Food served at kid's parties in other countries?

[Anonymous]

Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

No, not lazy - it's efficient.

Pizza is universally loved by kids, easy to serve, relatively inexpensive, transports easily, serves a lot of people fir cheap.

I'm not slaving away in the kitchen the night before my kid's bday party to serve all kinds of food to a group of kids who won't eat, waste it, and otherwise not appreciate it. Not to mention I'm not spending a small fortune on ingredients to make said food.

Pizza works. Why fix something that's not broken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was born in 1970 in the U.S. and growing up people did not serve pizza at birthday parties (not saying it didn't happen anywhere, but it wasn't common where I grew up in NY). People tended to cook more in my youth vs all of the take out/quick casual food nowadays.

For my sibs and me (and friends' parties I attended), either birthday parties included extended family, in which case parents grilled burgers, had sandwiches or baked italian foods - or if the parties were just kids, usually there was just cake and maybe some fruit or snacks. I don't ever remember goody bags.

I point this out because many people on this thread are comparing to kids' parties of their own youths.

Pp above you, and I thought about this as I was writing my post. There is now much more often parties at event places similar to zavazone, laser tag, etc and when they have them there, the menu may be less elaborate. But still, as others mentioned, there is no “kid food”.

[Anonymous]

I did a breakfast food party once for little kids and it worked well. And a Mexican food party for tweens that worked well. I was appalled at how much it would have cost to get foot long subs instead of pizza and wings for a party. Pizza is definitely the cheapest if you’re not cooking yourself.
I did one party where I cooked a buffet of kid friendly foods that was themed around the party theme. (It was really well thought through!). The kids did not appreciate it — they wanted pizza. My daughter and I had fun planning the menu but it was a lot of work.

[Anonymous]

Australia -- fairy bread. Wonderbread with butter and sprinkles.

My mother would have put out a selection of finger foods.
Cheese cubes on cocktail sticks (maybe with a chunk of pineapple, too?)
Finger sandwiches.
Chocolate crackers (like a rice crispy treat, kind of).
And a cake shaped like an object. Probably from the Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Book.

[Anonymous]

Last year we went to a birthday party held after lunch and they had a big fruit platter, bananas, drinkable yogurts, juice boxes, some sort of pseudo-healthy chip, and a donut cake. They had a Hawaiian dancer. It was very low-key and I thought - it was genius to have after lunch. That said pizza at a birthday party is easy, and when I think back to the burnt hot dogs of 1980s birthday parties- not horrible as long as accompanied by some other fruits/veggies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

Americans parties are often kid-focused and held at entertainment venues rather than family focused— at least for older kids. It’s hardly “lazy” to serve food that is almost universally liked by the invited guests.

I was hoping to hear more about sausage rolls and caterpillar birthday cakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

I don't think this is true at all. Everyone else has all the time in the world to fuss over food and parties. Americans are busy and stretched thin between jobs, kids, activities, etc. Everyone else has the free time to obsess over serving the same food at every party, every time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

Sounds like everyone else just serves "food from home country". That doesn't sound special. Growing up I remember asking for lasagna for my birthday because it was my favorite food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

Sounds like everyone else just serves "food from home country". That doesn't sound special. Growing up I remember asking for lasagna for my birthday because it was my favorite food.

Right? I think eating your home country food at every single party and gathering sounds incredibly boring. Then it's probably a lame competition and sniping about who does it best.

[Anonymous]

If you are eating pizza at every party then it’s no different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, Americans are just lazy. Everyone else just serves real food.

Sounds like everyone else just serves "food from home country". That doesn't sound special. Growing up I remember asking for lasagna for my birthday because it was my favorite food.

Eating food from the same country isn't nearly as restricted as eating the same actual food at every party.

I could serve Italian or Indian or Chinese at a party every weekend and not have the same food twice in a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are eating pizza at every party then it’s no different.

No, b/c the people eating the home country food at parties are also eating it at every other meal. It's just food. All the same, all the time. Boring. Kids look forward to pizza because they don't eat it every day for every other meal.

[Anonymous]

They serve the type of food that kids like, in the country that the kid is from. In the US that’s often pizza. In other countries it’s something else. This isn’t rocket appliances.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In India it's a huge spread of Indian food but not "kid food" specifically - not even sure that notion exists.

But agree with hr immediate PP that this type of party is less common. Usually whe families are invited to the parties, so the food etc is less kid-focused.

+1

Yup. My mom would cook up a feast and a different theme for each birthday. South Indian, North Indian, Indo-Chinese, vegetarian, mughlai, Italian, continental, street food and aof course all kinds of regional cuisines.

Birthday food was special party food. There is nothing special about pizza as a party food.