Cookbook #77: Feed Me! I’m Yours, Vicki Lansky, Bantam Books, 1979.
This is one of my cookbooks – I bought it new, for me, for advice on feeding my son, who was born in 1980. I was so scared at first to let him eat anything but breast milk! it seemed odd to feed him solids for that first time. Of course I got over that pretty fast, but that’s why I got this cookbook, I wanted help!
Now it’s 2014 my 7 month old grandson is visiting (with his parents). My daughter is determined to get this kid eating solids! I pulled Feed Me! I’m Yours from the shelf, and she and I pored over this decades-old book.
This is a friendly and helpful book. In the first chapter: “Are you a bit nervous about making your own baby food?” Yeah! Lots of suggestions to get a young mother going along a path of homemade foods for her baby. The content was reviewed by a pediatric nurse – this is a sensible as well as friendly book.
Most of the nutrition information agrees with what my daughter has learned from the Internet and current baby care books. Sweet potatoes, potatoes, bananas, oatmeal, pureed fruits, and almond butter are examples of baby foods for us to try. But, some of the recipes and food suggestions in Feed Me! I’m Yours have more sugar in them than my daughter wants her son to have. Another big change since 1980 is that honey is included in many recipes. Honey used to be okay for babies, but now is a big taboo.
Dzo (pronounced “Joe”) is still in the cereals-and-mashed-fruits-and-vegetables stage. Here he is at 7 months, in a highchair in my kitchen. The cheerio on his nose is a family tradition:So what recipe shall we try on our little . . . test child?
I’d like to make crackers, but most Feed Me! I’m Yours cracker recipes have sugar in them. So I decided to go online and see what young moms are cooking for their babies these days. Wow, what an amazing wealth of information is at the fingertips of today’s moms!
I decided to make Homemade Cheesy Crackers, a recipe I found on the the “Super Healthy Kids” website. They include whole wheat flour, oats, wheat germ, olive oil, and cheddar cheese. (I am not including the full recipe for copyright reasons, but you can hopefully find the recipe at the Super Healthy Kids web site.)
Grandma got to make Dzo his first homemade crackers-cookies! Here they are: