Our son's daycare doesn't cook for babies under one, so we send his lunch. It goes in at 8.30 and he eats at 12.30. Mashed dal rice that was soft at home comes back as a solid brick, and the daycare says he refused it. An insulated box keeps it warm, but I'm not convinced warm-for-four-hours is a good idea either 🙂 What did you send at this age that survived the wait?
This is from a while back, so take it with that in mind. We went the other way: packed it cool in a plain steel box and the daycare warmed it in hot water before serving. One more thing to ask of them, but the texture held up better than in the warm box. Some days they forgot to warm it and he ate it as it was, which he didn't seem to mind.
We still do a version of this for my younger one's tiffin. What helps the texture is a small flask of hot water sent separately, stirred in just before eating. Dal rice thickens whatever you do. The water undoes most of it.
Packing it cool is right. Cooked rice sitting lukewarm for four hours is the one I'd avoid. For my granddaughter's school box we still do cool food plus a flask. She says it's boring, which I take as a good sign.
the hot water idea is clever. my son at that age ate everything cold and lumpy at his grandmother's and refused the exact same thing warm at home. i never worked out which part he objected to
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