Children are fussy, they won’t eat just anything. Every parent knows that. As does cook Karolina Sparring. She went from being a successful restaurant-owner to an ‘unsuccessful’ cook at a nursery school. Not even her own children wanted to eat the fo ...
Children are fussy, they won’t eat just anything. Every parent knows that. As does cook Karolina Sparring. She went from being a successful restaurant-owner to an ‘unsuccessful’ cook at a nursery school. Not even her own children wanted to eat the food she served. Then everything turned round – and now she reveals her recipe for success, or rather her recipes!
In Come in and eat!, cook Karolina Sparring presents the food that children like, without sacrificing demands as to quality and taste. In five chapters – Meat, Fish, Vegetarian, Soups and Children’s Favourites – she presents fifty selected dishes that every parent can prepare and from which they can compose a weekly menu.
When Karolina came back from her first maternity leave, she felt that she needed to change tracks so she applied for a job at a nursery school. Here she met a public that was far more fussy than her earlier lunch guests. Many dishes came back to the kitchen untouched, but Karolina refused to take a short cut by using semi-manufactured products.
She experimented. Served the ingredients separated instead of mixed together. Then added one new item at a time, and soon the tide turned. Now, the children at Karolina’s nursery school eat bulgur, mint and minced lamb meat. And they don’t just eat it – they love it!
In the book, a child psychologist describes the mechanisms that can lead to a ‘total stop’ at mealtimes. A dietician and a doctor answer ‘stupid’ questions that we parents ask ourselves: “What happens if you only eat cornflakes and nothing else?” or “How much salt should one use?”
Come in and eat! is the new kitchen bible that families with children can turn to when they feel ready to give up, when the kids eat fish fingers for the fourth time in a week, and when it feels that it is time to make a new start… In Come in and eat!, the food that is served, is tested and approved by an extremely demanding public – children!
Karolina Sparring is a chef and an author of cookbooks. For many years, she ran a successful salad café, Arom, in Stockholm
Karin Alfredsson is a photographer and author.