Kid’s Menu: A Formal Complaint

BY SARAH FINKLESTEIN, ILLUSTRATION BY DONNA LIU

Ever wonder why we have “picky eaters”? The kids menu is the culprit.

No room for picky eaters in my house growing up. If you didn’t want to eat what mom or dad put on the table, then you were on your own. My brother loved adventurous new foods like frogs’ legs and different kinds of hot sauces. Two of my sister’s favorite foods growing up were meatloaf and roasted brussel sprouts — meals that would send most other kids running. For this reason, I never understood the concept of a kids menu. We always ate what the adults were eating at home; why would we want to eat something different when we went to a restaurant? But without fail, the waiters would bring a small pack of four colored crayons and one of those paper menus — exclusively brown, orange, and yellow foods, absolutely no greens allowed. We would permit ourselves to play the tic-tac-toe and complete the word search puzzle on the back, but when it came time to order we preferred pasta carbonara over mac and cheese, thank you very much. If we create an expectation that kids should only eat simple, cheesy, greasy, carb filled foods, they will never like anything else. If we raise kids to want to try new things and to enjoy vegetables and fruits, they won’t know any different. There will never be another fight about finishing the broccoli or having just one more bite of peas before dessert. Another qualm: By grouping hamburgers and grilled cheeses onto this kids menu, it creates this notion that these foods are only for children. I can’t tell you how many times I have been craving some mac-and-cheese at a restaurant, but they only serve it to people under the age of 12. Why? And have you ever wondered why there is never a kids menu at the local Indian, Greek, or Japanese restaurants? That’s because the kids menu is a purely American phenomenon. Many restaurants representing different countries and cultures will not indulge in the pickiness of American kids. France boasts 6-yearolds slurping oysters or dipping their forks into escargot, but here in America our kids are caught pulling the crusts off of their grilled cheese. How ludicrous is that? So keep the crayon packs and flimsy paper mats, but omit the menu on the back; I think the kids menu is definitely something we can do without.