A couple of weeks ago, my 5 year old grandson spent the night with us. He can be very stubborn about his likes and dislikes.

 I was making tuna sandwiches when I thought about the apple I was dicing to add to the tuna. It took me back to when I was 7 years of age and we just moved to a new neighborhood. There were so many more kids in that neighborhood, unlike the last. We were visiting friends across the street when their mom served us tuna sandwiches. I was always leery of eating someones  tuna other than my mom’s because I did not like onions in mine and still don’t. So I quickly informed her I did not like onions. “Not to worry” she said. “I put apples in it instead” Well, I was certainly not going to eat it then. Who ever heard of apples in tuna fish? After moments filled with ways of her getting me to try it, I gave in. It was for sure the best tuna sandwich I had ever had!

 So as you can imagine, I was really excited to serve the same best sandwich to my grandson. He was quick to inform me that not only did he not like apples in his tuna, but he didn’t like tuna! This kid is always up for a challenge though, and I was chasing my mind around in circles trying to think of a way to get him to try it.

 That’s when it came to me. What kid does not enjoy a treasure hunt? That’s when I came up with the Taste Bud Treasure Hunt. I asked if he wanted to send his taste buds on a treasure hunt and he replied with “huh?” Once I explained to him what taste buds were, I told him he would have to eat the sandwich without looking at it, relying on his taste buds to tell his brain each time they found an apple. He was quick to take on the challenge.

 Everytime his little  taste buds found an apple, his blue eyes would get so wide and he would let me know with excitement that he had found one and his taste buds told him what it was. I asked him if his taste buds were telling him they were finding anything else and he said he couldn’t be sure, so I wondered if he was really finding the apples or not. But in just a short time, he had finished his sandwich and informed me how much he now likes tuna sandwiches. I again asked him if he knew what else was in there, and after a very deep thought he said, “was it pickles?” YES!! It was pickles! So not only had he discovered he liked a new food, but he had discovered part of how the taste buds worked.

A little learning mixed in with a good tuna sandwich.