Have You Heard About the Quinoa Scandal?

~ Clarissa

Here is what happened and got crowds of people into a tizzy:

A wealthy Manhattanite couple feared that their 5-year-old child, Erela, was not receiving a sufficiently refined palate from her hired nanny, who, being “from Wisconsin, does not always know the difference between quinoa and couscous.” So they hired a new service that trains nannies of the well-to-do in the shopping and food preparation that their employers would prefer.

Of course, these parents are to be commended for doing something really great and valuable for their kid. My class on food vocabulary flopped because my students couldn’t name any food (in English) other than chicken.

I have noticed that Americans tend to get very upset when somebody mentions that the quality of food sold in fast-food joints and supermarkets is very bad and might something to do with the horrible rates of obesity in this country. You can criticize anything but mention food and people get very upset. Still, the degree of outrage* over what these great and enlightened parents are doing is such that I have to conclude that something else is at play. And the answer is obvious: it’s sexism that drives the anger against this couple. Many people still cannot stomach the idea that a woman works and makes very good money so they have to persecute and  police her. They can’t confess to their sexism outright, of course, so they hide it behind some completely fake concern over the fate of the nanny who is somehow supposed to suffer horribly from gaining a new skill set that will enhance both her professional and personal existence.

* Famous people openly suggest that these parents should be murdered for trying to teach their kid to eat better. Seriously, just take a look here.

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Published by Clarissa

31 thoughts on “Have You Heard About the Quinoa Scandal?”

  1. I can think of other issues at play here, partly geographic and partly class based:

    – traditionally there is broad dislike of NY and NYers (especially the wealthier ones) in the rest of the country.

    – traditionally there is broad dislike of the idea of servants in the US (which is why so often when portrayed at all they have to be turned into pseudo-family members).

    – behind the idea of ‘teaching nannies how to cook for _your_ kids’ (emphasis in the original) is the unanswered question: and the nannie’s kids? who cares about them?

    – to the extent that there’s hostility aimed at the mother it’s that she’s outsourcing not only the primary care of her children but doesn’t even seem to deal with the servant directly, it sounds like hiring a secretary to deal with the maid.

    There’s more, but that’s a start.

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    1. Except the general dislike for New Yorkers, every issue you name is rooted in resentment against women who make money and use it as they wish. The nanny is one of such women, of course.

      I am yet to see any resentment against fathers who pay driving schools, coaches and tutors to teach their kids what they could try to teach them themselves.

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      1. No one would care if she hired a cook and told her what to prepae for her child. That happens all the time to no outrage whatsoever. But there’s something off putting about not being willing (or able) to engage her maid directly about her own child’s diet. It seems to combine the worst of helicoptering and outsourcing.

        There’s also the idea that a nanny is not traditionally expected to cook, but to provide supervision and companionship to children. This woman is not being treated like a nanny she’s being treated like a maid (an honorable, but different, profession)

        I haven’t detected any resentment toward the maid. Again, it’s the level of detachment here that puts people off. Is there sexism involved? Yeah, but I don’t think it’s the primary motivator.

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        1. “But there’s something off putting about not being willing (or able) to engage her maid directly about her own child’s diet. ”

          – Do you have the spare time to teach your plumber, dentist, car mechanic, etc. to do their job? Normally, people are expected to improve their professional skills on their own time and at their own expense. Here, the parents are actually investing money into the employee’s professional growth. She is acquiring a marketable skill at their expense. How is that a bad thing for anybody?

          “There’s also the idea that a nanny is not traditionally expected to cook, but to provide supervision and companionship to children.”

          – How can one be a nanny without feeding a child at least once a day?

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      2. I’ve known a couple of people who had nannies, and cooking was definitely a requirement. If both parents are gone from 7a.m. to 7p.m, what’s a 3 year old to do? Also, one of the mothers was required to travel for 3-4 days a couple of times a month.

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  3. “does not always know the difference between quinoa and couscous”

    My favorite comment so far: “I enjoyed the implication that the nanny *sometimes* knows the difference between quinoa and couscous.”

    (courtesy of Conor Friedersdorf)

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  4. I remember reading that quinoa prices have been pushed up so high on the world market that the people who live on it from subsistence farming are unable to afford to eat it. (I think they are Peruvian??) This is the one kind of cultural appropriation that I believe should be stopped.

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  6. People really do have bizarre insecurities about food! I never noticed this until I started to really try and eat better. I made the mistake of excitedly telling my friend how I’m getting my turkey from a small farm instead of from the supermarket. This was hugely offensive to him, and he ranted for five full minutes about how I’m wasting my money and super market turkeys are just fine.

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    1. ” I never noticed this until I started to really try and eat better. I made the mistake of excitedly telling my friend how I’m getting my turkey from a small farm instead of from the supermarket.”

      – Oh yes, that’s exactly what I mean. People often get very aggressive about this.

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    1. But supermarket turkeys certainly do taste better than wild turkeys (at least the wild turkey I had many years ago whose leathery dry flesh was also tasteless except for a nasteee aftertaste). It could be that the shooter and preparer (neither of of which was me) just didn’t know how to deal with wild bird….

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  8. I think it’s great that the parents hired someone to teach their nanny how to cook. However, there were a couple of things the parents said that made me less inclined to think positively of them. First, they wanted their child to eat “gluten-free kale salad”. Really, all kale salad is gluten free, unless you put croutons in it. Do they even know what gluten is? Unless you have gluten sensitivity (which their child does not seem to – she eats mac and cheese and cupcakes), then why would you want your child to eat gluten-free? Second, they didn’t mention health at all, they wanted their child to have a sophisticated palate. They didn’t sound like people who loved food, or knew anything about food. They sounded like people who were turning their child into a product that they could be proud of.

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    1. Oh yes, the gluten-free obsession is growing. I find it quite silly.

      And you are right, these parents are quite daft but doesn’t justify the rage that is making people want to kill them. At most, one can look at this with a quiet chuckle.

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      1. I went gluten-free about five years ago. Before that, I had severe heartburn almost every night. Now, I never have it; my digestion is excellent. So, I do not find it silly at all.

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  9. I’m surprised Clarissa.
    This article is a prime example of two parents who are using the eating habits of their child to manage their own status and class anxieties.
    Plus it’s a not so subtle way of advertising their professions (notice the web site link to her business.)
    Parents: Look at us. We are a music producer and an accessories designer (link to website conveniently located in article) who live in a very expensive area of New York. We are so busy and so wealthy that we hire a chef to train our nanny in the “correct” way of feeding our child. Look at our videos, buy my handbags and maybe some of that glamour will rub off on you.

    Chefs: Look at our wonderful service. Look at this fine example of our clients. Hire us and some of that same cachet may rub off on you. If you can afford it (link to our website

    The entire article drips with their weird class based orthorexia. Women who’ve grown up with quinoa and couscous as staples are likely too immigrant/too not white /and not of a high enough class for this couple. (Yes, the nanny is a status symbol as well as a necessity for them.) They would buy these staples in bulk, possibly at regular supermarkets or ethnic grocery stores which terrifies this couple to no end. No, the nanny has to have the shopping class at Whole Foods and learns to cook certain recipes so the child can perform her palate to her parents’ satisfaction for the benefit of the readers of the New York Times.

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    1. Eating well in this country is incredibly difficult. Children especially get really horrible garbage shoved in their faces everywhere they go. When I look at kids’ menus even in good restaurants, I’m always horrified. And people eat this way not because they are bad but simply because they have no idea that microwaved chicken nuggets are not food. Every year, I see more and more severely obese students come to our university. It is a tragedy to see so many teenagers who literally cannot fit between the desk and the chair.

      There is also nothing whatsoever wrong with trying to develop a more sophisticated palate. I’m trying to develop mine and I’d definitely hire somebody to help me with that if I had the money. I’m very glad that these people made enough money to hire professionals to assist them. There is no suggestion in the article that they made their money dishonestly, so what’s the problem?

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    1. It’s better than canned pasta (seriously, it’s pasta that is pre-cooked and canned) which is aggressively promoted on TV as a great, nutritious and healthy meal for small children.

      What we are fighting here in the US in terms of horribly unhealthy food cannot even be imagined in Israel or elsewhere.

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      1. The weirdest thing about US food are what I call reified products (if you can think of a better name then please do).

        A refied product comes when a finished food becomes a component (usually a flavor) of another one.

        For an exampel, behold the splendor of cheesburger flavored spagetti o’s !

        https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcROzONZ60vXFH09L-Us073RFZzmvWU6aZQmHfZlqWDQ0Q143KrQeQ

        Growing up I ate crap like spagetti o’s (and worse) occasionally but it wasn’t the main diet and can’t imagine people eatling like that 7/52, brrrrrrrrr……..

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  11. I thought couscous was a North African dish. It’s delicious anyhow and easy to prepare. I don’t like quinoa, however nobody has hired a chef to teach me how to cook it!
    But I agree, this just looks like more sexism to me and of the convoluted kind which says, ‘how dare a woman earn enough that she can pay another woman to do demeaning tasks like look after her children.’ There’s plenty of this kind of crap in the UK too!

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