What's For Breakfast?

A pet peeve: recipes that involve some sort of "hidden" vegetable. And listen, I like vegetables. It was my little brother who'd refuse to eat them and be stuck at the dinner table until he'd cleaned his plate. (Me, I didn’t like to eat meat, but I could conveniently pass my food under the table and down to our dog, Gretel. She was less keen to help Fred eat his peas.)

I don't mind it when folks put vegetables in cakes or quick breads or muffins. But even as someone who likes vegetables, I gotta say: just don't lie about it. If you put grated zucchini in brownies, that's fine! If you add shredded carrot to bolognese, that's perfectly acceptable! If you made a key lime tart with avocado, just say so! If you put a green smoothie down in front of someone, don't insult them by denying that there's spinach in it!

Perhaps one of the reasons why many adults balk at eating their vegetables is because we play all these "tricks" on children to get them to eat certain foods. (Also not good: making someone stay at the table until their plate is clean.) I always think about the "squiggly spaghetti" scene in Roald Dahl's The Twits, and the mean-spirited joy that Mrs. Twit expressed when she revealed to her husband what he'd actually eaten for dinner. The moral of the story: if you cackle or even smirk with satisfaction when you secretly feed someone something they really don't want to eat, you're an asshole.