An Indian Perspective (my interview with Sandra)

Hi Abbie!

Ever since your post on annaprasan I have been meaning to go back to my notes from an interview with my friend Sandra to see if she touched on this first-food tradition. While I didn't find any mention of it, I did enjoy reading back over her thoughtful and detailed answers and decided to go ahead and post them now before the craziness of holiday travels leaves me happily stranded in Indiana without internet access :) I haven't yet tried her recipe for kichri, as my son is too little for it at 5 months, but I'm looking forward to it. I hope you and your family have a very happy holiday season!


On traditional first foods: "In India, babies are usually nursed until about 9 months of age, sometimes longer. Solid foods are introduced at 3 months of age. One of the first solids is a cereal derived from rice which is thought to be most easily digested. This would be cooked into a thin gruel and called "conji". Nowadays the most common brands for babies cereal are "Farex" and "Cerelac" that is usually mixed with formula to form a runny porridge. Other first foods are mashed banana, and when the child is a little older, at about 6 months, vegetables cooked and in chicken or beef broth and then pureed and strained."

On more "advanced" infant foods: "The most common food for children around 1 year old is a dish called "kichri" (recipe at end of interview). This is rice and lentils cooked together until it becomes very soft. Other foods would be rice and yogurt, custard, a piece of chapati (Indian flat bread that looks like a tortilla), buttered rice, and fish (especially where I grew up along the coast). This was simply a spoonful of butter stirred into a cup of just-cooked rice with fish either poached or sauteed. Children were always given sweeter tasting river fish (with skin and bones removed) instead of the sea fish."

On taboo foods: "No crustaceans as they were considered difficult to digest. No fruit called custard apple similar to cherimoya, since it has small seeds that could pose a choking hazard. No uncooked eggs and no caffeinated drinks."

On medicinal or health-promoting foods: "Honey (given only to children older than 3 years), milk, onion juice cooked with sugar - remedy for colds, porridge made out of ragi (millet) flour was supposed to be good for overall health, other grain porridges made from oatmeal, whole wheat flour, semolina (cream of wheat) and sago (starch extracted from the pith inside stems of the sago palm Metroxylon), coconut water from tender (green) coconuts is considered cooling in hot weather."

On liquids given to babies: "Milk is the primary liquid. Cow's milk is only introduced after the child is 1 year old. Formula milk is becoming increasingly common. Rice starch (ie water collected after boiling rice) is also given. Babies are not given fruit juices to drink."

On the feeding of babies: "Usually it is the mother who feeds the baby. Previously in the joined family with extended family members present others would pitch in to feed the baby. Most middle and upper class families would have a nanny or "ayah". She was a servant of importance who worked with the family for many years performing the role of lady's maid as well. We look upon ayahs with great affection as she was like a second mother to us. Fussy eaters would be made to eat by distracting them with songs or bird/animal noises. Milk is fed in a bottle. For all other semi-solid and solid foods babies are spoon fed. It was not uncommon for the ayah to put small morsels of food in the child's mouth with her fingers. Babies were fed before their older siblings. Having spent my childhood in India and having brought up my own children here I can see the difference in expectations re:when a child ought to feed itself. In India the ayah would feed the child until 5 or 6 years of age. Whereas here children are encouraged to feed themselves as soon as they have the motor skills to do so."

"Here are some of my favorite toddler foods: Fresh fruit - especially diced mango, "Eggy soldiers" Soft boiled egg with butter toast fingers to dip into the yolk, Custard. Ready-made or bottled baby food was not favored - all food was made using fresh ingredients. Indians are quite fastidious about this."

"Here's my home recipe for kichri - interestingly this is believed to be the origin of the Anglo-Indian rice dish called "kedgeree":

- 1 cup rice
- 1/2 cup yellow lentils (moong dal)
- 2 cups water
- 1 tbsp butter
- pinch of salt
Wash the rice and lentils till the water runs clear.
Put in a large saucepan with 2 cups water and a pinch salt.
Bring to a boil on medium heat then partially cover the sauce pan and simmer till the rice and lentils are soft and the water is absorbed.
Stir in the butter
The water in the above recipe can be replaced with chicken broth."

More on Early Fruits

Hi Abbie!

Wow, the figures you posted regarding the amount of fertilizer required to cultivate bananas are staggering! I'm surprised, given that bananas are the most often consumed fruit in the world (at least according to an old trivial pursuit question). We had been avoiding them for our son for another reason (his ongoing struggle with constipation), but this definitely complicates matters further... I found the whole article you linked us to interesting and upsetting; it helped remind me that in this day and age, with so much information and choice available to us, we have an obligation to do the best we can for our planet, our children, each other... This philosophy should apply whether we're talking about the fanciest "adult" recipes or our children's "first foods."

As for alternative "first fruit" traditions, I haven't uncovered much beyond what you mentioned. Many of my friends and cousins with children also started with bananas. In the interview from my friend Sandra (see next post), bananas are mentioned as a common early fruit in India, and mangoes came up as an "all-time baby favorite." Infants and Children: Their Feeding and Growth by Frederic H. Bartlett, M.D., (NY: 1932), which I referenced in an earlier post, suggests apples and prunes as first fruits, followed by banana, peaches, pears, plums, apricots, and red raspberries ("don't worry about the seeds") - all stewed except for the very ripe bananas (p. 60-61). Pears and peaches come up over and over as "first fruits" in the books on baby nutrition I've borrowed from our local Women's Center.

I have read in several places that babies should wait until the one year mark before trying citrus fruits due to their high acidity and propensity for causing allergic reactions. Then again, your research shows that Kenyan mothers start oranges early (at 3 months), and my friend from Nicaragua named orange juice and lemonade as early and health-promoting foods. The advice tome from the 1930s recommends orange juice beginning at 2 months (hehe). So, who knows? How old was your son when he first tried citrus?

So far, the only fruits my son has tasted are prunes and pears (OK, my husband pointed out that technically most of his foods have been fruits (squash, avocado, etc.), but you know what I mean!). We'll probably start apples next. I'll keep my eyes peeled for more opinions and information on early fruit traditions!

The banana dilemma

Hi Marjorie!

Today, as I dropped my son off at his daycare, another parent mentioned that her little 5 month old had just tried bananas. It was clearly a big milestone for the family: their little girl tried a fruit after a month of just cereal. I know that bananas are likely the first fruit of choice in most American households. They are easy to mash up, require no cooking and have a sweet, bland taste. Now that I am packing toddler lunches, I admit that I often fall back on them. On my mornings of hurried lunch bag filling, it is easy to rip one off the bunch and jam it in next to the yogurt and cheese slices. And they are cheap.

I still can't figure out why bananas are as cheap as they are, and I'm sure the answer will make me uncomfortable as an aspiring conscientious consumer. They need to be shipped from tropical locales. Yet they can cost less per pound than the apples that come from right outside the city. Bananas also require a startling amount of fertilizer per cultivated acre (427 pounds versus 35 pounds for peas or beans). So why is the cost of that fertilizer not passed along to us? Even this superficial consideration of the economics points to another unsettling truth: bananas are not a good environmental choice. Imagine the carbon footprint, given the transcontinental diesel shipping! So, why do we as American families, continue to serve our children bananas, when we could serve them locally grown apples or low-fertilized green peas? I'm not sure why bananas continue to be such a staple in this country, but one reason, for sure, is that they have cornered the market as a first food.

Apples, pears and plums all have their place in the baby fruit pantheon here, I suspect largely thanks to prepackaged Gerber purees. While citrus is not common here, my research shows that Kenyan mothers do feed their 3 month olds oranges. Indonesian mothers serve porridges fortified with both banana and papaya. I know your own mother-in-law identified watermelon as a common baby fruit in Taiwan. Have you found any other fruit traditions? Bananas make more sense to me as a baby food in Indonesia or Ecuador...there, they are locally grown. This may be the last week of bananas in my own household. Good thing my kid likes apples!

Re: Rites of Passage

Hi Abbie!

You are so right to highlight the universal interest in the initial feedings of a young baby. With our little-one just out of the starting-gate with solid foods, my husband and I chose to skip the public display of eating at The Big Family Thanksgiving with forty guests, most of whom were meeting our son for the first time. Part of me felt guilty about this, like I was hoarding him for myself, but my concerns about him being overwhelmed by the crowd's enthusiasm won the day. We, I suspect like most Americans, chose to videotape our son's first bites to preserve the memory. That way, family and friends will be able to experience it without upsetting the intimacy of the moment for our nuclear family.

Like you, I do wish there were an established tradition in our culture that celebrated a baby's first non-milk meal with more than just Mom and Dad. When I spoke to my Taiwanese mother-in-law about this concept after reading your post, she said there is a tradition in Taiwan that sounds very similar to annaprasan, the ritual first feeding of an infant in the Indian tradition. A number of objects are laid out in front of a four-month-old baby, whose fate is supposedly determined by which article he grabs. She named scissors (a tailor), scales (a merchant), an abacus (a businessman), and a book/pen (an "intellectual"). I had a hard time with "scissors", but it was the first thing she named - and very enthusiastically. No other professions surfaced despite less-than-unbiased-professional prompting.

Another ritual that my mother-in-law had already observed for her own sons and my own was at their one-month birthday. She made yu-bung (oily rice with cabbage, mushroom, pork, scallions, etc.) and ang-nung (red hard-boiled eggs "like at easter") for the family and neighborhood - I think in celebration of a viable new life that was "out of the woods" so to speak, common in many cultures.

Finally, she mentioned tying a cord covered in bread, strung through a central hole ("like bagels") around a four-month-old baby's neck to ward off future problems with drooling. Afterward, the adults eat the delicious bread, drool and all. I have a hunch there are more interesting rituals to be discovered at a later time...

Back to your post - my guess is that you are correct in supposing that annaprasan is more of a ceremonial first than an actual one. This appeals to me in that it preserves the actual first-feeding for parents, but invites shared participation from the larger community in celebration of a baby's induction into the exciting, new world of eating. I am hoping we will stage just such an event when our families are next together later this season!

Love,
Marjorie