The Great Solids Experiment

In the great division of duties of childrearing that Sacha and I devised when Hugo was born, one of the few duties that was always assigned to me was the preparation of his non-breast milk victuals. (Sacha of course handled this and about 95% of the other tasks associated with raising this boy healthy and happy). At the time of the assignment I was pretty excited, I received a book, The Petit Gourmet, a precious little cookbook on how to cook your precious bebe precious little organic treats. But as Hugo got older (4-5 months) and the time came when it would be alright to feed him real food, my enthusiasm waned. One, he loves eating chez maman, and I knew nothing I cooked up in a food processor would approximate that. Two, Hugo’s doctor (more on her in a later post) dropped hints that she thought we should wait until 6 months before introducing solids. Finally, Hugo had tried some non-milk foods already (Sacha put a dab of avocado on his tongue at Toast and I let him lick a kosher pickle at Saul’s Deli), suffice to say neither of these experiments portended well for the future.

Finally, six months hit and we knew we couldn’t delay the inevitable. First on the list: rice cereal. Sacha came home from our local corner market with this. Although I liked all the lip service paid to organic blah blah blah and non-GMO whathaveyou, I was more concerned by the working conditions of the diapered slave children on the box cover. I think Dolores Huerta should know about this.

So, on February 7, exactly six months after coming into the world, Hugo tried rice cereal. We followed the directions on the box. Did Hugo love it, did the certified organic, iron-fortified goodness of “Earth’s Best” transform him to a convert of solid food? See below for your answer.

Hugo found the whole ordeal somewhat disturbing. It was as if we’d put quickly-drying cement into his mouth. He looked at us with a combination of incomprehension, bemusement, and betrayal. The next night we tried pureed apples. The result:

Yes, the same look that seemed to say “Are we done, can I have some breast milk now?” Finally, we found out that my son enjoys sweet potatoes. And bananas. He actually loves sweet potatoes, in fact he prefers the ones I made from scratch over the jarred ones from the slavebaby fields of Earth’s Best. One can only hope that he’ll be open to revisiting apples one day. The rice cereal aversion doesn’t bother me. Maybe he’s boycotting out of union solidarity for his brothers and sisters in the fields…