Across time, it feels like “Don’t play with your food!” has been a persistent parental refrain. However, the need to keep reciting that dictum demonstrates that kids (and at least a few adults) perpetually find ways to turn mealtime into playtime. Some research has even suggested that playing with food can help babies and toddlers develop healthy eating habits. No wonder that, over the years, manufacturers have found ways to take that playful inclination and turn it into products that can add laughs to lunch or delight to dinner.
Reaching back into the 1950s, the Chow Scow feeding dish was poised to dock at your toddler’s highchair. The plastic dish with divided compartments (can’t have the peas touch the creamed chicken!) was designed to hold hot water to help keep food warm while a fussy eater stalled over a suspicious vegetable. The box also declared that, when it wasn’t ashore at the kitchen table, the dish also worked fine as a “sand and water toy.” I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have sand in my food, but maybe I’m just picky that way.
Moving up to the 1990s, breakfast got a little brighter when you had a Rugrats Talking Cereal Bowl. The Rugrats animated series aired on Nickelodeon for nine seasons, beginning in 1991 and generated a playroom’s worth of licensed merchandise. This cereal bowl features the oldest and bossiest Rugrat, Angelica. Thank goodness that when Angelica speaks up through your cereal, she merely announces “Wake up and smell the oatmeal!” rather than her signature phrase, “You stupid babies!” Who needs more insults thrown across the breakfast table?
I recall being an exceptionally obedient kid, but I do remember getting scolded on occasion for blowing bubbles into my milk through a straw. With Kermit the Frog perched on this curlicued straw, it seems to be asking for some sort of mischief involving beverages.
You know what makes mealtime more fun? The folks who produced the Food Face plate (which came in male and female versions) thought that it might involve offering kids the chance to play with their food on the dinnerware equivalent of the Wooly Willy toy from the 1950s. You could top off the cartoon face on the plate with a hat made of peas or a swirl of spaghetti hair. Add green bean eyebrows or a mushroom mustache to complete the composition. It was all in good fun and in the cause of promoting healthy eating—along with a little creativity.
I admire any fearless parent who chose to bestow a Zing! teaspoon on their offspring. Maybe their kitchen had easy-to-clean vinyl wallpaper since the slogan for the spoon was “Launch your Lunch.” The package even featured a convenient diagram showing how you could bend the coiled spring handle to catapult your carrots across the table at your little sibling. Bullseye!
Finally, for something slightly more sophisticated, there’s the French Toast! bread stamper that let you impress your Wonder Bread with an image of the Eiffel Tower before inserting it into the toaster. As the toaster gave the slice a golden tan, the indented Parisian image would remain pale as would the exhortation “Bonjour!” The label on the package announced that the result would be “très chic,” although I suspect that any resident of the French Republic would cry a little over their croissant to witness what Americans were doing with their food and cultural heritage.
So the next time playful inspiration strikes you at mealtime, know that you’re following in a lengthy tradition. And, if you’re inspired to send me a photo of yourself with French fries sticking out of your nostrils, I’ll be glad to add that image to the other food-related fun here at The Strong Museum.