Make Your Own

I am happy to kick off my first Fathering column with a subject that I especially enjoy: eating and drinking. Savoring food and drink offers us opportunities to explore the world around us and make something from it. Furthermore, we can teach our children a little bit about trust, self-reliance, and the simple pleasures in life. This brings me to one aspect of eating and drinking in particular – I will call it “make your own.” It is an attitude I have towards a lot of things.

To give you a little background, I have come to adopt this attitude because I like to try things myself; that is how I learn. When it comes to food and drink, I embrace this attitude, because I think it is cheaper, better and much more rewarding to make your own. Also, my wife and I try to teach our children to do things for themselves whenever possible. Cooking is a great way to start.

So why should we make our own food and drink? It is an opportunity for our children to learn what goes into putting food on the table, and it gives us a chance to show that we trust our children. For example, my oldest daughter is in a local kindergarten. Once a week, the class makes a Znüni (morning snack) buffet, cutting all the fruits and vegetables themselves. The kids are between four and six years old. At home, we try to give our daughter the opportunity to do the same. She measures ingredients for cupcakes, chops fruits and vegetables and goes to the garden to get herbs. If she makes a mistake, it could result in a ruined batch of cupcakes or a cut finger, but we trust her.

When we first moved into our place here in Switzerland, we would pick cherries in the garden and make jam. We made a catch cloth for my daughter and her friend to hold while I climbed the ladder and tossed cherries down. Now, we can send our daughter up the (short) ladder, and she does the picking. By showing that we trust her to do these things on her own, she has fun and develops her independence and self-confidence.

A few years ago, we received a great tip from a friend to go strawberry picking in the spring (mid-May to mid-June). Every year since, we have gone to Sunnehof in Mettmenstetten to see how strawberries grow and to pick them ourselves. We eat a lot of them fresh and make jams or pies with the rest. Besides the fun of eating fresh produce, it is fun to see how fruits and vegetables grow, and how they go into making other products.

Switching gears to drinking, I have to mention that I brew beer at home. Again, my oldest daughter enjoys watching and learning. She knows the basics of how to mash grains, boil wort and pitch yeast for fermentation. The resulting product looks nothing like the raw ingredients (grains, hops, spices) that go into it – it’s magic! Besides being a great lesson in microbiology, she gets to see how raw ingredients and a recipe can create something new. By the way, it is definitely tastier (as well as more rewarding and maybe even a bit cheaper) to brew your own beer.

Of course there are many challenges associated with kids and their eating and drinking habits. My wife and I are lucky to have children who are not picky eaters, and they almost exclusively drink milk and water. I am not really sure how this has come to be. We try to cook tasty meals but understand that there are some things they just do not like. However, I do think children are willing to try just about anything if they have played a part in making it.

We try to make our daily meals look appetizing, and we sometimes even present dishes like a waiter would at a fine restaurant, just to have fun with it. One night for dinner, we had a large amount of peas as the “main” dish, presented on a big white plate with just a sprinkling of olive oil, salt and pepper. Both girls wiped the plate completely clean. Then we served up a cheeseburger. It was weird, as if the burger became the side dish!

The money we save by not going out to eat (thank you, Switzerland, for making that an easy choice) and making many meals from scratch is spent on good-quality food. We are not afraid of a little salt and pepper to make it tasty, but some things are just better without. To that point, our two daughters consume plain steamed broccoli (or “little trees,” as we call them) and green beans by the fistful! Our two-year-old daughter steals raw green beans from the counter as I’m making dinner; not sure what is wrong with her.

As winter is upon us, there is no longer fresh food to be gathered. However, it is the time of year when traditions and seasonal dishes take the spotlight. Many traditions are passed down from our parents. But when you live in a foreign country, sometimes you have to adapt your traditions to your new home, and once again seize the opportunity to “make your own.”

By Brian Wilson

Brian is the father of three children and a golf teacher. He coordinates the Little Angels playgroup in Wädenswil and a Zurich Dads’ group, and he can be reached at bwilsoniag@gmail.com.

Illustration by Susana Gutierrez

Susana, the mother of two little girls, moved to Zurich four years ago. She is originally from Spain but lived in London for almost 10 years. Susana’s had a very eclectic career from acting to law, to IT project-management. Drawing, however, has always been a permanent interest.