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5 Year Old Refused To Eat Melissa D’Arabian’s Food
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J.M. Hirsch has an all-too common problem: he can’t get his 5 year old son Parker to eat his veggies. Whereas most parents would probably just reference Popeye’s strength or withhold dessert until the veggies were eaten, Mr. Hirscsh contacted the Food Network and issued a challenge: could any of their chefs come up with a clever dish that would actually get Parker to eat his veggies?
The Food Network stepped up to the plate, and offered recipes from Alton Brown, Rachael Ray, Alex Guarnaschelli, Melissa D’Arabian, and two Iron Chef contestants. There were only two rules: the vegetables couldn’t be hidden, and Parker had to take at least one bite from all of them before declaring a winner. (It’s also worth noting that there would be no issue of favoritism, because the Hirsch family doesn’t have a television set and Parker has no idea who these chefs are.)
WHAT THE CHEFS MADE:
Alton Brown cheated a little bit, and submitted parsnip muffins. Mr. Hirsch almost disqualified him because the vegetables were hidden inside a baked good, but “let it slide” because it wasn’t as “devious as putting puree in a brownie.” The good news is that Parker liked the muffins and said he’d eat them again.
Alex Guarnaschelli also scored major points with her roasted butternut squash, which garnered a “yum” from Parker.
Things didn’t go as well for Rachael Ray, who made a cheesy lasagna stuffed with chopped spinach and chard. Parker hated everything about it. He put one noodle in his mouth, and ran away faster than Isaboo upon seeing 
a bowl of Nutrish.
Surely Melissa D’Arabian – mother of 4 – would have a delicious, kid-friendly vegetable dish up her sleeve, right? WRONG. She made cheese coated creamed spinach, a dish that horrified poor Parker to his 5-yr old core. He refused to take even the smallest bite of it, and stood there disgustedly staring at the plate like it held the severed head of Santa Claus. After a few minutes, he mustered up some strength from deep within, dipped the fork in the cheese, put one tine to his lips, and declared, “I knew this was the baddest recipe.” (And in the wise, wise words of Run DMC, “that’s bad meaning bad, not bad meaning good.”)
Ultimately, Parker decided Alton Brown was the winner. On the other hand, Mommy d’Arabian was clearly the loser of the day. That’s a shame. If only she thought to smother her dish in frozen bacon, things could have turned out a lot differently.
(Thanks for the tip, Matt!)
Other posts on Food Network Humor:
---Whoa, Alton Brown Is SKINNY---Ladies And Gentlemen, Melissa d’Arabia
---Next Food Network Star Winner: Melissa D’Arabian
---Possible Rapper Names For Melissa D’Arabian
---Melissa D’Arabian Needs To Shut Up About The Bacon
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67 Responses
Well, DUH. Creamed spinach is gross no matter HOW old you are!
I loove creamed spinach but it does look scary, like “Swamp Thing” or something!
I have two toddlers. One devours vegetables left and right with favorites being fresh, raw tomatoes and bell peppers. The other won’t touch a vegetable no matter what. I always made my own baby food, I do not allow juice (my kids love ice water and ask for it throughout the day) and I do not allow candies, cookies, etc. Veggies and kids can be TRICKY things and for the one child who is convinced they don’t like them in any shape or form (and believe me, I have tried sooo many ways!), well, I swear toddlers should be used in government standstills because the lil gems will not be moved!
How do you threaten to “punish” a three year old with no dessert when they have no concept of what that is? (Well, they know what it is but from books and tv, not from their life experiences). Ha! I’m left to say things like, “no more fruit for you!” LOL
Creamed spinach is disgusting. She’s the mother of 4. The challenge was to create a dish a picky kid would eat. She is an idiot for making creamed spinach!
LOL bacon-mamma’s a L O S E R !
Remember Lisa (hericots verts) Garza whose son she claimed had a ‘sophisticated palette’?
I believe her girl scout menu included creamy horseradish (for steak), broccoli and herb-a-fied couscous. Yep, real kid-friendly there girlfriend.
Legends in their own minds.
I pro-created twice (to the disbelief of all my female classmates) and I’ll tell you, as Just-a-Nobody said, the kids are polar opposites in their tastes and preferences.
If Mommy D hasn’t figured it out after four rugrats, when it was pretty obvious to us, YOU HIDE THE SHIT YOU WANT YOUR KIDS TO EAT IN OTHER STUFF (a la Alton)!!!, just admit it Missy, nannies raised your offspring and you haven’t a clue. Seriously d’Arabian, who took care of the “chilluns” while you were off fullfilling your “dream”?
why didn’t she just make her “smashed potatoes with brussel sprouts” and serve the brussel sprouts on the side…just in case a kid wants to eat A RAW BRUSSEL SPROUT!!??
hopefully the food network learns to take hints from a 5 year old. afterall, kids don’t say the “darndest” things, they say the most honest things!
Jillian, your statement “refused to take even the smallest bite of it, and stood there disgustedly staring at the plate like it held the severed head of Santa Claus.” is pure prose.
The “chef” is probably responsible for turning a future foodie into a fast food fiend.
I LOVE this site, and your Dennis Miller-esque references are “BEEEEAuTiful”. Keep up the great work, I’ll donate soon, gotta buy some flat iron steak tomorrow.
So she sucks at cooking kids food too?
I’m with Alton on this one (even though he’s a stuttering douche bag). I hide veggies* in brownies all the time and have yet to receive any complaints from my sister’s kids. But call me crazy!
Someone give quatro-mom a spoon and tell her to cut the spinach shit.
I suppose that’s how they get the kids in France to eat spinach…
Way to go Alton!
`
And kudos to Parker for leaving Rachael and Melissa with egg, lasagna, and creamed spinach on their faces. (figuratively speaking, of course)
`
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btw, that pic you put in there (xP) made me lmao!
Hahaha! Creamed spinach is absolutely disgusting and not very appetizing to look at, I’m not surprised he wouldn’t eat it!
What I love is mince pie. My future mother-in-law has made it for me several times and I love it to pieces. I’m not a veggie-hater, but it has so many veggies in it and you don’t even notice! The parsnip muffins sound intriguing, I might have to try those!
I remember being about 8 & my Aunt made spinach with parm cheese & bread crumbs, & browned it under the broiler. She called it AuGratin spinach. I remember it tasted like broccoli (to my young pallet). Loved it.
Can I also add, as unrelated as this is, how much I hate Ellie Krieger? I appreciate seeing someone on FN actually looking at the health and nutritional value of ingredients, but she seems to be so afraid of her food! She never touches anything and breaks out her little measuring spoons for EVERYTHING. I’m not quite as bad as RR with eyeballing, but I don’t think you’re going to kill anyone by not breaking out the teaspoon every time you need to add salt.
Whatever happened to just basic veggies like green beans, carrots, corn and peas? I hate spinach, brussel sprouts, asparagus and any other “greens” so therefore I never make them for my children. They are 2 of the healthiest kids in our family.
And what’s so wrong with putting veggies in muffins? As long as it gets eaten, what’s the big deal?
I’m not trying to defend Mommy Dearest here, but even as a kid, I loved creamed spinach, broccoli, cauliflower and brussel sprouts. I still do. Then again, I was about 19 years old before I liked Italian sausage. It seems that my taste buds were tuned a little different from most others.
I haven’t met a vegetable that I didn’t like or wouldn’t at least try, but I know that my mom struggled to get my siblings to eat veggies. I think corn, carrots, and tomatoes were the only acceptable “greens”, and it so happens that I don’t really enjoy these sweet vegetables.
Cute post, Jillian!
Whew! I know this is going to sound silly, but it’s refreshing to read that other posters have similar experiences either from their own childhood or from raising their own kids, to what I’m going through now with my two (ages 2 and 3).
One has all but given up meat and can’t get enough of vegetables of any kind and the other won’t eat them to save her life unless it’s a southwest veggie pattie, black beans in a quesadilla, or baked beans. But it seems “normal” when you look at my husband who has never been a huge veggie fan unless it was a potato with tons of crap on it or veggies coated in butter or cheese to the point you don’t taste the veggies at all. I’m just the opposite, I prefer veggies with no salt, butter, etc but simply steamed or grilled. I take great pride in teaching my kids health eating habits and it is very frustrating to have one turn their nose at nearly everything on their plate :D
(I’m off to “Looooosers Anon” now since I got a sense of comfort from total strangers and feel the sudden urge to cry a little bit that others “get it”, it’s not so simple as working hard to have kids with healthy palates.)
@Melissa D’umbass nice photo! You need a bacon mustache or eyebrows.
It’s another nail in the life story of Mommy Dearest and her lying ways. She has never been a SAHM. She’s a SHAM!
Now my question is why is this J.M Hirsch guy contacting the FN peeps to help him with the kid not eating his veggies? If he doesn’t own a TV, why/how is FN the place he turns to? Hey, wait a minute! LOOK!! (reaches for his chin and pulls back a full face latex mask) It’s Bob Doucheman!! The King of Scams!!!
Hmm, cooked spinach is a very odd choice here. Back when I was a kid (OK, many decades ago), the school cafeteria dominatrix forced me to eat the horrible canned spinach that had been dished out on my plate, against my protestations. I immediately regurgitated it and puked all over the cafeteria. Bet that was the last time the school’s cafeteria staff tried to force-feed a kid. (But as an adult, I love spinach–the fresh kind, that is!)
Just curious though, if those folks don’t even own a television, what made them think to get the Food Network involved in the first place?
@ BYRDIE “If he doesn’t own a TV, why/how is FN the place he turns to?”
EXACTLY.
Busted!
Jill: Wasn’t meaning to send in so many tips lately, but that one just fell in my lap and the text was too good to pass up: “Would it bring back memories of the curried spinach he loved as a toddler? It didn’t. He refused to eat anything but the sauce, and then only the tiniest lick off his fork.” So obviously the kid has some kind of developed palate!
@Byrdie, @HermityCrab: If you click through on the challenge link, you’ll see that J.M. Hirsch wrote the articles about this for the Associated Press. He’s published a book of vegetarian recipes, and the blurb says:
J.M. Hirsch is a food writer for The Associated Press. His weekly vegetarian cooking column can be read in hundreds of newspapers across North America. Educated in Scotland and South Africa, he lives with his wife and cat in New Hampshire.
He’s also the author of “Blunt Force Cooking.” You can follow him on Twitter, where you can see more of this challenge as it unfolded as well as see links to new stories about food and recipes (including an AP roundup of a “roundup of the latest foodie books for kids and the cooks they love.”)
He’s not an unconnected average house guy—he just doesn’t have a TV at home where the kids could watch FN. (Some of you struggling with kid-friendly recipes might like things he has on Twitter like “parm chicken fingers the whole family can love.”)
HA in your face, Melissa! Expert, my aunt fanny!
Cheers to Alton for getting a kid to eat a parsnip. I eat 99% of all vegetables how, but I still won’t touch a parsnip.
But I’ve not known one kid that didn’t like at least SOME vegetables. But to be sure, it’s always good idea to put them ON pizza or add to sandwich, or IN the mashed potatoes.
Yeah back in old days when I was kid, the only vegetables you got off season were canned and they were disGUSting. Peas, spinach bleccchh. But even when we had fresh, my mom still cooked them till they were foul-looking, foul-smelling, and slimey.
Alton rules! He’s smartest thing in the universe ;)
“..cooked spinach is a very odd choice here…”
@BettyCrocker: I, too, was a kid many decades ago when not a lot was known about food allergies. Children were forced to eat veggies and/or other foods that might have caused some type of distress that wasn’t understood by parents or other adults with whom they came in contact. I remember not liking oranges as a child and attributed it to the sticky residue left on my hands after peeling the fruit. When I was finally diagnosed with asthma, it turns out that I am allergic to oranges. No wonder I didn’t like to eat the citrus!
Anyhoo, spinach is in the nightshade family of veggies, many of which are now known to cause allergic reactions. Just because kids don’t want to eat veggies doesn’t necessarily mean that they are being obstinate; the veggies might just cause them discomfort or distress that they are unable to explain. jmo
@CherryRose/BettyCrocker
That is interesting, and enlightened, thinking.
I guess it might also be in your dna? You can’t suddenly be able to digest new foods that your ancestors have never eaten over the centuries? I guess that’s evolution (harsh) – develop a tolerance to the new food source, or else . . .
I guess that’s also why indigenous people developed problems with sugar, weight, etc.?
I would have done something with cabbage. I hated veggies as a kid but I GOBBLED up cabbage like it was ecstasy.
@ Tim…
Personally I’d rather hide some different green stuff in brownies.
Just another reason for Tuschman to tape something involving his contract players. Looks like Doucheman grabbed a neighbour with kids for subject matter.
Who really gives a shit if Little Parker Hirshberg won’t eat his veggies. Big fucking deal. Let him eat Beefaroni or Alpha-Ghetti till he turns orange. Let him eat hotdogs till he turns into a fat little peckerhead.
@ Oh Come On
http://inkpaperwords.com/darabian.jpg
Well, maybe this will finally make Ray-Ray shut up. She claims kids will always eat her gross food if you smother it in cheese. Apparently cheese just isn’t enough to disguise the taste.
Hell, send the brat to Darfur with a bag of vegetables so he can learn how really lucky he is…
“That is interesting, and enlightened, thinking.”
@Di: I know that this is a humor site, so I don’t like to bring up serious subjects, but allergies have become a major health issue, and many are attributed to foods. The foods that our parents thought were good for us many years ago might not have been. Children who were inherently sensitive to eggs, milk, wheat, shellfish, tomatoes, nuts, etc. were considered to be finicky eaters or just plain stubborn. Truth is, these youngsters might have been experiencing serious physical distress upon eating these foods but were unable to articulate this to their parents or other adults. Unless they developed rashes or experienced breathing difficulties that required medical attention, no one realized that these kids were allegic to foods that they ate.
@Hukuna Fritatta, LMAO! You made my day!
Melissa D’umbass…did you see yourself?
Jillian, are you lurking? Check it out!
Hi FNH!
So sorry to hijack your thread again but I don’t have my MSN/works email set up and that’s the mail program that opens when I try to send you gals an e-mail. Could you post the correct e-mail somewhere on the site?
I saw this today about various chef’s guilty pleasures. Mario Batali’s is Doritos. All jokes about his weight aside, I find it refreshing he said that and not some ridiculously pretentious thing like some of the other dolts in this article (those dolts are so FOS, I know they orgasm over spoonfulls of crunchy pb and nutella in their pantires late a night, give up the act, peeps!)
Did you know Rachael had a cookbook for kids a few years back. It was called “COOKING ROCKS.” Apparently the 5 year-old let Miss EVOO know that her cooking doesn’t always rock. HA!
@Hakuna Fritatta. Lol! That’s great. The fact that it looks like raw bacon makes it even funnier.
@Hakuna Fritatta: What’s French for “LOL?”
Wow! Fry Bread on the rez is 5 STAR Dining compared to this crap.
@ Trini
EDR Écroulé de rire (to fall down laughing)
I was just reading JM Hirsch’s twitter account. Turns out he is a food writer and editor for the AP. This was all just a lame stunt to get himself some publicity so he could sell his stupid vegetarian cookbooks.
LMAO, wow. Jillian, you choice of words rock. And I guess that what $10 meal for 4 gets you with Melissa D’Arabian.
Props to AB! Hiding veggies in other things works very well to make sure a picky kid eats his/her veggies.
Making creamed spinach? Yeah, not gonna work. When I was a kid, I haaaaated spinach. With the passion of a thousand fiery suns. I didn’t care if it was creamed, raw, baby, canned, fresh, or held the promise of dessert, I wasn’t gonna eat spinach, EVER.
Granted, at the age of 34, I like spinach. But when I was 3? 4? No. Not at all. Melissa D’Arabian – FAIL.
When I was a kid, I know I would have turned my nose up at creamed spinach because it looks gross. It still looks gross.
Neo’s right. I’ve seen Hirsch’s AP stories but failed to make the connection when I first saw this thread. This was just a PR stunt.
I read the article and thought it was hilarious! Then I read Jillian’s take on it and thought it was even better! Just one thing, though, the author describes Rachael Ray’s dish as smelling and looking good but Parker refuses to eat it because he sees green in it. He even says the part without the green is good.
Now to all the FNH purist ignore my post here, I was just pointing out something real quick so pls don’t get on my case.
As for Melissa…. Dang it seemed like the dish LOOKED and SMELLED terrible! The author says they had to keep it covered until the very end so Parker wouldn’t run out of the room earlier! LOL!
@Jimbo – you wrote “Did you know Rachael had a cookbook for kids a few years back. It was called “COOKING ROCKS”.
My mind must be wired differently. Putting Rayray and a cookbook called “Cooking Rocks”, my immediate minds-eye picture was her standing over a pot of rocks, stirring as she grinned that stupid, crooked grin, saying “yummo”. Of course, then there are the recipes like ‘Rock Candy’ (and you thought the real stuff was hard on your teeth); ‘Oysters Rock-a-feller’, a crunchy, pebble-filled delight; ‘Peach Cobble-r-stone’, fresh peaches baked into a brick’.
nevermind.
Why didn’t anyone ask Tyler Flatulence to contibute a recipe ?
This blowhard seems to think he is the baby food king with his line of faux organic baby pastes.
Maybe he is being phased out of FN programing being the new crap peddlar he has become.
@Byrdie: Wanna play around with these, too?
“Rocky Mountain High”
“Big Rock Candy Mountain”
“Rock-a-bye Baby”
“Rock Around the Clock”
“Rock My Soul (In the Bosom of Abraham)”
How about “Rocky and Bullwinkle”?
Infinite possibilities!
Cherry, you got me with “Rocky and Bullwinkle”!! And that would also tie to Mommy Dearest. If you remember, R&B came from “Frostbite Falls”, a place where you can freeze bacon outside!! Fabulous!
Hakuna, that was the joke. Stay hip!
“Personally I’d rather hide some different green stuff in brownies.”
That would be a Sunny Anderson recipe called “Rocky Mountain High” ;)
Can’t beat brownies with crunch CherryRose!
“Can’t beat brownies with crunch CherryRose!”
I’ll bet Sunny makes some pretty mean “HASH Browns” for breakfast, too ;)
“HASH Browns” for breakfast, too ;)
How about a Wowie Maui Smoothie to wash down the Hash Browns and a Blackberry Doobie dessert? Could Pauler make us some Ganja Butter?
Ummmmm, Alton Brown totally cheated. You could make a nice, sweet muffin out of dead cat and dirty gym socks and win. WTF.
You know what I have a big problem with? Parents who say “my kid hates all vegetables” Vegetables are so varied and the taste differences between them are so huge this statement is just rediculous.
My mother put at least two vegetables on the plate every night, as well as a protein for these home cooked meals (and this is on top of working a 50 hour work week as a single mother). After that kind of effort, she was hardly likely to allow any complaints. The rule was I had to take at least two bites of anything new. If I genuinely didnt like it after that, well then I didnt have to eat it. But being made to try so many things made me open up to them and now I’m willing to try almost anything. These parents are soft.
The other night on one of those rediculous family shows on TLC I actually watched a mother take a green bean out of her 3-4 year old’s hand and say “You wouldn’t like that” Sadly, its something I’ve seen my cousins do with their children.
Kids don’t just naturally dislike vegetables…the only thing that could possibly make a child “hate all veggies” is a social expectation that they should.
Why all this coddling of children and catering to their whims? In the good ole days, not eating your veggies meant a spatula-crack right on the kisser. Depression era parents made their kids eat everything on the plate, OR ELSE! Even the nasty canned creamed corn. (My gag reflex just twitched.) In all seriousness, I so don’t believe in forcing kids to eat things they don’t want to. Trust me, you’ll save thousands in therapy bills down the road. And yeah, veggie pizza! That’s something kids will eat.
I found that if you force kids to eat something, all you are doing is starting WWIII. There is such a variety of stuff for them to enjoy, including veggies, that all that arguing and fighting with them just so they’ll eat that brussel sprout or brocolli is plain stupid.
Handsome, you are so right with parents who are afraid to be parents! I had a neighbor who would cook a full dinner (meat, potatoe, veg) and the kid wouldn’t eat it. He insisted on McD’s. And I couldn’t believe my eyes when they would get in her car and drive over to McD’s to get him his burger and fries and giant sugar-filled soda! It wasn’t a one time thing, either. This was the lifesytle they led. If my kids had said “I ain’t eating that”, well, my dear, you are going to be pretty hungry by breakfast time, aren’t you? Needless to say, I didn’t have that problem. It’s ridiculous.
Has Melissa’s show been yanked already? Was not on yesterday. Neither was Brian Girl, I mean Boitano. 86′d as well?
Mommy Dearest is off the air until January. At least, that’s the story so far.
I’m old enough to remember such bright ideas as “eat what’s on your plate or go to bed hungry” Thank goodness the rule at mom’s table was “just try it” . Creamed freekin’ spinach!? I still wont even consider that or green bean cassarole or quacamole (yeah, there’s a squishy green theme here) “Big Daddy” whatever his real name is, took a cookie cutter to carrots, peppers and made broccoli florets (trees) and some dip on his show…..kids, food, fun is generally the trick. But then, my oldest once hid her broccoli in a glass of milk, so maybe my ideas aren’t so good either.
Pretty funny discussion of my story. Glad so many people enjoyed it. To answer a couple questions — I’m the staff food editor for AP. I came up with the idea for the story because I know I’m not the only parent frustrated by my kid’s eating habits. The Food Network has a huge viewership among children, which made me wonder whether they know something the typical parent doesn’t about getting kids to eat good food. I kind of knew the answer upfront, but figured this was a fun way to confirm it. Nothing deeper or more nefarious than that.
J.M. Hirsch, that’s great that you responded here and clarified your story. Glad that you’re reading Food Network Humor! I always find a good laugh (or many) on this site, and it brightens my day. I hope that you continue to read it.
I worked at a buffet, I was manning the salad bar. A mother with her child was getting salad, the child asked for some salad, and she said NO????????????? That he was going to have pizza and fried chicken, doesn’t that sound good? I’m thinking, that the child asked for salad, something healthful that would have been a damn good substitute for the crap you’re making him eat and you say no, what a dumb b*tch.
Another customer came and was upset because we didn’t have chicken tenders or nuggets, because all her son ate was that kind of stuff. I had to ask my manager if we had any, which we did, we were able to prepare them for her son. But the principle is that some parents have accepted that their child dismisses healthy food or they dismiss them wanting it because they THINK the child won’t like it.
The same goes for my mother. My nephew (her grandson) loved celery and carrots, I would buy him the little snack packs with the ranch dressing. Because she didn’t like celery, she doesn’t want him to eat it. I merely shook my head, he eats too much starch, but when I cook, he loves the veggies more-so than the protein.