Having just cooked with six kids in the middle of a field on a farm, I’ve been thinking about how little we really need to offer kids to excited them about food.

I fall prey to what a friend calls the twisting of the kid dial: the standardized tests and four-figure birthday parties at gourmet bowling alleys. (“My preschool was a bowling alley,” a dial-twisting mom marvels, “and when I was good I got to light my mom’s cigarettes”).

Now we’re twisting the kid dial for food, from pint-sized cooking competition shows (when most children barely know how to make a grilled cheese sandwich) to a hotel chain offering a Michelin-starred-chef-designed children’s menu.

It’s just marketing, but are we sacrificing children’s food innocence at the