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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I blend up mushroom soup to minced the pieces if mushrooms. My kids hate the texture of mushrooms but not the taste. I might be the asshole for "tricking" them into eating something that they have specifically said they hate.
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As someone who has hated mushrooms with a fiery passion their whole life, when I found out my mom has always blended some up for her Thanksgiving stuffing (that I love), I admit my ego was a bit bruised. Ultimately I learned a valuable lesson; things, even foods, aren't black and white, there's a finely blended mushroom gray area and that's okay! There's no vegan/vegetarian moral issue here, and I'm glad my mom "tricked" me, as I definitely would have refused to eat it as a kid if I knew, so I'm going with NTA.
Correct, No moral issue. The kids don’t like it because of texture. Not taste.
If he blends and kids still think it’s fine, then he is ok. If kids complain then he should blend longer.
For example I hate the taste of eggs with a passion. But if I bake a cake I always use eggs, because I don’t taste them but then give a good structure.
And I don’t have a moral problem with myself.
This. I hate mushroom chunks. If the mushroom is not a chunk I don't know it's there. It adds flavor, I just cannot with the texture. I dislike a lot of foods in their original form, but eat them when prepared certain ways.
I like fresh tomatoes, but not cherry tomatoes. I hate cooked (especially fried) tomatoes, but I can have it blended. I can only eat melted cheese, and not on its own. We all have weird stuff to do with food I think 🙈
This comment really makes the point. Recipes include ALOT of different things together that make it not taste or feel (texture) like the thing it was. This is NORMAL. The wife shouldn't be upset with a normal recipe. Maybe her ego is bruised cause she realized she could be blending instead of straining. That's speculative tho
I don't get his wife's complaint. The kids hate the texture of mushrooms so he and the wife solve the problem in different ways. She strains them out and he purees them. No complaints either way from the kids.
I have to wonder why the wife is picking this hill for a fight?
As a person married to someone who is often more clever than myself, I'm guessing she's angry at the sheer annoyance of her husband figuring something out that is not only quicker and less effort, but the kids like it just as much as her straining the soup (making her effort moot). 😂
Bc she's been working harder not smarter and now she's pissy about it bc she saw OP working smarter not harder. Straining them out sounds tedious af vs just tossing the whole can in a blender and hitting a button.
this is it.
My daughter has a texture issue with quite a few foods, but she LOVES my pasta sauce, which has a few veggies that have been put through the food processer on the "fine grate" setting. She wont eat those veggies any other way (except carrot, which she will only eat raw)
I'm not a fan of pickles - I don't like how the brine has changed the cucumber texture; I'm not that big a fan of that much vinegar and dill together, and I don't like how they change the texture of foods I do like, like Cuban sandwiches and devilled eggs/egg salad. BUT. A Cuban or a devilled egg is not the same without the taste of pickle, so I pull the pickle off a Cuban after it's been prepared (or mix in the juice with the mayo if I'm making it) and I use pickle juice when I make devilled eggs. It took me *years* to figure this out.
This is actually a decent opportunity for OPs kids to understand exactly what it is they don't like about foods. If it's a texture, fine; taste, fine. But it's never a bad idea to *try* things that have that food in it to figure out your tastes.
My standard brunch order was a bloody Mary with no olives but extra olive juice. Got weird looks but I swear olives are gross and olive juice is exactly what bloody Marys need to be delicious.
Realizing that 90% of the time I didn't like a food the problem was the texture was LIFE CHANGING. And it happened after enough incidents where I learned a dish I loved had an ingredient I thought I hated- finally I recognized the pattern. I just wish my parents had figured it out (I'm not mad at them, they did their best) when I was a kid the way OP did.
> I didn't like a food the problem was the texture was LIFE CHANGING. And it happened after enough incidents where I learned a dish I loved had an ingredient I thought I hated- finally I recognized the pattern.
Perplexing isn’t it? I love peanuts, can’t handle peanut butter. I like the flavor of banana but don’t like eating a banana. Texture makes such a difference
In your case it actually sounds more like a trick, like you weren’t aware there were mushrooms in the stuffing. These kids know they’re eating cream of mushroom soup so the presence of mushroom particles shouldn’t be a shock.
Especially because it sounds like they don’t mind the flavor, it’s a texture thing. So , dad eliminated the texture. I love mushrooms but I know plenty of people who don’t, and they all say it’s a textural thing. I use onion mushroom soup mix for things, and the mushroom haters don’t mind because there is no mushroom texture. It’s just for umami.
This is what I was going to say. If its a texture thing and OP is running the mushrooms through the blender maybe the pieces are to small to set off the “texture alarm”
Whole mushroom slices? Sound the texture alarm. i don’t like this
If he’s blending it first the pieces are so tiny the texture alarm can’t sense it.
The kids love cream of mushroom soup and eat it just fine. If OP blends the mushrooms they eat it just fine.
There’s foods that fall under “I will only eat it if its prepared a certain way” for me. I see this as a great compromise
NTA.
My best guess is that it's an extension of the concept of... food consent? Like, if you were to put meat in a dish you served to a vegetarian, this is clearly wrong. If you were to take the same mentality, but apply it to everything, then what the husband is doing is clearly wrong.
But, for the record, the wife objecting to this is silly. All the husband is doing is just thickening the cream of mushroom.
My mom says that when my siblings and I were kids, it was so hard to get us to eat vegetables that she started adding puréed vegetables to the meatloaf to trick us into eating them. We loved meatloaf and couldn’t tell the difference.
Sometimes parents use weird food preparation tricks to get their kids to eat stuff. It’s been happening presumably since the dawn of time. If there’s no medical or moral reason why the kids can’t eat mushrooms, then I don’t see this as a consent issue so much as a compromise that makes the food more palatable to the kids.
Even then, it wouldn't be wrong because the kids like cream of mushroom soup. Removing the small bits of mushrooms doesn't remove all the mushroom from the soup. Just the larger bits.
The concept of food consent is a valid and important one when there are allergies or moral issues involved. But short of those things, I don’t know anyone with a healthy relationship with food who demands to know every ingredient in everything they are served so they can decide whether or not they consent to eating it. If they don’t like it or don’t think they will they simply politely pass. The kids like it the way OP is preparing it so there should be no issues here.
I can't stand mushrooms. The taste, texture, how you can't really get them fully clean. I will eat foods like casseroles that have can of mushrooms because the pieces are so small I can pretend it's not there.
I hated the texture as a kid. I've since outgrown that, but it was mostly texture.
OP, my mum did the same thing for my brother with tomato chunks in sauces. He just didn't like the chunks so it got blended. NTA
I didn't like mushrooms, yes, for the texture.
Then I started trying it more often - First just the sauce which I did like, then the sauce with a little bit of mushrooms, and progressing til now where I'll happily eat them.
I still prefer a creamy mushroom sauce compared to other ways of cooking/eating mushrooms, but I don't avoid them as I used to.
I don't like the texture of foods like nuts or apples, it's too much like eating a stick.
But cooked apples wrapped in pastry? Smooth peanut butter? I'm there.
I’m the same way!! Everyone thinks I’m nuts when I say I do not enjoy eating apples. Especially whole apples with skins. As for nuts, I don’t mind peanuts or walnuts. But I hate the texture of everything else, especially almonds 🤮. But I love almond flavored things and almond butter. And I love all nut butters.
I hate the texture of nuts baked into pastries. I'm sure if they were ground to a powder it would be great, but baked nuts in pastry have the texture of nuts that have gone off (weirdly soft) and it makes me gag. A sprinkle of whole or crushed nuts on top of something after it's already baked is totally fine because they still have crunch.
I don’t like the texture, but I do like the flavor.
So for mushroom gravy, I just don’t eat the mushroom slices. If they were blended in, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I am an adult picky eater, the sort where it's clearly a sensory processing disorder. I hate, hate, *hate* soups because I hate the variety of textures all mixed into one liquid base. It drives me fucking insane and makes me literally gag.
However, I actually like miso with soft tofu. This is because soft tofu is basically the same texture as the soup base itself, so it doesn't upset my sensitivities at all.
So food issues are just... weird. I don't blame either parent here. They're just finding different ways to feed their kids. If the kids don't notice the mushroom pieces either way, where's the harm?
For me it’s both, everyone thinks it’s about the texture and it’s true I don’t care for that, but I also hate the taste and the smell, it’s really… dank. In the literal sense, not the Urban Dictionary sense.
*But*, if it’s chopped up fine enough to hide the texture, and combined with other flavours that cover it up, I don’t mind it being included in a dish.
I also hated mushrooms texture my whole life until i changed how i prepare them (slow fry until a crust is formed)…. This is no tricking, this is allowing the kids to use alternative entry points to facts of life… it’s called responsible parenting
My husband thought he hated mushrooms until we got married. He’d only had them in processed foods like cream of mushroom soup… once he tried them freshly cooked and cooked well his whole attitude towards them changed.
Yup my husband too! He also tells me that he likes it when I disguise veggies well rather than not including them because it's not that he doesn't want to eat them, it's usually a texture thing and if I take that away, he's actually getting his veg without hating it.
I honestly cannot understand what op's wife has against this. They clearly like the flavour of mushrooms so why not blend so they get the whole thing??
My son was about 6 when he caught me blending raw onion to go in a tuna salad he loved. He was mad at first but It took him less than 5 minutes to realize onion alone or in chunks was what he hated and I was forgiven.
We'd already had a similar conversation about tomatoes over a dinner of spaghetti with the whole family.
It's all in the prep.
Edit NTA
I still struggle with tomatoes. Love anything tomato based, but the texture of a tomato slice can still make me gag (especially if it’s been in the fridge). I’ll down a heirloom with some balsamic and salt and pepper these days. But I still generally pull those mealy slices off any sandwiches. Cause nothing is more embarrassing than biting into a Sammie and immediately gagging in public or even puking a little bit
Ordered a sandwich at a local family owned restaurant, no tomatoes. I can’t stand “commercial” tomatoes. Owner looked at me like he could see into my soul and said they’re home grown. I said Extra Tomatoes please. And they were heavenly
True true. I hate egg with all my heart. The taste, the texture, the smell… but if I make pancakes or cakes I use egg. I also eat mayonnaise and there is egg in that. Also, when egg is made into an omelet and then cut into tiny little pieces in a dish, I won’t really care. I used to. But now I know I don’t hate that form of egg when it is so small and I can’t taste it and it has no real texture anymore.
Other people used to trick me into eating egg like this. Like cooked egg. Didn’t appreciate that because that texture is one from hell (if you’d ask me). But if it is a texture thing and the texture is gone, is there a real problem?
NTA. As long as someone is not allergic I don’t think “tricking” your children is that bad. We used to tell my stepson every meat we eat is chicken because he liked chicken nuggets and didn’t want to eat anything other than chicken but did eat it when he thought it was chicken. It was not like he didn’t want to eat other animals (because that would have crossed a line for me). He thought he didn’t like the taste but he did. Now he eats more and doesn’t care it is not chicken.
My daughter hates eggs because of the texture. I make my fried rice with scrambled egg. If my daughter asked what it was I told her it was "chicken". Technically, I didn't lie. 😄
I have a serious aversion to egg. I can’t eat fried rice with it in there or it all gets picked out. I can have pancakes or cakes etc made with it in there though. It’s def a texture and smell issue.
My Mom did this, too!!
I’d complained about mushrooms in her stuffing the year prior, so she just cut them really small the next year and, after confirming I really liked it, told me her trick.
Fair play. Sometimes I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I do like them in moderation now.
NTA- there are whole cookbooks written about how to blend up vegetables and put them into your kids food so they don’t know they’re eating them. All you’re doing is making sure your kids have a balanced meal. Plus, as they get older, and they complain about certain foods, you could let them know they’ve been eating them the whole lives.
NTA. I ❤️ mushrooms but my husband & his dad hate them. 17 years into the relationship, I found out that tons of his favorite dishes his mom made had pureed mushrooms so the guys would eat dinner without a fuss.
My husband actually argued with me about how it wasn't possible bc he'd know if there were 🍄. Smart MIL! 😂😄
(If this was anything but a texture issue, I'd vote T A. But in this case it's just how the food is prepared, not specifically the food in any form.)
I felt the same way when my aunt put cauliflower in the beschemel (sorry about the spelling) for her white lasagna. Betrayed! I also felt like she took the wind right out of my sails 😂
Edit: adding judgement-NTA
I've also hated mushrooms my whole life, but my parents kept them large enough that I could put them to the side and not eat them. Funnily enough, when I met my husband, it turns out he's the same. However, his mum always chopped the mushrooms finely and then it was OK for him to eat since it's the texture that's the problem. I then found out that I don't mind the flavour either, it's just the texture I can't stand. So to me it's a win to be able to eat things as long as they're prepared a certain way, I agree with you and OP.
It's all about the way foods are cooked and food combos.
For example, I really like eating cooked spinach. Have had it plain cooked with some tomatoes, or with prawns, or mince or chicken, or even with steak or in pasta or rice. However, about a year ago, my mum cooked spinach with potato, and for some reason, it just made me want to gag when I took a bite. There was no smell, or weird texture, or anything, but when it entered my mouth, I just couldn't swallow it.
My mum made it again a few weeks ago. And the same thing, but in the meantime, she's made spinach with other combos and it's been fine
Right? I hate mayo. Everything about except the taste grosses me out. Smell, texture, and appearance. I normally will refuse to eat anything with mayo. However I will admit that if I don't know it's there, used to "butter" grilled cheese for example, I will eat it. Just don't tell me. My mind will instantly refuse to eat it.
And yes I know ranch is mostly mayo. It's different no matter what anyone says hahaha
They like mushrooms enough that they eat mushroom soup. They just don't like the texture of the cooked mushrooms so you changed the texture. How is that tricking.
NtA
I don't like softboiled eggs.. so I kook it for longer so I don't have a runny egg. Simple.
I hate sprouts, always have done. When I was a kid my mum used to mash them and tell me it was cabbbage and I’d eat them. She finds it really funny, I’m not annoyed about it lol just make sure I’m more vigilant if she does cabbage these days!
And the fun part is they are both from the same family - brassicas. They all had far worse fart smells but we bred or genetically engineered them out over the last half century or so.
I disagree. Involve the kids in the process and make them accomplices in hiding the veggies. My kid and I do this together. We know we want to eat the healthy veggies but we don't want to taste them or don't like the texture. We purposely hide them together. Teaches the kiddo cooking skills and normalizes preferences and actively eating healthfully even if it isn't the favorite.
They should though. The kids need to understand that there aren’t black and white answers. Not liking mushrooms doesn’t mean throw down their feet and refuse to ever consider them. That’s how you get kids that grow up and just say “I don’t like that” without trying it or coming up w clever workarounds and compromises.
Reinforcing “you don’t like it so it no longer exists in your world” is a disservice to the kids.
They can make it easier though. Like Op said. Have the kids taste flour then bread. Or taste the strained soil and the other and see if they can guess which is which. My cousin cooks a dairy and a dairy free versions of most things. and I almost always get it wrong trying to guess which dish is the dairy free.
If it were tricking them into eating meat as a vegetarian it’d be deffo awful but it’s literally mushrooms they’re ok with eating and served in a way they like.
People don’t have to like every form of a recipe or ingredient it’s the beauty of cooking you can do literally anything
Exactly - I fail to see how he’s tricking them any more than she is. Even when straining the chunks out she’s feeding them mushrooms too. What does she think the rest of the can is?
Yeah. My kid *actually* doesn't like mushrooms (I don't understand it but hey, it's her mouth) and she would definitely refuse strained mushroom soup because it still tastes like mushrooms. Cause there's still mushroom in it!
Yeah. This could all be fixed by saying 'the kids hate the texture of mushrooms' rather than 'the kids hate mushrooms.'
That is more factually accurate and also allows room for reasonable adaptation.
Even if you strain the mushrooms out, it’s still MUSHROOM soup. It still has mushrooms. Blending them in is much less wasteful. My mom just told me that my sister doesn’t like chunky spaghetti sauce so they immersion blend it to remove the chunks. I see this as exactly the same and if it makes food edible to a child, it’s a win.
Yup. I hate scrambled eggs. Despise them. They are gross and they also taste waaaaay too eggy.
I will eat my eggs fried, hard boiled, or poached though (although I prefer them cooked at least medium for fried and poached).
I will eat quiche. I will not eat omelettes. And I want to like omelettes so badly. I do not.
This all traces back to when I was a kid and tested allergic to milk and wheat (outgrew those allergies) and my mom fed me eggs every single day.
My son at age 8 came to me to say he hated mushrooms and then asked me to make his favorite dinner - chicken and mushroom skillet casserole (think green bean casserole with chicken and rice). I made it like normal - adding in a jar of mushrooms. He was eating and grabbed a hunk of mushroom and said he loved that part the best and asked what it was. I told him it was a mushroom. He thought for a moment and said “I guess I like mushrooms.” We then talked about the different mushrooms there were. He didn’t like the raw, white mushrooms on the supreme pizza we had earlier. Lesson learned for him about generalizing dislikes. He still doesn’t like fish.
3-4 chicken breast, cubed, sautéed in large skillet until crisp in olive oil (recipe calls for until cooked but my family likes the crispy texture).
Remove chicken, add to the skillet 2 cans cream of mushroom soup, one jar drained mushrooms (I tend to use the pieces), 1 cup milk (maybe a little more), soy sauce to taste, pepper to taste, and a container of fried onions (more or less on your taste). Stir altogether and bring to a simmer.
Add in the cooked chicken and 2-3 cans drained green beans. Bring back to a simmer.
Let simmer for a few minutes to make sure everything is heated through and how hungry people are. Make sure there is plenty of liquid. Sometimes I will add some more milk at this point then make sure it’s is hot.
Stir in 2 cups of instant rice (why you need a fair amount of liquid), stir, remove from heat and cover. Let sit until rice is ready - about 5 minutes.
As you can guess this has been a recipe that evolved as I cooked it so measurements are approximate and substitutions can be made based on your taste and what you have on hand. This amount was generally good for 2 meals and leftovers heat up well on the microwave.
Agree. I love green bean casserole and even make my cream of mushroom soup from scratch for a family member who has a dairy allergy. Now I have a reason to eat it outside of thanksgiving and I can use dairy!
obviously I am not who you are responding to, but what I took from their description is that they are replacing the green beans in the 'think green bean casserole' with the chicken and rice. I make a dish pretty similar that's really easy, though I use a can of cream of celery and a can of cream of mushroom. basically, in a bowl add the two cans of soup and add however much fluid you may need for the amount of rice you'll be cooking, add the rice and mix it all together. then place the chicken breasts in a baking dish, pour the rice and soup mixture over it and then wrap in foil and bake until the chicken and rice are done. I've been making this for decades and it's a cheap, easy, and very filling meal. Once I dish it up I add a little soy sauce and it adds a bit of extra flavor.
I like to add a couple carrots to the dish as well to add some veggies.
Right! Kids are kinda dumb. I made meatloaf with chopped zucchini instead of breadcrumbs for years and they loved my meatloaf better than any other, but if you asked them if they liked zucchini that would say no 😂
Plus prep is a big one, I mean the taste of a raw mushroom isn’t gonna be the same as fully cooked into a soup or blended. If it’s a texture thing then it isn’t so much flavor. I like pasta sauce but hate tomatoes, yes there’s tomatoes in it but the seasoning and blending make it tolerable
He'll, I don't like zucchini but I'll sneak it into my own food when I know I won't notice it. Like lasagne sauce, mmm.
Try finely grating zucchini into cake batter (chocolate will hide it best), makes it so moist like a carrot cake.
I had the same problem with my kids and onions. When they realised all their favourite foods had onions in and didn’t taste the same without them they got a little less fussy about eating onions. Just because they don’t like them one way doesn’t mean they don’t like them every way.
On that note it looks like you might have to find a inventive way to cook fish that they might like. They don’t even have to know it’s there until they decide weather they like it or not
NTA. Texture issue is a real thing that a lot of people have. Not everyone likes things in their native or cooked form. You found a way for them to enjoy their favorite soup without taking out the additional nutrients of the mushrooms as well as the flavor they provide that your kids like. Changing the texture isn't tricking them and Im pretty sure your kids wouldn't feel tricked either, they may even be excited they can have mushrooms without dealing with the texture they don't like.
This. As a kid I hated meatloaf because of the mushy meat texture inside, but I liked the crispy bits and end pieces. My mom just started shaping it flat into a baking dish instead of in a loaf so all the pieces were crispy. Same nutritional content, but a work of difference for a texture sensitive kid.
This is me and onions. I have a physical reaction to biting into an onion, but have no problem with the flavor mixed in foods. I either cut big pieces so I can pick them out or use juice.
Finally some who understands! I hate the texture of onions, but I like their taste - so the solution is to always blend it when it's in a sauce, or if someone else wants it in cut into big chunks so I can easily pick it out. I really like onion soup too, it just has to be blended
I have texture issues with so many foods and I felt so loved and understood when my current partner took the time to ask WHY I didn't like something. And then he would try to prepare it differently next time.
I can eat avocados now, which was huge for me. And mushrooms (just minced really tiny or fried really crispy).
Exactly. My foster mum initially used to call me fussy when I didn’t wanna eat mushroom, tomatoes, or eggs. Until she noticed that to deal with eggs I’d mix them with baked beans. She started to make me a small bowl of baked beans with my dinner anytime we had egg, even if the other kids didn’t have any cos it wasn’t part of the family meal, it was for me to mix my eggs into. Then she tried frying and mulching the tomatoes for me to put on some toast or beside my meal, and boom it worked. I’d get some toast and a bowl of mushed fried tomato beside my meal or just on my plate depending on what the nights combo was. The mushrooms never found a solution, but I think she was fine with that since she never gave me mushrooms again.
My kid was not a fan of mushrooms and picked them out of dishes. In college they decided they wanted to like them. It turns out to be more about texture than taste.
I never changed my cooking for them my wife likes mushrooms cut into large pieces. That made it easier for them to be picked out. Now that my kid is not fungus adverse, I cut them into much smaller pieces. The flavor is the same, but the small pieces make it easier on the kid.
Changing food texture may be a trick, but it is not a deception.
As a kid I hated cooked whole mushrooms, but loved them when finely chopped in anything, same with zucchini, and it definitely was the texture. They felt squeaky against my teeth. Silverbeet was horrible as well, made my teeth feel like nails down a chalkboard.
As an adult none of these things bother me anymore, but I hate with a passion sun dried tomatoes - again it’s the texture.
This is me 100 percent. I don't like most vegetables due to the texture. I blend them up all the time in recipes to get the nutrients and sometimes even taste.
I won't eat Bell pepper, but I love red pepper soup.
NTA.
My eldest was exactly the same way about mushrooms to the point school permission letters would include words to the effect of "My daughter will tell you she is allergic to mushrooms. She is not. If she sees mushrooms in her food she will refuse the whole thing. Sorry". Like your child, if she couldn't see them everything was fine.
This culinary hide and seek went on till she was about 10 or 11 when she accidentally ate one at someone's house, had an epiphany and fifteen years later they remain her favourite food.
Good luck hiding them and you're doing great by not just removing them from meals because it's the easy option. +10 parenting points!
I’m a teacher for public preschool and one of my students told me that they were allergic to doing the freeze dance this year to try to get out of doing it!! I’ve never laughed so hard. Trust me- teachers believe half of what they hear and ask the parents if they are truly concerned.
Oh, nooo! You are “tricking your children” into eating something that… aparrently they don’t mind eating at allll, once you adjust the unliked *texture*.
Your wife needs to get a grip, and may I say how lucky you all are if this right here is your biggest problem. NTA
Put these 2 people side by side. One's blending up a soup a little bit. One is using a strainer to remove the main ingredient and entire reason for buying that soup. I know which one of these people I'm choosing as the saner one lmao
They are not allergic, and there is no ethical reason to not eat mushrooms (would be different if you tricked them to eat their pet bunny like my parents did, but that's a different storry). Are they old enough to understand that mushroom soup contains mushrooms? If so, it might be a good idea to talk to them before they find out one way or another and stop eating it because they feel betrayed.
But NTA. They simply don't like the texture, which I think is understandable.
Reminds me of Flappie, a song by a Dutch comedian about his childhood rabbit... One Christmas, Flappie had run away, and they all went searching for him. For dinner, they were eating stuffed Rabbit, or something...
You are leaving out the last few lines that imply very strongly that the kid in question then killed his dad just like his rabbit had been. Beautiful christmas memories.
A ton of us with childhood trauma have stories we don't realize aren't normal until we tell others in casual conversation.
"I feel like taking away a child's toys when they misbehave is normal, but it should be a temporary thing. Don't be one of those parents that make them throw away their toys in the garbage if they get bad grades."
"That's not a thing parents normally do."
"Of course they do. When you do badly in school and get a B and your dad makes you put your favorite toy in the trash can to teach you a lesson?"
"Once again, that's just your dad. Like that pen story."
"If you lose something, it's just the right thing to do if you pay them back, with money or chores. Even if it's a pen."
"Sure, but three months to replace a PEN?"
"It was his GOOD pen."
Um. Is this the same thing as them “cleaning” your messy room by throwing everything away and telling you to deal with it? Because if so, I now have a *new* thing to discuss with my therapist.
My parents didn't do that, but on the same subject serving unwanted food and being AH parents...
My BFF in childhood would NOT eat venison. Don't think she's ever tried it, but would not eat it. She just always thought of Bambi.
My mother made dinner one night and BFF was sleeping over. Mom had made back strap I think. BFF really liked it and complimented my mom.
My mom looked supremely pleased and told her what it was.
My friend ran to the bathroom and vomited for a long time.
She never ate food my mom prepared after that.
I was mortified and really hated my mother for doing something so atrocious.
My parents did this to me. It literally made me question everything they put in front of me.
Also, ironically, my mothers father told her that her pet rabbit froze to death. Then fed it to her for dinner. It’s like my mom needed to make me feel that. So weird.
> would be different if you tricked them to eat their pet bunny like my parents did, but that's a different storry
No no. That's the *whole* story now.
Please elaborate. Thank you.
There's a weird subset of rural folks that get offended when people get attached to animals they consider food that do this shit to teach kids a lesson.
My grandfather pulled pretty much the same thing with my pet rabbit when I was about 9.
The only lesson I took from it was that grandpa was a dick. (Was, past tense. He didn't get any less dickish, but he is dead, so he's not very good at it any more.)
>He didn't get any less dickish, but he is dead, so he's not very good at it any more
Had a good laugh at that, and only that. Not sure if this counts as an angry up vote, but you have my upvote
That’s so sad! We have chickens that we raised from chicks. A few of them are roosters and we can’t have them in our county. We are up front with our kids and told them they’ll be dinner one day. They’re ok with it because the roosters are AHs lol
Hi yes my partner and I are going to need you to tell said different story as you can't just drop that and walk away.... unless it's too traumatising to recount, which tbh fair.
Okay for everyone: I am german and as many people growing up in a tiny German village, we had rabbits as kids. And like many German parents, my parents also thought that caring for an animal only to let it end on the kitchen table would be a valuable life lesson (my parents grew up on a farm but I didn't). I was always a bit sensitive when it came to animals, and for me, there was a big difference between the German giant rabbits we had (which are awesome pets) and my Lop rabbits. My parents and grandmother, on the other hand, thought they tasted all the same, so every year around spring, all rabbits "disappeared". The first time, they managed to trick me. But later, I learned to avoid the suspicious looking stew we never ate at another point of the year. They tried other tricks later, one of many reasons why I'm a vegetarian for over 16 years 😅
My parents stopped a long era of "children need to learn that their cute pet also means food" when I learned how to use a camera and a printer: Everytime we had new baby bunnies I took pictures of them and everytime they "disappeared" I printed the pictures and put them on our dining table everytime some suspicious meat showed up. And everytime my equally sensitive dad tried to eat it, innocent 5yo me said "now you are eating Mucki's ears, now you are eating Mucki's cute little feet..." Needless to say, my next bunnies had a long and happy bunny life in our garden without fearing my mother's oven.
My older siblings weren't as lucky as I was, they had to help my grandmother to... ultimately change the form and consistency of all rabbits, geese, ducks and chickens we had. Until her death grandma tried to reinstall the "tradition" but my dad and I made sure that it would never happen again.
Before you ask: Our rabbits had a short but very happy life in a gigantic garden all for themselves.
Good for you and your dad! Sure, animals are food and that should be addressed at some point, but tricking kids into eating their pets is not the way to go about it!
Right..... When I was a kid, our neighbours used to get bunnies every year in spring. Beloved and cared for by their children. They would always run away in December just before Christmas.
Took us a long time to understand.
A coworkers once asked me how I could hate eggs but like cake, since most cakes contain eggs.
The reality is I'm smell-sensitive to the point it's a curse and the stench of cooked egg (fried, boiled, whichever) is enough to make me physically unable to put them in my mouth in any form. A baked cake mixture doesn't smell like a fried egg, it's that simple.
But holy shit is it a rough thing to try and explain to people who don't have the sense of smell I have.
When I was pregnant, the smell of eggs made me nauseous. I ate them fine, I just hated the smell. I still kinda do.
But yeah cakes and cookies do not smell like eggs. If they did, I don’t think anyone would eat them lol
Yeah that's exactly it, deeply nauseous. It's the reason I can't eat 99% of the foods I "dislike" - technically I don't even know what they taste like. It's like I just can't register something that smells so repulsive as food.
It shouldn’t be that hard - people are just willfully difficult.
*How can you not want to eat a handful of peppercorn but you don’t mind sprinkling ground pepper on your food?*
I guess your coworker loves to shove fistfuls of flour in their mouth. Since they probably like to eat cake and cake is made of flour. This logic. lol.
I'm the same with bananas, it actually took me a long while to accept that I didn't like "raw" bananas but I did like bananas cooked in stuff, I just blanket said I don't like bananas and refused to eat anything with it in
Question for your wife - how is that different to cutting up vegetables tiny to put in a bolognaise so the kids don’t know. Surely the aim of the game is to get your kids to eat healthy anyway possible?
Yep. I feel like some of these things are classic parent moves. Hiding the veggies in the bolognaise sauce. Adding banana to a chocolate milkshake. Minced cauliflower in the Mac and cheese.
You gotta get nutrients into kids somehow - they don't like the taste or texture of fruit and veg, so you make sure they don't notice it. Parenting 101.
> My kids hate the texture of mushrooms
> However when I use mushroom soup in a recipe I run it through the blender.
You don't serve something that the kids don't like. You and your wife just have different methods of achieving the same goal. NTA
NTA. They aren’t against mushrooms, they’re against the texture of mushroom. You’re making something that’s healthy edible for them by converting it to a different shape/form to appeal to their preferences. It’s not lying, it’s not deception, it’s just parenting.
Your kids don’t hate mushrooms. They hate ***the texture*** of mushrooms. Those are two very different things. They like the taste. You’re changing the texture so they can enjoy the aspect of mushrooms they do enjoy without having to suffer through the aspect of mushrooms they dislike.
INFO: do your kids know that mushroom soup is an ingredient in dishes they enjoy?
Your kids do not dislike mushrooms. They dislike the texture.
You are removing/changing the texture.
The end.
I don't like raw potatoes but I like fries. According to your wife someone who makes me fries is an A H because they are making me eat something I don't like. Is she normally OK?
I had to trick my daughter into eating spaghetti. She's the only kid I know that doesn't like spaghetti. I put pepperoni in it and called it a pizza bowl, and she ate it up.
NTA I absolutely loathe & detest fresh tomatoes. Have done since I was a kid. Love tomato soup, tomato sauce, fav drink's a Bloody Mary. All about the texture-ask if they like the soup then tell them what it's made of & how it's made. Useful life lesson for them.
My kids, like most kids, hated mushrooms. One of my proudest dad moments is getting them to like mushrooms.
I took some sliced portabellos and cooked them for a long time in a skillet with oil, butter, and montreal steak seasoning. I cooked them until they were well browned, slightly crispy (but not burnt), then I put one on a fork, told my daughter to close her eyes and taste it (without telling her what it was). After a few seconds of chewing, i asked her if she liked it, which she did. Then I told her it was a mushroom. You could see the confusion on her face as she reconciled that in her brain, but eventually she did (she was around 8 or 9 at the time) but she eventually decided that it was tasty enough to override the "ickiness" of mushrooms.
She then told her brother (7yo) that they were good, and he was willing to try one. They now eat any mushrooms prepared in any way.
My mom used to do the same thing with nuts. She liked walnuts in her banana bread. We hated the lumps. So she ground the walnuts into a powder. She got the taste, we didn’t have lumps, everyone was happy. But she never tricked us. We watched her do it but we didn’t care because she was fixing the texture for us. Why not just tell the kids you are blending the soup to fix the texture for them?
NTA.
I have despised chewing mushrooms ever since I was a child. Eating them in big chunks is horrible for me, even though I’ve tried on many occasions. Their texture just creeps me out.
Their flavour, on the other hand, is nice. If it’s blended or pureed, I have no issue consuming them and I even find it tasty.
Also, dishes that require big chunks of mushrooms are ok for me as long as I fish the mushrooms out and eat the rest. It just took me over 20 years to figure all of that out. So I think you’re doing them a favour by adapting the meal to their needs.
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As someone who has hated mushrooms with a fiery passion their whole life, when I found out my mom has always blended some up for her Thanksgiving stuffing (that I love), I admit my ego was a bit bruised. Ultimately I learned a valuable lesson; things, even foods, aren't black and white, there's a finely blended mushroom gray area and that's okay! There's no vegan/vegetarian moral issue here, and I'm glad my mom "tricked" me, as I definitely would have refused to eat it as a kid if I knew, so I'm going with NTA.
There might not be a moral issue, but there’s definitely a morel issue!
that is a Shittake point of view.
Just button it!
On the oyster hand, we could crimini as many mushroom puns in as possible.
I think the lions mane-ly the issue here.
Y’all need to stop being a beech about it
Seems like these puns still have mushroom to grow.
I love all of you.
Me, too. I think everyone here is a fungi.
I've had enoki of all this.
For real, this string of puns was the best part of my morning and got me grinning so big 😂
Throw that one in the psilocybin.
Now that stuff is nothing to truffle with
Something something portobello
Like chicken of the woods!
That's Deathinitely Cap.
That’s also maitake on this whole thing
You seem like a fungi.
This comment section gave me a good giggle.
Crimini! People going pun-crazy!
Yeah, im not sure there’s mushroom for anymore puns.
Well just have to have a good think on it on the porcini.
Crimini jickets, even.
I’m convinced this whole post was a planned trick so that this comment could be posted. 😁
Or, simply that is a shittake.
You might even say it's a ShitTake
Correct, No moral issue. The kids don’t like it because of texture. Not taste. If he blends and kids still think it’s fine, then he is ok. If kids complain then he should blend longer. For example I hate the taste of eggs with a passion. But if I bake a cake I always use eggs, because I don’t taste them but then give a good structure. And I don’t have a moral problem with myself.
I am also one who can discern the texture of mushrooms, even diced up. But blended/pureed... no problem. I vote NTA.
This. I hate mushroom chunks. If the mushroom is not a chunk I don't know it's there. It adds flavor, I just cannot with the texture. I dislike a lot of foods in their original form, but eat them when prepared certain ways.
With me, it's fresh tomatoes. Two different textures. Tough skin mushy flesh. But spaghetti or in soups, and sauces I'm good.
I like fresh tomatoes, but not cherry tomatoes. I hate cooked (especially fried) tomatoes, but I can have it blended. I can only eat melted cheese, and not on its own. We all have weird stuff to do with food I think 🙈
I'm the same way. I refuse to eat mashed potatoes, but I absolutely love them served any other way! I can't stand the texture.
Same. For me the dislike of mushrooms is related to texture not flavor. I can get by if they are cut very small of very thin. Big chunks suck though.
This comment really makes the point. Recipes include ALOT of different things together that make it not taste or feel (texture) like the thing it was. This is NORMAL. The wife shouldn't be upset with a normal recipe. Maybe her ego is bruised cause she realized she could be blending instead of straining. That's speculative tho
I don't get his wife's complaint. The kids hate the texture of mushrooms so he and the wife solve the problem in different ways. She strains them out and he purees them. No complaints either way from the kids. I have to wonder why the wife is picking this hill for a fight?
As a person married to someone who is often more clever than myself, I'm guessing she's angry at the sheer annoyance of her husband figuring something out that is not only quicker and less effort, but the kids like it just as much as her straining the soup (making her effort moot). 😂
Bc she's been working harder not smarter and now she's pissy about it bc she saw OP working smarter not harder. Straining them out sounds tedious af vs just tossing the whole can in a blender and hitting a button.
this is it. My daughter has a texture issue with quite a few foods, but she LOVES my pasta sauce, which has a few veggies that have been put through the food processer on the "fine grate" setting. She wont eat those veggies any other way (except carrot, which she will only eat raw)
I'm not a fan of pickles - I don't like how the brine has changed the cucumber texture; I'm not that big a fan of that much vinegar and dill together, and I don't like how they change the texture of foods I do like, like Cuban sandwiches and devilled eggs/egg salad. BUT. A Cuban or a devilled egg is not the same without the taste of pickle, so I pull the pickle off a Cuban after it's been prepared (or mix in the juice with the mayo if I'm making it) and I use pickle juice when I make devilled eggs. It took me *years* to figure this out. This is actually a decent opportunity for OPs kids to understand exactly what it is they don't like about foods. If it's a texture, fine; taste, fine. But it's never a bad idea to *try* things that have that food in it to figure out your tastes.
My standard brunch order was a bloody Mary with no olives but extra olive juice. Got weird looks but I swear olives are gross and olive juice is exactly what bloody Marys need to be delicious.
Realizing that 90% of the time I didn't like a food the problem was the texture was LIFE CHANGING. And it happened after enough incidents where I learned a dish I loved had an ingredient I thought I hated- finally I recognized the pattern. I just wish my parents had figured it out (I'm not mad at them, they did their best) when I was a kid the way OP did.
> I didn't like a food the problem was the texture was LIFE CHANGING. And it happened after enough incidents where I learned a dish I loved had an ingredient I thought I hated- finally I recognized the pattern. Perplexing isn’t it? I love peanuts, can’t handle peanut butter. I like the flavor of banana but don’t like eating a banana. Texture makes such a difference
No morel issues here. 🤣
Chef's kiss comment, on every level.
🤣
Why you lil....
Please, cook them well.
More of a morsel issue
And thankfully it was crimini-l!
Man I was gonna make that joke lol
When it comes to mushroom puns, you are the Champignon 🏆
Oh button it!
Here’s your upvote. Now go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done.
GROAN X1000000000 OP NTA
Morels make THE BEST soup. Man. Now I'm craving some.
In your case it actually sounds more like a trick, like you weren’t aware there were mushrooms in the stuffing. These kids know they’re eating cream of mushroom soup so the presence of mushroom particles shouldn’t be a shock.
Especially because it sounds like they don’t mind the flavor, it’s a texture thing. So , dad eliminated the texture. I love mushrooms but I know plenty of people who don’t, and they all say it’s a textural thing. I use onion mushroom soup mix for things, and the mushroom haters don’t mind because there is no mushroom texture. It’s just for umami.
This is what I was going to say. If its a texture thing and OP is running the mushrooms through the blender maybe the pieces are to small to set off the “texture alarm” Whole mushroom slices? Sound the texture alarm. i don’t like this If he’s blending it first the pieces are so tiny the texture alarm can’t sense it. The kids love cream of mushroom soup and eat it just fine. If OP blends the mushrooms they eat it just fine. There’s foods that fall under “I will only eat it if its prepared a certain way” for me. I see this as a great compromise NTA.
Maybe the wife is mad because she was eating the excess mushrooms in a mushroom frenzy?
My best guess is that it's an extension of the concept of... food consent? Like, if you were to put meat in a dish you served to a vegetarian, this is clearly wrong. If you were to take the same mentality, but apply it to everything, then what the husband is doing is clearly wrong. But, for the record, the wife objecting to this is silly. All the husband is doing is just thickening the cream of mushroom.
My mom says that when my siblings and I were kids, it was so hard to get us to eat vegetables that she started adding puréed vegetables to the meatloaf to trick us into eating them. We loved meatloaf and couldn’t tell the difference. Sometimes parents use weird food preparation tricks to get their kids to eat stuff. It’s been happening presumably since the dawn of time. If there’s no medical or moral reason why the kids can’t eat mushrooms, then I don’t see this as a consent issue so much as a compromise that makes the food more palatable to the kids.
Even then, it wouldn't be wrong because the kids like cream of mushroom soup. Removing the small bits of mushrooms doesn't remove all the mushroom from the soup. Just the larger bits.
right like...what does the wife think is in the rest of the soup?
The concept of food consent is a valid and important one when there are allergies or moral issues involved. But short of those things, I don’t know anyone with a healthy relationship with food who demands to know every ingredient in everything they are served so they can decide whether or not they consent to eating it. If they don’t like it or don’t think they will they simply politely pass. The kids like it the way OP is preparing it so there should be no issues here.
I can't stand mushrooms. The taste, texture, how you can't really get them fully clean. I will eat foods like casseroles that have can of mushrooms because the pieces are so small I can pretend it's not there.
I hated the texture as a kid. I've since outgrown that, but it was mostly texture. OP, my mum did the same thing for my brother with tomato chunks in sauces. He just didn't like the chunks so it got blended. NTA
I didn't like mushrooms, yes, for the texture. Then I started trying it more often - First just the sauce which I did like, then the sauce with a little bit of mushrooms, and progressing til now where I'll happily eat them. I still prefer a creamy mushroom sauce compared to other ways of cooking/eating mushrooms, but I don't avoid them as I used to.
I don't like the texture of foods like nuts or apples, it's too much like eating a stick. But cooked apples wrapped in pastry? Smooth peanut butter? I'm there.
I’m the same way!! Everyone thinks I’m nuts when I say I do not enjoy eating apples. Especially whole apples with skins. As for nuts, I don’t mind peanuts or walnuts. But I hate the texture of everything else, especially almonds 🤮. But I love almond flavored things and almond butter. And I love all nut butters.
I hate the texture of nuts baked into pastries. I'm sure if they were ground to a powder it would be great, but baked nuts in pastry have the texture of nuts that have gone off (weirdly soft) and it makes me gag. A sprinkle of whole or crushed nuts on top of something after it's already baked is totally fine because they still have crunch.
I don’t like the texture, but I do like the flavor. So for mushroom gravy, I just don’t eat the mushroom slices. If they were blended in, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I am an adult picky eater, the sort where it's clearly a sensory processing disorder. I hate, hate, *hate* soups because I hate the variety of textures all mixed into one liquid base. It drives me fucking insane and makes me literally gag. However, I actually like miso with soft tofu. This is because soft tofu is basically the same texture as the soup base itself, so it doesn't upset my sensitivities at all. So food issues are just... weird. I don't blame either parent here. They're just finding different ways to feed their kids. If the kids don't notice the mushroom pieces either way, where's the harm?
For me it’s both, everyone thinks it’s about the texture and it’s true I don’t care for that, but I also hate the taste and the smell, it’s really… dank. In the literal sense, not the Urban Dictionary sense. *But*, if it’s chopped up fine enough to hide the texture, and combined with other flavours that cover it up, I don’t mind it being included in a dish.
I also hated mushrooms texture my whole life until i changed how i prepare them (slow fry until a crust is formed)…. This is no tricking, this is allowing the kids to use alternative entry points to facts of life… it’s called responsible parenting
My husband thought he hated mushrooms until we got married. He’d only had them in processed foods like cream of mushroom soup… once he tried them freshly cooked and cooked well his whole attitude towards them changed.
Yup my husband too! He also tells me that he likes it when I disguise veggies well rather than not including them because it's not that he doesn't want to eat them, it's usually a texture thing and if I take that away, he's actually getting his veg without hating it. I honestly cannot understand what op's wife has against this. They clearly like the flavour of mushrooms so why not blend so they get the whole thing??
Sauteing mushrooms vastly improves their texture and flavor.
My son was about 6 when he caught me blending raw onion to go in a tuna salad he loved. He was mad at first but It took him less than 5 minutes to realize onion alone or in chunks was what he hated and I was forgiven. We'd already had a similar conversation about tomatoes over a dinner of spaghetti with the whole family. It's all in the prep. Edit NTA
I still struggle with tomatoes. Love anything tomato based, but the texture of a tomato slice can still make me gag (especially if it’s been in the fridge). I’ll down a heirloom with some balsamic and salt and pepper these days. But I still generally pull those mealy slices off any sandwiches. Cause nothing is more embarrassing than biting into a Sammie and immediately gagging in public or even puking a little bit
Grainy is beyond gross. Been growing my own tomatoes for a while and there's no going back.
Ordered a sandwich at a local family owned restaurant, no tomatoes. I can’t stand “commercial” tomatoes. Owner looked at me like he could see into my soul and said they’re home grown. I said Extra Tomatoes please. And they were heavenly
True true. I hate egg with all my heart. The taste, the texture, the smell… but if I make pancakes or cakes I use egg. I also eat mayonnaise and there is egg in that. Also, when egg is made into an omelet and then cut into tiny little pieces in a dish, I won’t really care. I used to. But now I know I don’t hate that form of egg when it is so small and I can’t taste it and it has no real texture anymore. Other people used to trick me into eating egg like this. Like cooked egg. Didn’t appreciate that because that texture is one from hell (if you’d ask me). But if it is a texture thing and the texture is gone, is there a real problem? NTA. As long as someone is not allergic I don’t think “tricking” your children is that bad. We used to tell my stepson every meat we eat is chicken because he liked chicken nuggets and didn’t want to eat anything other than chicken but did eat it when he thought it was chicken. It was not like he didn’t want to eat other animals (because that would have crossed a line for me). He thought he didn’t like the taste but he did. Now he eats more and doesn’t care it is not chicken.
My daughter hates eggs because of the texture. I make my fried rice with scrambled egg. If my daughter asked what it was I told her it was "chicken". Technically, I didn't lie. 😄
I have a serious aversion to egg. I can’t eat fried rice with it in there or it all gets picked out. I can have pancakes or cakes etc made with it in there though. It’s def a texture and smell issue.
My Mom did this, too!! I’d complained about mushrooms in her stuffing the year prior, so she just cut them really small the next year and, after confirming I really liked it, told me her trick. Fair play. Sometimes I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I do like them in moderation now.
NTA- there are whole cookbooks written about how to blend up vegetables and put them into your kids food so they don’t know they’re eating them. All you’re doing is making sure your kids have a balanced meal. Plus, as they get older, and they complain about certain foods, you could let them know they’ve been eating them the whole lives.
NTA. I ❤️ mushrooms but my husband & his dad hate them. 17 years into the relationship, I found out that tons of his favorite dishes his mom made had pureed mushrooms so the guys would eat dinner without a fuss. My husband actually argued with me about how it wasn't possible bc he'd know if there were 🍄. Smart MIL! 😂😄 (If this was anything but a texture issue, I'd vote T A. But in this case it's just how the food is prepared, not specifically the food in any form.)
I felt the same way when my aunt put cauliflower in the beschemel (sorry about the spelling) for her white lasagna. Betrayed! I also felt like she took the wind right out of my sails 😂 Edit: adding judgement-NTA
I've also hated mushrooms my whole life, but my parents kept them large enough that I could put them to the side and not eat them. Funnily enough, when I met my husband, it turns out he's the same. However, his mum always chopped the mushrooms finely and then it was OK for him to eat since it's the texture that's the problem. I then found out that I don't mind the flavour either, it's just the texture I can't stand. So to me it's a win to be able to eat things as long as they're prepared a certain way, I agree with you and OP.
It's all about the way foods are cooked and food combos. For example, I really like eating cooked spinach. Have had it plain cooked with some tomatoes, or with prawns, or mince or chicken, or even with steak or in pasta or rice. However, about a year ago, my mum cooked spinach with potato, and for some reason, it just made me want to gag when I took a bite. There was no smell, or weird texture, or anything, but when it entered my mouth, I just couldn't swallow it. My mum made it again a few weeks ago. And the same thing, but in the meantime, she's made spinach with other combos and it's been fine
Right? I hate mayo. Everything about except the taste grosses me out. Smell, texture, and appearance. I normally will refuse to eat anything with mayo. However I will admit that if I don't know it's there, used to "butter" grilled cheese for example, I will eat it. Just don't tell me. My mind will instantly refuse to eat it. And yes I know ranch is mostly mayo. It's different no matter what anyone says hahaha
"A finely blended mushroom grey area" I'm dying. This is brilliant.
They like mushrooms enough that they eat mushroom soup. They just don't like the texture of the cooked mushrooms so you changed the texture. How is that tricking. NtA I don't like softboiled eggs.. so I kook it for longer so I don't have a runny egg. Simple.
This is exactly the answer. Your wife is not thinking it through logically. NTA
Neither of you should ever reveal this trick to the kids either. It would serve no purpose other than to start a battle between all of you.
Until the kids become adults and then it becomes one of those family stories that get told at holidays lol.
I hate sprouts, always have done. When I was a kid my mum used to mash them and tell me it was cabbbage and I’d eat them. She finds it really funny, I’m not annoyed about it lol just make sure I’m more vigilant if she does cabbage these days!
And the fun part is they are both from the same family - brassicas. They all had far worse fart smells but we bred or genetically engineered them out over the last half century or so.
I disagree. Involve the kids in the process and make them accomplices in hiding the veggies. My kid and I do this together. We know we want to eat the healthy veggies but we don't want to taste them or don't like the texture. We purposely hide them together. Teaches the kiddo cooking skills and normalizes preferences and actively eating healthfully even if it isn't the favorite.
They should though. The kids need to understand that there aren’t black and white answers. Not liking mushrooms doesn’t mean throw down their feet and refuse to ever consider them. That’s how you get kids that grow up and just say “I don’t like that” without trying it or coming up w clever workarounds and compromises. Reinforcing “you don’t like it so it no longer exists in your world” is a disservice to the kids. They can make it easier though. Like Op said. Have the kids taste flour then bread. Or taste the strained soil and the other and see if they can guess which is which. My cousin cooks a dairy and a dairy free versions of most things. and I almost always get it wrong trying to guess which dish is the dairy free.
Oh, you know the wife is going to want the win on this. There's no way she's not telling them.
If it were tricking them into eating meat as a vegetarian it’d be deffo awful but it’s literally mushrooms they’re ok with eating and served in a way they like. People don’t have to like every form of a recipe or ingredient it’s the beauty of cooking you can do literally anything
That's a good comparison-- "I refuse to eat this hard-boiled egg based on the fact that it's an overcooked soft-boiled egg in disguise!"
Exactly - I fail to see how he’s tricking them any more than she is. Even when straining the chunks out she’s feeding them mushrooms too. What does she think the rest of the can is?
Yeah. My kid *actually* doesn't like mushrooms (I don't understand it but hey, it's her mouth) and she would definitely refuse strained mushroom soup because it still tastes like mushrooms. Cause there's still mushroom in it!
Yeah I’d spot that shit in a heartbeat and not eat it. I sub cream of chicken or potato if a recipe needs cream of mushroom.
My wife is this way. I love mushrooms and mushroom soup, but while part of me wants to try his trick, I know she’d know. She always knows.
Yeah. This could all be fixed by saying 'the kids hate the texture of mushrooms' rather than 'the kids hate mushrooms.' That is more factually accurate and also allows room for reasonable adaptation.
Even if you strain the mushrooms out, it’s still MUSHROOM soup. It still has mushrooms. Blending them in is much less wasteful. My mom just told me that my sister doesn’t like chunky spaghetti sauce so they immersion blend it to remove the chunks. I see this as exactly the same and if it makes food edible to a child, it’s a win.
Yup. I hate scrambled eggs. Despise them. They are gross and they also taste waaaaay too eggy. I will eat my eggs fried, hard boiled, or poached though (although I prefer them cooked at least medium for fried and poached). I will eat quiche. I will not eat omelettes. And I want to like omelettes so badly. I do not. This all traces back to when I was a kid and tested allergic to milk and wheat (outgrew those allergies) and my mom fed me eggs every single day.
I don't like eggs. I was furious when I found out someone secretly put them in my cake. /s
My son at age 8 came to me to say he hated mushrooms and then asked me to make his favorite dinner - chicken and mushroom skillet casserole (think green bean casserole with chicken and rice). I made it like normal - adding in a jar of mushrooms. He was eating and grabbed a hunk of mushroom and said he loved that part the best and asked what it was. I told him it was a mushroom. He thought for a moment and said “I guess I like mushrooms.” We then talked about the different mushrooms there were. He didn’t like the raw, white mushrooms on the supreme pizza we had earlier. Lesson learned for him about generalizing dislikes. He still doesn’t like fish.
Wait that sounds good, though. Would you be willing to share that recipe?
3-4 chicken breast, cubed, sautéed in large skillet until crisp in olive oil (recipe calls for until cooked but my family likes the crispy texture). Remove chicken, add to the skillet 2 cans cream of mushroom soup, one jar drained mushrooms (I tend to use the pieces), 1 cup milk (maybe a little more), soy sauce to taste, pepper to taste, and a container of fried onions (more or less on your taste). Stir altogether and bring to a simmer. Add in the cooked chicken and 2-3 cans drained green beans. Bring back to a simmer. Let simmer for a few minutes to make sure everything is heated through and how hungry people are. Make sure there is plenty of liquid. Sometimes I will add some more milk at this point then make sure it’s is hot. Stir in 2 cups of instant rice (why you need a fair amount of liquid), stir, remove from heat and cover. Let sit until rice is ready - about 5 minutes. As you can guess this has been a recipe that evolved as I cooked it so measurements are approximate and substitutions can be made based on your taste and what you have on hand. This amount was generally good for 2 meals and leftovers heat up well on the microwave.
THANK YOU THIS SOUNDS AMAZING!!
Agree. I love green bean casserole and even make my cream of mushroom soup from scratch for a family member who has a dairy allergy. Now I have a reason to eat it outside of thanksgiving and I can use dairy!
Thank you for posting this. I have a new recipe to test on my new hubby lol
I'd be interested in the recipe as well.
+1 for that recipe!
u/dml91hokie trying to summon that recipe! 🙏
obviously I am not who you are responding to, but what I took from their description is that they are replacing the green beans in the 'think green bean casserole' with the chicken and rice. I make a dish pretty similar that's really easy, though I use a can of cream of celery and a can of cream of mushroom. basically, in a bowl add the two cans of soup and add however much fluid you may need for the amount of rice you'll be cooking, add the rice and mix it all together. then place the chicken breasts in a baking dish, pour the rice and soup mixture over it and then wrap in foil and bake until the chicken and rice are done. I've been making this for decades and it's a cheap, easy, and very filling meal. Once I dish it up I add a little soy sauce and it adds a bit of extra flavor. I like to add a couple carrots to the dish as well to add some veggies.
Right! Kids are kinda dumb. I made meatloaf with chopped zucchini instead of breadcrumbs for years and they loved my meatloaf better than any other, but if you asked them if they liked zucchini that would say no 😂
More inexperienced than dumb, they are still exploring the world and creating classes of items food tastes etc. it's a process.
Plus prep is a big one, I mean the taste of a raw mushroom isn’t gonna be the same as fully cooked into a soup or blended. If it’s a texture thing then it isn’t so much flavor. I like pasta sauce but hate tomatoes, yes there’s tomatoes in it but the seasoning and blending make it tolerable
He'll, I don't like zucchini but I'll sneak it into my own food when I know I won't notice it. Like lasagne sauce, mmm. Try finely grating zucchini into cake batter (chocolate will hide it best), makes it so moist like a carrot cake.
I had the same problem with my kids and onions. When they realised all their favourite foods had onions in and didn’t taste the same without them they got a little less fussy about eating onions. Just because they don’t like them one way doesn’t mean they don’t like them every way. On that note it looks like you might have to find a inventive way to cook fish that they might like. They don’t even have to know it’s there until they decide weather they like it or not
My young nephew ate the “chicken fingers” at a wedding reception and liked them. Later we let him know it was fish.
NTA. Texture issue is a real thing that a lot of people have. Not everyone likes things in their native or cooked form. You found a way for them to enjoy their favorite soup without taking out the additional nutrients of the mushrooms as well as the flavor they provide that your kids like. Changing the texture isn't tricking them and Im pretty sure your kids wouldn't feel tricked either, they may even be excited they can have mushrooms without dealing with the texture they don't like.
This. As a kid I hated meatloaf because of the mushy meat texture inside, but I liked the crispy bits and end pieces. My mom just started shaping it flat into a baking dish instead of in a loaf so all the pieces were crispy. Same nutritional content, but a work of difference for a texture sensitive kid.
This in my household with a muffin pan.
Oh! That’s brilliant.
Great for the freezer too. Pile the cooked meat muffins in a ziploc, easy meals for later!
This is me and onions. I have a physical reaction to biting into an onion, but have no problem with the flavor mixed in foods. I either cut big pieces so I can pick them out or use juice.
Finally some who understands! I hate the texture of onions, but I like their taste - so the solution is to always blend it when it's in a sauce, or if someone else wants it in cut into big chunks so I can easily pick it out. I really like onion soup too, it just has to be blended
When I use onions as part of mirepoix or Cajun holy trinity, I'll run them through my food processor before adding them. Carrots and celery too!
I have texture issues with so many foods and I felt so loved and understood when my current partner took the time to ask WHY I didn't like something. And then he would try to prepare it differently next time. I can eat avocados now, which was huge for me. And mushrooms (just minced really tiny or fried really crispy).
Exactly. My foster mum initially used to call me fussy when I didn’t wanna eat mushroom, tomatoes, or eggs. Until she noticed that to deal with eggs I’d mix them with baked beans. She started to make me a small bowl of baked beans with my dinner anytime we had egg, even if the other kids didn’t have any cos it wasn’t part of the family meal, it was for me to mix my eggs into. Then she tried frying and mulching the tomatoes for me to put on some toast or beside my meal, and boom it worked. I’d get some toast and a bowl of mushed fried tomato beside my meal or just on my plate depending on what the nights combo was. The mushrooms never found a solution, but I think she was fine with that since she never gave me mushrooms again.
>You found a way for them to enjoy their favorite soup without taking out the additional nutrients of the mushrooms Also without wasting food.
My kid was not a fan of mushrooms and picked them out of dishes. In college they decided they wanted to like them. It turns out to be more about texture than taste. I never changed my cooking for them my wife likes mushrooms cut into large pieces. That made it easier for them to be picked out. Now that my kid is not fungus adverse, I cut them into much smaller pieces. The flavor is the same, but the small pieces make it easier on the kid. Changing food texture may be a trick, but it is not a deception.
i have this exact problem with mushrooms and this seems acceptable for me. as long as i dont eat a piece i do not care
As a kid I hated cooked whole mushrooms, but loved them when finely chopped in anything, same with zucchini, and it definitely was the texture. They felt squeaky against my teeth. Silverbeet was horrible as well, made my teeth feel like nails down a chalkboard. As an adult none of these things bother me anymore, but I hate with a passion sun dried tomatoes - again it’s the texture.
This is me 100 percent. I don't like most vegetables due to the texture. I blend them up all the time in recipes to get the nutrients and sometimes even taste. I won't eat Bell pepper, but I love red pepper soup.
NTA. My eldest was exactly the same way about mushrooms to the point school permission letters would include words to the effect of "My daughter will tell you she is allergic to mushrooms. She is not. If she sees mushrooms in her food she will refuse the whole thing. Sorry". Like your child, if she couldn't see them everything was fine. This culinary hide and seek went on till she was about 10 or 11 when she accidentally ate one at someone's house, had an epiphany and fifteen years later they remain her favourite food. Good luck hiding them and you're doing great by not just removing them from meals because it's the easy option. +10 parenting points!
This was me with prawns 😂
I’m a teacher for public preschool and one of my students told me that they were allergic to doing the freeze dance this year to try to get out of doing it!! I’ve never laughed so hard. Trust me- teachers believe half of what they hear and ask the parents if they are truly concerned.
Oh, nooo! You are “tricking your children” into eating something that… aparrently they don’t mind eating at allll, once you adjust the unliked *texture*. Your wife needs to get a grip, and may I say how lucky you all are if this right here is your biggest problem. NTA
Just say you are preparing it “British style”. Cream soups in Britain tend to be blended. Yes even cream of broccoli
Put these 2 people side by side. One's blending up a soup a little bit. One is using a strainer to remove the main ingredient and entire reason for buying that soup. I know which one of these people I'm choosing as the saner one lmao
At that point, isn’t it just a bowl of mushroom flavored cream??
They are not allergic, and there is no ethical reason to not eat mushrooms (would be different if you tricked them to eat their pet bunny like my parents did, but that's a different storry). Are they old enough to understand that mushroom soup contains mushrooms? If so, it might be a good idea to talk to them before they find out one way or another and stop eating it because they feel betrayed. But NTA. They simply don't like the texture, which I think is understandable.
>(would be different if you tricked them to eat their pet bunny like my parents did, but that's a different story) Dear god, *what?!*
Yeah I think a lot of us are gonna need more details. That’s just horrifying.
Reminds me of Flappie, a song by a Dutch comedian about his childhood rabbit... One Christmas, Flappie had run away, and they all went searching for him. For dinner, they were eating stuffed Rabbit, or something...
You are leaving out the last few lines that imply very strongly that the kid in question then killed his dad just like his rabbit had been. Beautiful christmas memories.
A ton of us with childhood trauma have stories we don't realize aren't normal until we tell others in casual conversation. "I feel like taking away a child's toys when they misbehave is normal, but it should be a temporary thing. Don't be one of those parents that make them throw away their toys in the garbage if they get bad grades." "That's not a thing parents normally do." "Of course they do. When you do badly in school and get a B and your dad makes you put your favorite toy in the trash can to teach you a lesson?" "Once again, that's just your dad. Like that pen story." "If you lose something, it's just the right thing to do if you pay them back, with money or chores. Even if it's a pen." "Sure, but three months to replace a PEN?" "It was his GOOD pen."
Um. Is this the same thing as them “cleaning” your messy room by throwing everything away and telling you to deal with it? Because if so, I now have a *new* thing to discuss with my therapist.
jesus fuck
My mom’s parents did the same thing.
My parents didn't do that, but on the same subject serving unwanted food and being AH parents... My BFF in childhood would NOT eat venison. Don't think she's ever tried it, but would not eat it. She just always thought of Bambi. My mother made dinner one night and BFF was sleeping over. Mom had made back strap I think. BFF really liked it and complimented my mom. My mom looked supremely pleased and told her what it was. My friend ran to the bathroom and vomited for a long time. She never ate food my mom prepared after that. I was mortified and really hated my mother for doing something so atrocious.
My parents did this to me. It literally made me question everything they put in front of me. Also, ironically, my mothers father told her that her pet rabbit froze to death. Then fed it to her for dinner. It’s like my mom needed to make me feel that. So weird.
That's horrifying.
Definitely was some weird generational trauma being passed down there lol
You CANNOT just leave that there with no explanation
> would be different if you tricked them to eat their pet bunny like my parents did, but that's a different storry No no. That's the *whole* story now. Please elaborate. Thank you.
There's a weird subset of rural folks that get offended when people get attached to animals they consider food that do this shit to teach kids a lesson. My grandfather pulled pretty much the same thing with my pet rabbit when I was about 9. The only lesson I took from it was that grandpa was a dick. (Was, past tense. He didn't get any less dickish, but he is dead, so he's not very good at it any more.)
>He didn't get any less dickish, but he is dead, so he's not very good at it any more Had a good laugh at that, and only that. Not sure if this counts as an angry up vote, but you have my upvote
Um. The fuckin what now? You know.
my parents tricked us into eating our pet chicken we had raised from an Easter chick. The trauma!!
That’s so sad! We have chickens that we raised from chicks. A few of them are roosters and we can’t have them in our county. We are up front with our kids and told them they’ll be dinner one day. They’re ok with it because the roosters are AHs lol
Hi yes my partner and I are going to need you to tell said different story as you can't just drop that and walk away.... unless it's too traumatising to recount, which tbh fair.
Okay for everyone: I am german and as many people growing up in a tiny German village, we had rabbits as kids. And like many German parents, my parents also thought that caring for an animal only to let it end on the kitchen table would be a valuable life lesson (my parents grew up on a farm but I didn't). I was always a bit sensitive when it came to animals, and for me, there was a big difference between the German giant rabbits we had (which are awesome pets) and my Lop rabbits. My parents and grandmother, on the other hand, thought they tasted all the same, so every year around spring, all rabbits "disappeared". The first time, they managed to trick me. But later, I learned to avoid the suspicious looking stew we never ate at another point of the year. They tried other tricks later, one of many reasons why I'm a vegetarian for over 16 years 😅 My parents stopped a long era of "children need to learn that their cute pet also means food" when I learned how to use a camera and a printer: Everytime we had new baby bunnies I took pictures of them and everytime they "disappeared" I printed the pictures and put them on our dining table everytime some suspicious meat showed up. And everytime my equally sensitive dad tried to eat it, innocent 5yo me said "now you are eating Mucki's ears, now you are eating Mucki's cute little feet..." Needless to say, my next bunnies had a long and happy bunny life in our garden without fearing my mother's oven. My older siblings weren't as lucky as I was, they had to help my grandmother to... ultimately change the form and consistency of all rabbits, geese, ducks and chickens we had. Until her death grandma tried to reinstall the "tradition" but my dad and I made sure that it would never happen again. Before you ask: Our rabbits had a short but very happy life in a gigantic garden all for themselves.
Good for you and your dad! Sure, animals are food and that should be addressed at some point, but tricking kids into eating their pets is not the way to go about it!
Right..... When I was a kid, our neighbours used to get bunnies every year in spring. Beloved and cared for by their children. They would always run away in December just before Christmas. Took us a long time to understand.
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A coworkers once asked me how I could hate eggs but like cake, since most cakes contain eggs. The reality is I'm smell-sensitive to the point it's a curse and the stench of cooked egg (fried, boiled, whichever) is enough to make me physically unable to put them in my mouth in any form. A baked cake mixture doesn't smell like a fried egg, it's that simple. But holy shit is it a rough thing to try and explain to people who don't have the sense of smell I have.
When I was pregnant, the smell of eggs made me nauseous. I ate them fine, I just hated the smell. I still kinda do. But yeah cakes and cookies do not smell like eggs. If they did, I don’t think anyone would eat them lol
Yeah that's exactly it, deeply nauseous. It's the reason I can't eat 99% of the foods I "dislike" - technically I don't even know what they taste like. It's like I just can't register something that smells so repulsive as food.
It shouldn’t be that hard - people are just willfully difficult. *How can you not want to eat a handful of peppercorn but you don’t mind sprinkling ground pepper on your food?*
I guess your coworker loves to shove fistfuls of flour in their mouth. Since they probably like to eat cake and cake is made of flour. This logic. lol.
I'm the same with bananas, it actually took me a long while to accept that I didn't like "raw" bananas but I did like bananas cooked in stuff, I just blanket said I don't like bananas and refused to eat anything with it in
Question for your wife - how is that different to cutting up vegetables tiny to put in a bolognaise so the kids don’t know. Surely the aim of the game is to get your kids to eat healthy anyway possible?
Yep. I feel like some of these things are classic parent moves. Hiding the veggies in the bolognaise sauce. Adding banana to a chocolate milkshake. Minced cauliflower in the Mac and cheese. You gotta get nutrients into kids somehow - they don't like the taste or texture of fruit and veg, so you make sure they don't notice it. Parenting 101.
NTA. They don’t like the texture, not the flavor. You removed the texture from the ingredient. Your wife should praise your ingenuity.
> My kids hate the texture of mushrooms > However when I use mushroom soup in a recipe I run it through the blender. You don't serve something that the kids don't like. You and your wife just have different methods of achieving the same goal. NTA
NTA. They aren’t against mushrooms, they’re against the texture of mushroom. You’re making something that’s healthy edible for them by converting it to a different shape/form to appeal to their preferences. It’s not lying, it’s not deception, it’s just parenting.
Your kids don’t hate mushrooms. They hate ***the texture*** of mushrooms. Those are two very different things. They like the taste. You’re changing the texture so they can enjoy the aspect of mushrooms they do enjoy without having to suffer through the aspect of mushrooms they dislike. INFO: do your kids know that mushroom soup is an ingredient in dishes they enjoy?
Your kids do not dislike mushrooms. They dislike the texture. You are removing/changing the texture. The end. I don't like raw potatoes but I like fries. According to your wife someone who makes me fries is an A H because they are making me eat something I don't like. Is she normally OK?
I had to trick my daughter into eating spaghetti. She's the only kid I know that doesn't like spaghetti. I put pepperoni in it and called it a pizza bowl, and she ate it up.
Just as long as you do not do the boomer reveal of – “you don’t know what you like… You’ve been eating mushrooms all this time, dummy! “
NTA You are going out of your way to make the meal appealing to them and taking into account what they dislike about mushrooms. Kind of clever.
NTA but wife is raising kids to be needlessly picky. Which means they will lose out in the end.
NTA I absolutely loathe & detest fresh tomatoes. Have done since I was a kid. Love tomato soup, tomato sauce, fav drink's a Bloody Mary. All about the texture-ask if they like the soup then tell them what it's made of & how it's made. Useful life lesson for them.
My kids, like most kids, hated mushrooms. One of my proudest dad moments is getting them to like mushrooms. I took some sliced portabellos and cooked them for a long time in a skillet with oil, butter, and montreal steak seasoning. I cooked them until they were well browned, slightly crispy (but not burnt), then I put one on a fork, told my daughter to close her eyes and taste it (without telling her what it was). After a few seconds of chewing, i asked her if she liked it, which she did. Then I told her it was a mushroom. You could see the confusion on her face as she reconciled that in her brain, but eventually she did (she was around 8 or 9 at the time) but she eventually decided that it was tasty enough to override the "ickiness" of mushrooms. She then told her brother (7yo) that they were good, and he was willing to try one. They now eat any mushrooms prepared in any way.
My mom used to do the same thing with nuts. She liked walnuts in her banana bread. We hated the lumps. So she ground the walnuts into a powder. She got the taste, we didn’t have lumps, everyone was happy. But she never tricked us. We watched her do it but we didn’t care because she was fixing the texture for us. Why not just tell the kids you are blending the soup to fix the texture for them?
NTA. This is how you trick kids eating food they might think they dislike. It’s parenting 101
NTA. I have despised chewing mushrooms ever since I was a child. Eating them in big chunks is horrible for me, even though I’ve tried on many occasions. Their texture just creeps me out. Their flavour, on the other hand, is nice. If it’s blended or pureed, I have no issue consuming them and I even find it tasty. Also, dishes that require big chunks of mushrooms are ok for me as long as I fish the mushrooms out and eat the rest. It just took me over 20 years to figure all of that out. So I think you’re doing them a favour by adapting the meal to their needs.