October 9, 2011

Mummy's Special Diet Biscuits & Other Acts Of Devious Brilliance

I must say, Twitter teaches you the most amazing things. At least, it teaches me the most amazing things. I really can't speak for you. For all I know you're not even on Twitter, which means it's not teaching you anything at all.

What's more, it doesn't always teach me especially amazing things - it often teaches me things that are fairy mundane or just mildly amusing. But that's beside the point too.

What is my point actually is - and I really do have one - is that the other day, I had a very interesting Twitter discussion with some of my online buddies. It was about food, as many of my discussions with my online buddies tend to be. (To be honest, many of my discussions with my real life buddies tend to be about food too. I guess I'm just really interested in food [which is fascinating, as I'm not interested in cooking at all]).

I had Tweeted about my surprise that I had not lost weight, despite a week on the Central Coast with my mum and kids eating very little other than hot chips and apple pie (and, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner). I thought that chips were one of those foods that have negative calories - the more you eat of them, the less you weigh. Apparently I was wrong. Apparently it's celery (or kiwi fruit, or potato scallops - there was some minor controversy).

My Special Vitamins (half a dose)

This led to a mind blowing disclosure about the peculiar misconceptions other people believe, or perpetrate, about food. One Tweep, @ptmaree, told me about her friend who grew up being told that Kingstons were his mum's special diet biscuits, which made me stand up on my seat and applaud this genius woman whom I'd never met (or even knew the name of, apart from 'ptmaree's mate's mum').

Another, @propinqua, revealed that she tells her kids that Vita Weets are called Tim Tams, which demostrates a level of devious brilliance I had only previously suspected she had.

And then @duckformation - poor, tragic @duckformation - told us how her mother had always described fried eggs as 'special cheese'. She confessed that she had always had a difficult relationship with cheese since. Quite frankly, if I was her I would have had a difficult relationship with eggs, too. And my mother.

Happily, my mother inflicted no such cruelties on me, though we did regularly eat a 'meal' consisting of tinned tuna covered by mashed potato known by the improbably sophisticated moniker of 'Fish Pie'. I still can't be in a room with potato and tuna at the same time.

I have never, ever attempted to trick my kids, though. Of course, I tell them that my packets of dark chocolate bullets are my 'special vitamin pills' and my bottles of red wine are 'Mummy's health drinks', but that's not a lie at all. It's the absolute, honest truth.

And now I'm going to have some schnitzel. My husband assures me that it's the key to good health, and I want to do the best by my family.

37 comments:

  1. The only deception around here is Grab it dinner night - the kids are allowed to "grab" whatever they can find. They think this is "heaps" fun; so do I as I *grab* another wine and congratulate myself for avoiding a night of cooking.

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  2. My mum used to tell us we were eating chicken fricasee when it was in fact rabbit (which was much cheaper than chicken 40 yrs ago). I've been known to lie to my kids ALOT about how many vegetables are actually hidden in the bolognese and Daddy's beer is actually Coke - no way do I want those overactive ratbags on sugary soft drink, their hyper Dad is enough!

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  3. My mother's cooking was cruelty enough. However, I have every intention of using housework as a treat with my children. "Absolutely not! You were rude to mummy. YOU CANNOT WASH THE DISHES!" and "A D-grade? That's it. No vaccuming for a month!"

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  4. Sadly, my moments of brilliance are rare and fleeting :) But  now you've gone and raised the subject of *schnitzel* which, as anyone who has ever lived in a uni college will know, is the ultimate in culinary deception.  So many varieties of schnitzel, and yet all indistinguishable from each other. Seriously, if someone wants to disguise their meat in breadcrumbs, its not unreasonable to ask why.  I even had an *empty* schnitzel served up to me once.  To make up for it, I think I'll go and get some of those special vitamins of yours.

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  5. My sister used to refuse to eat rice... but if my mother called it 'baby potatoes' she lick the plate clean. Stupid girl.

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  6. My children hate raisins but will happily eat "sugar drops" in bread and butter pudding. 

    LURVE chocolate bullets. 

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  7. It's true what Oprah says, we often repeat the crimes of our parents.  I now tell Tercero (aged 3) that his omlette is an "Egg Pancake" - he will eat anything with the word pancake in it. Strictly speaking, it is flat and fried like a pancake. And far closer to the truth than "Special Cheese". 

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  8. Oh I am starting this Grab night thing ASAP *grabs more wine* xxx

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  9. Sorry, but I am still stuck on the rabbit fricasee...... *runs to check on Spunky in the backyard*

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  10. NOOOOO! An EMPTY schnitzel???? My husband will be horrified....

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  11. That is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Your sister is an idiot. xxx

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  12. 'Sugar drops'??? My kids call raisins 'Spunky poo'.

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  13. I'm proud of you. Quite frankly with all the trauma of your special cheesed upbringing, it's astounding you manage to feed your children eggs at all.

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  14. My brother asks my neice whether she'd prefer Jasmine, Basmati or long grain, then just cooks whatever he wants and pretends it's what she asked for. Not to get her to eat something she wouldn't otherwise or anything, just to give himself a laugh!

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  15. I remember one night when our whole when our whole family revolted because my mum served boiled potatoes as the main veggie for the seventh night in a row.....

    the other night I cooked Indian and the kids started to complain. I explained that intelligent children liked to eat food from countries all over the world. Thus food came from India which has lots of people and is very hot. They seemed interested and ate it. better brush up on my knowledge about India for next time I cook a curry......

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  16. i once fed my family kangaroo - told them it was beef,but I couldn't bear to eat it myself! they seemed to like it - this was 10 yrs ago, b4 it was 'so good for you' never had it since!

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  17. Hehe, my mum's friend bought round steak and kidney pie once. We were only told about the "steak" part of the pie - I (thankfully) declined, but my brother hoed down half the pie before querying what the other bits were, then promptly ran to the bathroom and brought it back up when he was told....!!

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  18. We were never fooled about what we were eating, but mum did have one rule relating to lollies and chips. "If you can't open it, you can't eat it." So no running to her for help if we couldn't get the chip packet open. Luckily we all knew where the scissors were kept.

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  19. Somehow - and I truly, truly don't know how - my children have got it into their heads that frozen peas are a treat, like lollies. If I pull the bag out of the freezer ready to nuke them into submission, they will fly at me and beseech me with pleas for a handful. Which they will then proceed to devour in around 3 seconds flat, then demand more.

    I'm still working on frozen broccoli...

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  20. I don't have kids { you have no idea how happy this makes me }, and I'll eat anything that Mrs F throws at me. I say that metaphorically, as she has been known to throw things at me, but not food. Not yet......

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  21. Chocolate bullets are called "coffee beans" at our place. My husband gave each of the kids a sip of the coffee dregs in his coffee cup and now the kids think they are poison.

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  22. Mine do the same!  They think the peas are more delicious frozen than cooked.  Their prefer method of consumption is to suck the pea then peel off the outer skin, proudly show everyone and then suck, peel, suck, peel until gone.

    Who knew you could peel a pea?

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  23. My children can't stand veggies (what a surprise, uh?! :)) So I always try to trick them by dicing stuff really tiny, they can't detect them. I feel very proud when I get them to enjoy every sip on a veggies loaded soup!

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  24. Since our middle son is extremely attached to his favourite bed time buddy (a pig), we have always (very sensitively) referred to pork as... pink chicken. It has worked beautifully for about 8 years now. I have also been known to pour myself a nice cold glass of white wine into a water tumbler in order not to set off any nasty red flags on alcohol free days. Clever mummy.

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  25. I love Grab It Dinner Night - inspired....

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  26. Mine too - without the spunky...

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  27. No deceptions. Can't be bothered trying to be clever. Not clever enough..... Although I did try to get them to eat multigrain bread when they were about 5 by telling them that the 'bits' where unicorn magic. They replied - uh huh, magical what, poo? I was fighting a losing battle...

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  28. Pink chicken!!!! Perhaps you should have just called his bedtime buddy 'pink chicken' and you all could have eaten pork.... x

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  29. Well, you're still young *coughs loudly*

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  30. I like frozen peas. But I like chocolate more.

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  31. Well, I must say I don't know if I am pro or anti Grab it dinner because sometimes it is good to let your children make their own decisions but there are times when they don't do the right ones and you should correct them! Have a nice day!

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