JC is just two years old but has a real interest in food; both eating and making. Now, don’t get me wrong I am not one of those mothers who claim that her kid is reciting Shakespeare before most have discovered they have ten tiny toes, but he does enjoy food and has quite an eclectic palate. He is also far from perfect. From one day to the next you don’t know if, when you put his meal in front of him, it will be eaten, messed with or thrown. Some days you are as likely to see him eating a crayon as a cake.

He has his own brand of help in the kitchen. Sometimes he chops i.e. holds his hand over mine while we slice some vegetables, other times he stirs something in a pan i.e. flicks it all over the place, and sometimes he bakes i.e. cracks eggs in his lap. Other times he just messes with stuff on the window ledge. But his interest is there and that is something to embrace. The only other thing he takes as seriously as food is pushing his toy trains under the sofa.

I am reading a great book at the moment called French Children Don’t Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman which is based on observations and interviews on how French parents and parents in the UK and the US raise their kids differently. It is fascinating. I am only eighty-eight pages in but the majority of it so far has revolved around probably the two biggest topics of conversation when a gaggle of mothers get together – sleep and food.

There are pages and pages about how French kids are trained from a very early (and by early I mean weeks old) age to “do their nights” (sleep through) and have regular meals times, the kind of meal times that will follow them through life. Food is served in courses and children’s food is an alien concept. Food is food. Simple.

There is one paragraph specifically that really caught my attention as one that I recognised from personal experience. Another interviewee, an American living in New York, complained that every single activity her child attended, no matter how short involved a snack of some sort. And it is so true. JC goes to a play group that lasts under two hours. Half way through all stops so they can eat. He attends nursery for a three and a half hour session. During that time they have a snack and lunch. They never stop eating.

During a visit to a French mother living in the suburbs of Paris the author is astonished that a three year old is contentedly putting cake mix into cases with minimal mess, supervision and no licking of the cake spoon. The child is not allowed to eat the cakes until the appropriate snack time (at 4.30 pm, the evening meal is not served until 8 pm) and accepts it with no fuss. I personally would be worried about a child who didn’t feel the need to lick the spoon; come to think about it I would be worried about an adult who didn’t either and I certainly can’t imagine there being no fuss if JC was refused.

I don’t know how many British or American kids bake with their parents but we do, it is something we enjoy. I don’t do it as an exercise of self control or fantasy that he will become the next celeb chef and keep his mother in a life of luxury, I do it because I like to bake and eat cake.

When JC and I bake it is a messy affair. Three quarters of the mix goes in the bowl and the other quarter is spread about in various locations, usually the work surface, floor, down the sink, on his trouser fronts or on the soles of his feet. I do the measuring, some of the mixing and most of the case filling. He adds the ingredients. There is no minimal mess and no minimal supervision from me but there is no telling off either. It is a learning curve. If you don’t like mess don’t let them loose with flour, eggs and sugar.

There is much that I have read about the French relationship with food and the attitude towards it they pass on to their kids that I love. I like that they are not bribed with food but are taught to wait and not expect food with every activity. Maybe it makes for greater self control when the choice of food is totally in your hands as an adult.

I can’t help but wonder what they would make of baby-led weaning, breast-feeding on demand and a deep fried children’s restaurant menu but I hope that the group that Pamela Druckerman interviewed and studied, to draw the conclusions on her book, are not universal picture of children in France. I can’t believe that there is an entire country of kids that don’t throw a wobble (or their food) in restaurants from time to time, plant their faces on the floor or refuse an escargot in frog leg sauce when confronted with it. After all, what would a restaurant visit be without a side of tantrum?

So, what are you having for dinner tonight? Our menu is crab risotto and a dessert of crayola crayons, after which we may read a couple of sonnets and then throw a wobble. It’s a balanced mix of calm and chaos.

French Children Don’t Throw Food by Pamela Druckerman, 2012, Great Britain. Doubleday Press.