There’s nothing I love more than a side of casual racism with my morning conversations. I call it ‘casual’ because you can usually tell that the person who’s making the somewhat offensive remarks doesn’t seem to quite understand it’s never okay to say something like, “So and so is far too pretty to be (insert minority group), don’t you think? Females who are (again, said minority group) tend to be pretty ugly on the whole.”
Or: “You’ve got lovely English dear” – to someone who is Australian born and bred.
Over the years, I’ve heard them all, but my favourite declaration thus far has to be the time a teacher pulled me aside at my daughter’s school and declared how lucky my daughter must be to "have lovely and packed in her lunchbox every day". I had to laugh really because the most 'exotic' thing my daughter has ever had in her lunchbox is the crust left on a cheese and tomato sandwich (which she refused to eat), which was packed alongside a banana, apple, yoghurt and crackers. and vine leaves? A (Turkish) mum can only dream!
My brothers and I grew up on a diet which was exclusively . Feta and cucumber on toast for breakfast (I still shudder involuntarily when I see someone start the day with cereal), garlicky, chilli-filled spreads in our sandwiches which ensured we would always be too embarrassed to get too close to anybody of the opposite sex at school (clever parenting, you have to admit), and then there were vegetable stews with rice for dinner. To this day, food is our go-to, dishes we insist on eating whenever we go to visit mum and dad, and dishes we dream about when we’re eating pretty much anything else. When it comes to what our own children eat, however, that’s a completely different matter.
Tabbouleh doesn't make an appearance in the children's lunchboxes. (Sharyn Cairns) Source: Sharyn Cairns
The most 'exotic' thing my daughter has ever had in her lunchbox is the crust left on a cheese and tomato sandwich (which she refused to eat), which was packed alongside a banana, apple, yoghurt and crackers. Tabbouleh and vine leaves? A (Turkish) mum can only dream!
Like most parents, I started feeding my babies by the book - the . Rather than stuff lamb chops and mashing stewed eggplant into their gummy mouths like my parents insisted I should (“That’s what we did back in the day,” my mother said), I pureed pear and rice cereal and blended bland vegetables with boiled-to-bejesus meat. My kids’ tastebuds - now that I think about it - simply didn’t stand a chance when I later began to introduce all the Turkish greats from my own childhood.
“Zoom! Here comes the airplane!’” I’d squeal over-enthusiastically as I tried to shovel mouthfuls of (a popular eggplant dish) into their reluctant mouths. “But I hate eggplant!” cried my daughter, even though I’d warned her more than once that that is pretty much the most offensive thing you can ever say to a Turk. “Can’t I just have a sandwich?”
Eggplant dishes, unfortunately, are not universally popular at the family table. (China Squirrel) Source: China Squirrel
And so here is my problem: in a household where my husband and I would love to eat predominantly Turkish cuisine, we appear to have reached a stalemate with our children who much prefer typically Western foods like chicken and vegetables, and basically anything that involves bread or rice. I already feel that I’ve robbed my girls of so much when it comes to their heritage – they don’t really speak the language and they live on the other side of the planet from most of their family – that our cuisine feels like the final link in their heritage. If they turn their back on the food as well, what part of them could they say is actually tied in any way to their mother’s ancestors?
I was talking to my mother recently about my woes, detailing how I planned to convert them over time. There were plans to make small changes to traditional dishes to make them more child-friendly and to alternate between Turkish and Western dishes on a nightly basis, but all my mother could do was snort with laughter.
In this household, the kids prefer spaghetti to traditional Turkish food. Source: Alan Benson
“Don’t you think we had the same problem with you and your brothers growing up?” she asked me. “All you ever wanted was and spaghetti with tomato sauce and it drove us crazy.” What did they do to solve the problem? Absolutely nothing, it seems. “We just continued to put the food we always ate on the table and you eventually learned through exposure,” she said. “When you got old enough, something finally clicked and the same thing happened with your brothers.”
My kids are only nine and four, so I may have some time to go before “the click” – but I’m hopeful. That said, I might finally get around to packing the odd stuffed vine leaf into my daughter’s lunchbox – just in case …
