Noah CooperBangers (Another Pint Please…)
Thomas tried some new food while he was in the UK. Some were more of a success than others.
Sausages
This was the biggest success of the whole holiday. By the end he could very easily wolf down three sausages without even blinking. The biggest problem with sausages is that he had to wait for them to cool down before he could scoff them. We soon found out that we had to give him other food before showing him the sausages, because as soon as he saw them he wouldn’t eat anything else. While we have linguiça here in Brazil they aren’t the same so I don’t know what we are going to do now we are back.
Raisins
Not a particularly British type of food, but one thing I noticed this time around was the different marketing for healthier foods aimed at kids. One company that seems to be doing very well is Organix which has lots of healthy food alternatives aimed at kids with bright packaging and decent advertising. It still isn’t as sophisticated as Coke or McDonald’s, but it is at least a start. Their raisins were particularly well-received by Thomas, but he also liked some of their other stuff as well such as carrot cake, gingerbread men and juices.
A better snack than some
Potato Bread
When I was a kid my granny used to make potato bread for us. Basically it is made out of potatoes and flour, is an Irish recipe and is amazing when fried for breakfast. After a couple of years of experiments, my mum now makes her own mean potato bread, although she never seems to make enough of it. Thomas took a bit of time to decide he liked potato bread, but after a few attempts he decided it wasn’t too bad after all.
Curry
We took Thomas to a couple of curry houses in Birmingham. At the first one, called Masalla Merchant in Stirchley, we asked the waiter for a lamb shish kebab which he assured us wasn’t spicy. As soon as Thomas tried it his eyes watered up and his cheeks turned red. He couldn’t get the meat out quick enough. He then tried some chicken that had come with the kebab and this went down a treat. A few days later he went to Kababish in Moseley and was very happy with the naan bread and the pilau rice.
Salt and Vinegar Crisps
These were a huge hit. When he got his hands on a packet he treated it like a job of work. He sat there and slowly munched through them one by one and would have kept doing so all afternoon until he had finished the bag. Unfortunately for him the salt content is way high so I had to take them off him after a while.
Salt and vinegar should always have a green packet.
Chocolate
I wasn’t in the room at the time, but apparently a packet of bite-sized twirls was opened in front of Thomas and he wanted to try them. Once he had one in his mouth he couldn’t stop eating them. Much hilarity ensued and I made sure I wasn’t the one who had to clean his nappy the next morning.
Ice cream
Thomas has had ice cream on a couple of occasions in Brazil, but this was the first time he had whipped ice cream in a cone with a flake, also known as a 99. He was a bit suspicious at first, but he soon got the hang of it and lapped it up.
99 Ice cream (Wikipedia)
Ribena
Ribena is basically a blackcurrant squash that you add water to. I used to drink it as a kid and especially liked it with hot water on cold winter nights. Unfortunately we had a few cold summer nights so Thomas got to try it out both hot and cold; the cold version was appreciated more.
Looking at this list of different foods that Thomas tried it looks as if he ate most unhealthily. I would like to stress that we did give him decent food as well; he still loves his broccoli and he had plenty of fruit and other vegetables. And compared to me, he had a very healthy diet as I ate practically nothing but junk.
