Nine-year-old Jean-Baptiste Riffaud is seated at a table inside the elegant new seafood shack Ed’s Chowder House near Lincoln Center, about to dip into a mini-cauldron of pumpkin chowder.
“Look at the lovely design,” he says of the frizzled onions that dot the soup.
His feet may barely reach the floor, but that doesn’t mean Jean-Baptiste hasn’t developed opinions about food. He considers himself “mostly a carnivore” — though he’s not above eating green vegetables. Unlike his younger sister Isabelle, who is 6, he disdains ketchup because of its “sour” taste. And his nickname for McDonald’s? “Poison.”
Perhaps a surprising sentiment for a 9-year-old, but not for one whose mom is restaurant consultant Karine Bakhoum — an “Iron Chef America” judge who represents Ed’s and whose palate is insured by Lloyd’s of London to the tune of a million dollars.
“I’m obsessed with food — food is my life,” says Bakhoum, who as a toddler dined on escargot and Dover sole at European restaurants. “From when [my children] were born, I always had fantasies that they would eat the most sophisticated foods. They don’t — they’re not where I was when I was their age. They’re not eating escargot, but I like to make them try everything . . .”
Jean-Baptiste and Isabelle aren’t alone. Parents for whom dining out is a form of sport — if not livelihood — are raising a whole new generation of culinary-minded children, dubbed elsewhere as “gastrokids,” “koodies” and “taster tots.”
“The generation of parents who are having kids now . . . came of age during the beginning of the biggest foodie pop-culture revolution of the 20th century,” says Hugh Garvey, co-author of “The Gastrokid Cookbook.”
The result? Traditional kid’s menus are getting kicked to the curb in favor of, well, just about everything from anchovies to Stilton cheese.
Even the far-from-cuddly Anthony Bourdain can’t help but gush on his blog: “My. . . baby daughter loves olives. And caper berries. And parmigiano-reggiano cheese.”
And now a host of new books are popping up with the premise that children not only can — but should — eat “adult” food.
Among them are Garvey and Matthew Yeomans’ “The Gastrokid Cookbook,” Nancy Tringali Piho’s “My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus” and even a kid’s version of Italian cooking bible “The Silver Spoon.”
Stuck cooking two dinners tonight — one for yourself, and one for junior? Well, then, it could be your own fault. As “The Gastrokid Cookbook” puts it, “Kids love vegetables — it’s just that parents ruin them by buying and cooking them badly.”
According to the current thinking, confining a kid’s menu to bland fried fare like chicken fingers not only encourages picky dining habits, but a limited view of the world. After all, children eat congee porridge for breakfast in China. “This mind-set that this is what kids eat and this is all kids will eat and therefore what we’ll give them — I think people are waking up to it,” says Piho.
And even fine-dining restaurants are welcoming them — as long as they comport themselves appropriately.
“These are little gourmets in training, these are your future patrons, and you want them to delight in wonderful food,” says Georgette Farkas, spokeswoman for chef Daniel Boulud. At Restaurant Daniel, well-behaved children are given a tour of the kitchen and their very own toque. “They come in and they know every ‘Top Chef,’ ” adds Farkas.
The media is fast discovering the more precocious products of foodie culture. Bravo has announced that it is developing a “junior” version of “Top Chef,” and East Hampton caterer Greg Grossman — the 14-year-old wunderkind whom The Post profiled last year — is getting his own reality TV show. Meanwhile, kid critic David Fishman — who pens restaurant reviews at fishmanfoodie.com — has nabbed a movie deal and is taking lunch meetings at Jean Georges with Tim Zagat.
All of this leads some to argue that the kid foodie phenomenon is symptomatic of a culture that expects children to grow up too fast.
“It’s something I’ve thought a lot about — who are we to expect a 4-year-old to sit through a nice meal at a restaurant?” asks Piho. “It has to be done in a gradual way.”
“Gastrokid” writer Garvey agrees.
“One of the criticisms is that people are creating little mini-me’s at the expense of childhood. But I think childhood is about discovery, and so I find nothing wrong with that.”
Still, a “koodie” backlash is brewing.
“The trend emphasizes the worst of the food frenzy today: the celebration of celebrity and novelty over authenticity and seriousness,” writes food scribe Regina Schrambling in an article on Slate, arguing that children do not have the palates or experience to properly judge food.
“Koodie: another term to describe the children of smug, self-satisfied parents,” complained Serious Eats blogger Adam Kuban.
But Piho says it is not her intention to be elitist, warning parents against criticizing any kind of food.
“You don’t want to create a situation where it’s the forbidden fruit and . . . the next thing you know they’re sneaking it behind your back.”
Instead, she emphasizes teaching children to be discerning by explaining the differences between food. Or as Garvey puts it: “A prosciutto-wrapped fig is really annoying-sounding, [but] when you take the judgment away, it’s more delicious than a Cheeto.”