On Mon, 22 Aug 2005 07:11:38 EDT, "Clay" wrote:

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it. I think if you have 14 year old boys doing any cooking that's a great start.

I don't know if this is sexism, or just an assumption that you can't
get 14-year-olds to do ANYTHING.

When I was 13, my mother was in grad school and I was doing most of the
cooking for the household.

If they haven't been doing any cooking and meal planning before this,
I think it's appropriate to start with fairly low expectations. As a
friend just said to me a few minutes ago, "You can't have it both
ways. You can either have teenagers who take charge of producing a
meal, or you can have some control over what you eat."

Do your sons also get the opportunity of feeding grateful parents
sometimes, or are they just feeding younger siblings who are probably
not tolerant of different foods? If I had to feed younger siblings
and also had to babysit them at the same time, I would never attempt
to serve them anything I didn't think they'd like, such as most
vegetables.

If you don't already have household customs of being courteous to the
cook and fellow diners when one doesn't care for the food, this would
be a good time to model and enforce such customs. A parent eating a
meal planned and prepared by kids should completely avoid criticising
the food or the cooking methods at the meal especially in front of
younger siblings. Acceptable courtesy for a child who doesn't like
the food might be to taste everything, to leave it on the plate
without comment, and if asked could say something like "I don't care
for that" rather than "This is awful" or "Yuck".

If they are doing the cooking, but not the
shopping, then it's pretty easy specifying what you want them to cook
as that's what there will be in the fridge.

If they are doing the shopping and cooking, I would follow the advice
above in terms of requiring several food groups.

If you haven't been doing cooking with them all along, it's probably a
good idea to start doing some cooking-together as well as leaving them
in charge sometimes. Find out what else they'd like to learn to cook,
and help them learn (from a parent, from a friend, from a cooking
workshop, whatever). Take them to the grocery store sometimes and
talk about different products. Within reason, buy what they put on
the shopping list.

Louise