First Taste of Food: Comparative Experiences
DAYI very carefully wash and boil (so it’s sterilized) bowl and spoon.
Very carefully, diligently mix the infant rice cereal with expressed breast milk.
I give Norma (our domestic helper then) the mixture.
She feeds Day, who is lying in her arms.
He spits most of it out: He is probably not quite ready for food. But I am way eager for him to start.
DEEI wash bowl and spoon. I can’t be bothered to boil.
Scrape off some banana and give it to her.
She is sitting in a high chair and
embraces eating with a passion.LULUSince
Gina has gone home and there is no one to take are of Lu during dinner, KK chucks her in Dee’s high chair.
Lu looks around watching us eat, licking the table. She has nothing else to do.
My father says: “Why not give her some potato?”
So I fish out some potato from my soup, scrape a smidgeon off with my spoon and feed it to her.
She laps it up and swallows.
We proceed with a smear of carrot and a dollop of papaya.
She swallows.

Completely against the book, this one. Her first taste of food – which happens almost by accident! - and she is bombarded with three at one shot. (by rights babies try a new food for a few days to test for allergic reactions)
Salt, oil, seasoning, all of which babies are not supposed to eat, present in the soup and presumably in the cells of the potato and carrot.
Spoon she feeds from: My oily dinner spoon.
It’s all so WRONG but it feels so delightfully natural!
No stress, no preparation, no nothing whatsoever: To just pop the baby at the dinner table and oh well, since everyone is eating, why not let her sample?
Tomorrow I’ll give her something hygienic, healthy and proper though: No more table food, which can be dangerous for a baby.
The usual infant cereal, steamed carrot etc.
I am, however, very very, very happy. That she has started on her gastronomic adventures!!! Age: 5 1/2 months.