This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
If you're a parent, you know how hard it can be to get your kids to eat. But comedian Ron Funches faces a special challenge with his autistic son Malcolm.
"A lot of times when your kids are picky eaters, if they get really hungry, eventually they will [eat]," Ron says. "But he will starve because he just won't eat."
Ron stars as Shelley in the NBC show Undateable and he also appears in the recent Will Ferrell film Get Hard. In his stand-up routine, he often talks about his young son's unusual eating preferences.
"We made a whole song about what he loved to eat as a two-year-old: oreos and bacon," Ron says. "That was his breakfast for awhile: two oreos and three slices of bacon in a smiley face."
It turns out, wild food pairings run in the Funches family.
This week on The Sporkful, Ron and I lie down together (literally -- see below!) to talk about eating and parenting, and he reveals his favorite weird food pairings -- like Kix with Nutella and popcorn with Raisinets.
"My normal movie routine was getting popcorn and Raisinets and a large soda and then spending the first half hour of the movie telling myself not to throw up," Ron says. "That's my favorite."
But there is a serious side to Ron's family food dilemma. All jokes aside, Ron was genuinely worried about his son's breakfast routine.
"[As a parent] you know this isn't healthy, but if I don't [give you oreos and bacon], you'll slam your head against the wall," Ron says. "When he was young, it was just about getting him to eat at all. That was scary, and he was very underweight."
Plus, Ron and I get deep on eating styles. He tells me why he loves gummy candies and why his son only eats fried chicken, bacon, and plain hamburgers.
"[My son] likes the solid textures. So there's no surprises," Ron says. "He wants every bite to be the same."
Eaters, do you see the pattern at work here? Listen to the full episode to hear me diagnose Ron and his son's eating condition. (Hint: It's a hallowed concept here on The Sporkful.)
Speaking of patterns -- Ron tells me why stand-up comedy is like cooking.
"Everybody starts off trying to learn the recipe, and you learn the basics," he says. "And then you're like I'm gonna add my own spices and do things that I want to do."
And that, dear eaters, is when you're ready to make oreos and bacon.
This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)
This is a rebroadcast of an earlier episode.
Photos: courtesy of Ron Funches/Undateable and by Dan Pashman FlickrCC/Joakim Wahlander, FlickrCC/Arash Ghafoori, FlickrCC/penguincakes, FlickrCC/moogs, and FlickrCC/I Believe I Can Fry
