Kids. Summer. And Fresh Vegetables.

Kids can be “particular” when it comes to dinner. That’s an understatement. Ask any parent, and they can tell you in a heartbeat, what their kids will or will not eat.

Some have aversions to tomatoes, others won’t give green beans the time of day. Color, consistency, texture — however ridiculous their reasoning, their aversions are real. To add insult to injury, many adults have the same reaction to vegetables. Perhaps, if they were introduced to the joys of locally grown vegetables, they would be more apt to give them a go, and love them for what they are.

Enter the summer season, abounding with fresh vegetables. What’s a parent to do? With the enduring hot weather, and moms and dads alike, or whoever is in charge of cooking, we tend to go to the food we know will be consumed. Summer, albeit not a time (in our households, anyway) for spaghetti and meatballs or mac and cheese, parents look to go to what they know their kids will eat. But imagine, for an instant, that you suggest they try something new. And locally grown.

Take, for example, the day you slice a fresh locally grown tomato and add a bit of salt. For us adults, it is pure, unadulterated, heaven. “Try it”, you say. “It’s the taste of summer”. Locally grown tomatoes taste nothing like the tomatoes offered up in grocery stores year-long — in our state, anyway. We realize (and know firsthand) that it takes a few of these tastings for things to sink in), but we also know that when these prized tomatoes show up in our houses these days, especially as the kids get older, it’s not mom or dad that have consumed the precious fruit. The kids are to blame!

Fresh cucumbers, too, take on a new life when sliced and soaked in vinegar. In our grandmothers' days, it was apple cider vinegar. A new twist is to soak the thinly sliced cucumbers in is rice wine vinegar. Again, all it took was a “try this”, and the kids were hooked. These days, they are almost gone before the meal is even on the table.

Another example, for interest, are radishes. Who knew, as children, that we would have any interest in this sometimes mild or flagrantly not, flavorful veggie? A simple dash of sea salt brings out their robust, innate offerings. Pick one of these, fresh out of the soil, and again, there’s that “summer” feel and back to our childhoods. How could we not want to pass on this precious pastime?

With so many of us tending our own gardens, or of taking advantage of what’s in season, or turning to organic offerings, there are numerous ways to introduce fresh vegetables to our children. Again — it may not be love at first sight, but after a while, they may just learn to love all that our New England climate has to offer this time of year.

The bottom line is, kids eat what they want or are used to, but if we introduce “new” things — even if they aren’t really that “new” — that they can become familiar with or identify with, who knows? They, might even, someday, recall their childhood simply by tasting a slice of tomato. Ah, summertime!