I’ll put the bottom line at the top: children who are exposed to a wide variety of cuisines at home won’t face as many challenges eating different foods when traveling.

Beyond that, we are realists: we still pack along some squeeze packs and crackers just in case a meal goes sideways. But we want our children to be willing to at least try all foods they encounter.

In our home, children eat what the grownups eat, with few exceptions. Spice level is one of those few exceptions, and basically means that we grownups just add heat to our own serving, and not the whole meal.

Variety is the spice of life, and our dinner table is very much inclined to agree: Swahili, Chinese, Vietnamese, German, Ukrainian and a whole host of other cuisines are all cooked (very little take-away eaten here!) in our kitchen with the littles’ often participating in the meal preparation.

And so far as we can tell, that’s really the only way to have kids who are willing to eat pho, wali na marahage, jiaozi or leberwurst. In some form, they are all foods they’ve handled and tasted at home.

Of course, our best efforts don’t work 100 percent of the time: today we made a German Möhrensuppe mit Kartoffelkloßchen (carrot soup and potato dumplings) alongside Papa Little’s homemade sourdough bread. YUM!

The children only wanted to eat the bread, and ate a few meagre bites of the soup with much protesting.

BUT they ate more than enough sourdough bread to be considered full. None were at risk of going hangry and ruining our evening, so we didn’t sweat it.

Of course, teething, upset tummies, or being grouchy-pants and refusing to eat on principle of some imagined injustice are all real possibilities at meal time.

But we at least try to put the odds in our favour!