Yes, interesting idea Helen - and the thought of these both being formative experiences at our parent's knee ( Max!) seems to reinforce the analogy.

Even though I laughed out loud when I read that (thanks, mav) the food I did experience as a child was very different from that which I would have experienced at my mother's knee. My childhood was filled with an intersting mix of what was, in 1970s NZ, the exotic, parathas, chappatis, jilebis, and the very mundane. Those Indian breads would be used to wrap cheap mince stews of a sort easily thrown together quickly by a working single parent. There were also of course the chillis to take to school and give out to friends to try, calling them Chinese carrots, and waiting for the anguish and pain to spread as they bit into them.