eventually eat it. When I grew up if I didn't eat it for dinner, you'd get it again next day at lunch etc.
 
I asked my friends from Bolivia the same question the other day. They said as soon as they start feeding their babies something other than milk (from mom), they add a small amount of chile or chile powder to the food. I don't know what "small amount" is in Bolivian standards, but I am assuming it is a relative amount meaning a smaller amount than they would add to their own meal? So basically chile peppers become a part of the diet from when they first start eating!
 
Show them snacksandsuch pepper review videos. This kid eats chiles and keeps his composure so well. He makes it look so easy and convincing that chiles are nothing to be afraid of and they are tasty.
 
the biggest thing is to not bring attention to the fact that it's got a little kick to it because they'll feed off of that. my parents did it gradually to the point that my siblings and i didn't even notice. then we'd get company over and we'd watch there eyes get big on the first bite. they'd be sweating and were wondering why!
 
My first time, I ate a jalapeno when I was 7. I loved it so much, I ate two more after the first, and then was mad that I was deceived by my parents telling me I shouldn't eat them because they were too hot and that they were just another vegetable. :) You have to start mild, so try jarred pepperoncinis. They are very mild and have great flavor. I had my nephew hooked when he was 4, and onto jalapenos when 5, and thais at 7.
 
My parents just kept hot sauce around. I liked the taste, and would use enough to give myself a good lasting burn. Mind you now I could drink the stuff and barely sense the heat but still it worked.
 
With my 4 yr old, my wife would jump out of her chair and scream "Be careful, this is too hot for you" if he got with in 10 feet of any type of salsa or chile flakes. He is now avoids it like a Rattling Diamondback. My 2 yr old we specifically decided to let him figure it out on his own. When he ate hot salsa for the first time we did not make a big deal of it and just handed him a sippy cup of water. He would breathe heavy for a few second then come back for more salsa. He loved the burn. He now grabs the red chile pepper flakes we keep on the table and puts them on his food all by himself. The older one thinks his brother is crazy but is willing to at least agree that when he is older he might try chile again. They both love picking the chile off my plants however, so at least I have that.

Oh and I did not like it till I was about 10 years old. Took that long for me to get up the nerve to try some Chile Con Queso. Fresh roasted Hatch chiles and all that melted chese..... mmmmmmmm I never looked back.
 
I can't remember when I starting eating hot peppers with most of my meals, my dad was a Blaster at the Ray Mine in Arizona and ate chiltepins with every meal and there was a bottle of home made hot sauce on the table at all times. I do remember that I was eating hot peppers most of the time when I was about six or seven, I don't remember anyone ever telling me not to eat any, but was warned a few times not to stand next to someone and fart, also I remember that if we had to fart while we were eating we were to get up and go into the other room which at that time was the living and bedroom area as we lived in a two room house and no plumbing so there was certain rules.
My sisters never ate any peppers, but my yonger brother started eating them with his meals about 8 years old by that time i was 10 and I think we started to eat then more often. I think that if you were to put pieces of hot peppers on the table and eat them in front of the kids and make a joke about the hot peppers and let the kids know that they were hot, but it was no big thing. After a while the children will try them, you could even make the curry that you give them a little hotter each time they will get use to it. :)
George W.
 
My mom says that when I was as young as 3, I wanted radishes in the grocery instead of candy,,And i remember that me and my siblings each got to pick one thing a week at the store,Mine was pepperoncini!
So not sure if it is a cultural thing or an aqquired taste?
But my kid isnt a big fan, and I dont push it..He helps in the garden alot and recently has starting tasting diff peppers.
Hopefully he gets the bug! :)
Kevin
 
Studies show that it starts in the womb. Mothers that ate more spicy and/or varied foods whilst preggers gave birth to more 'food adventurous' children as they grew up. Ask me in 8 years if this is true as my little one is still 3 months off popping out and has been subjected to some damn fine spicy cooking of mine! :)
 
i like the idea of the fact that kids are introduced to food by letting them grow their own. giving them a section of the garden so they can grow food.
 
My parents would use a spoonful of hot sauce in the mouth as punishment for saying something naughty ( mother$;;!@/!). Needless to say we ended up enjoying it, then they figured us out and switched back to soap. Age range was 5-16 year olds. We all love spicy food now.


Here is a picture of the little ones enjoying a taco night. No matter how spicy my food turns out, everyone tries it. :dance:

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Well... when I was a kid my favorite fast food restaurant was Taco Bell, and I would regularly squeeze three or four packets of Hot (later Fire, when it came out) sauce on everything I ate there. I can't say exactly what got me into it, but it was probably my dad--he would put plenty of hot sauce on everything he got there too. So... eh... start them on something less "peppery" and with less heat maybe? Then work their way up on the taste, and then heat, chain?

My mom has never liked anything hot, and stuff that has always barely even tingled my tongue she claims is "too hot" for her, so I'm not so sure I personally believe that it is passed on from mother to child. I definitely got hooked on the heat independently. I have since gone much, much hotter, while she wouldn't touch the things I eat with a ten foot pole.
 
thinklikeh20 said:
My parents would use a spoonful of hot sauce in the mouth as punishment for saying something naughty ( mother$;;!@/!). Needless to say we ended up enjoying it, then they figured us out and switched back to soap. Age range was 5-16 year olds. We all love spicy food now.



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I've heard of this, it is called hotsaucing. I believe there was a news story on this awhile back and they interviewed Lisa Welchel about it. She wrote a book about discipling children. You might know her better as Blair fom The Facts of Life.
 
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