Mae & Food

So here’s A short story…. A long letter…. The full gist about the Evolution of my love affair with food….

I strongly believe that someone who doesn’t like food cannot be trusted. There’s no evidence supporting this belief, in case you were wondering. I just realised one day that this had become my opinion and it’s a hill on which I have made permanent residence. I also firmly believe I’m not a hypocrite, so don’t point any fingers at me as you read. All I’m saying is; Now that I know better, everyone who doesn’t know has to be called out! Anyway, I’m not trying to fight. I just want to tell you what happened. Then you will see that experience is the best teacher; and if you need to learn, just take it from me.

So I don’t even know where or how it started. All I know is that as far back as I can remember there was one major fear I had - My doctor’s jovial (or were they?) threats of injections at the hospital to make me eat. Thankfully, he actually never administered that torture on me. But as every victim of long-term suspense-filled fear-mongering will tell you, sometimes the reality of the traumatic incident itself is a lesser evil than the constant anticipation and dread when you hear those words “if abcd doesn’t happen, I will do wxyz!” Even worse when you know with absolute certainty that abcd will not be happening; leaving you at the mercy of the wicked one.

I hated food. I didn’t understand why I had to sit down and eat. Like, give me Butter Mint or Choco Milo or Treetop blackcurrant; that’s a different story. But why yam? And for goodness sake why was yam so hard and white and just.. Yam? Why rice and stew? Why plantain? Why bread? Why food on a plate? Why eat? I just didn’t get it. My mum at some point delegated the “feed this girl!” campaign to my grandmother, who was very well equipped and not put off in the slightest by the “necessary” duty to get me eating. Sitting to my left at the dining table with her hands resting on her heaving bosom and her eyes pointedly swivelling like 2 tandem pendulums between my plate and my mouth, arms deceptively relaxed, only to prove otherwise by the occasional “nudge” when my chewing slowed down or intervals between my plate-to-mouth spoon movements increased.

I even devised a strategy; tried to “negotiate” with my mum (“the audacity!” my elder sister would gasp) and to some extent she actually entertained my concerns. I guess getting me fed trumped maintaining the power dynamic. I told her I had specific foods I didn’t like - eggs, fish and yam. Alas, by mentioning those foods, I was subconsciously trying to exempt myself from eating most of what we had on the menu. What soup from my part of the world didn’t have fish? What breakfast didn’t have eggs and at least lunch or dinner every other day would have yam featured, God willing! So as you can see, I’ve been a sharp babe from way back!

Anyway, so how did I go from dreading meal time, made worse by being the biggest mugu at “trade my full plate of rice for your one piece of meat” games (and other short and painful events craftily designed by a certain big sister), to becoming this food lover today? I’ve thought extensively about this and it comes down to two things - Process and Economics. No, I'm not talking about my job. We’re still on the food topic, trust me.

I like to see how things evolve. I like to watch little seemingly unrelated pieces of random things come together and make sense (We will talk about legos and jigsaws soon, I promise). And this might be traced back to the years of hanging around the kitchen helping my mum. I’m not so conceited as to simply ascribe this to some interest I always had or picked up at an early age. For all I know it was because I was home with her in the years when the others were mostly away at boarding school, university or doing teenage things. I remember dutifully scribbling down in her yellow/ brown notebook things like “750 grams of flour, no not flower! F-L-O-U-R. Oya pronounce it. Noooo not flaaawaaaa! I’m an English teacher, You will not disgrace me!” Okay I only scribbled down the first part. The rest is still echoing in my head. But I digress.

I remember “helping” to mix the bread dough in her Kenwood Chef mixer, washing the parboiled rice, tasting for salt despite not really understanding what that meant, licking the leftover cake batter (someone had to do it :D), sneaking a pinch or 5 of crayfish when she wasn’t looking and other fun tasks. I also remember plucking, washing and cutting the vegetables, washing up the dishes as she cooked, wiping down surfaces, cleaning slimy sea creatures and other annoying tasks of the necessary and terribly disgusting nature.

But while it gave me the opportunity to bond with my mum, for which I shall be forever grateful, it also stealthily got me to the point where I subconsciously recognised the effort, time, precision and care that goes into every morsel I bite. The spoon-to-mouth dance was no longer as cumbersome, much less so when I was a part of the process of buying the ingredients from the local markets and unpacking the produce out of market bags to dishing out into plates. And so it was that I transitioned from being food-averse to food-conscious.

And even if my appetite didn’t magically get converted to the other extreme, appreciating food meant I wanted to explore it even further and enjoy the myriad of feelings that you wouldn’t believe something as basic as food would evoke. You will feel a sense of pride, the euphoria that comes with accomplishment when all the elements work together the way you imagined. You will feel the sweet satisfaction that comes with getting off your feet after hours of creating a ridiculous heat map of movement around the square footage of your kitchen. Quick fun fact: When I say hours, I actually mean hours. South-South Nigerian food has one of the most intricate preparation processes I have come across, made easier now with modern kitchen technology but still! The aromas and textures will appear pleasing to your other senses. And when you taste it, you will nod to yourself like the proverbial self-congratulating lizard.

Anyway, the process taught me to appreciate and respect food. But you know what taught me to actually crave and love food? Demand and Supply. By demand and supply, I mean Nigerian Federal Boarding school. Please take note of the capitalised words. Each of them brings with it its own special brand that makes this story of deep pain so rich and unique. Yes, we all paid equal fees (heavily subsidised by the government, because up until the early 2000s, the Federal schools were for the best and brightest! Pro Unitate! Holaaaa!), but when it came to access to food, all fingers were not equal. Apparently the “best and brightest” was based on academic performance and not levels of wickedness. Bear in mind, no one set out to withhold food from anyone, at least not admittedly so (because, wickedness).

But everyday was a race against time and chance to get to the dining hall on time, to not by any chance find yourself in any kind of trouble that will warrant punishment of any sort during dining time when others are eating (because who in this dog-eat-dog world is going to keep food for you?) It could be anything. It could be the self-centred or vindictive person being assigned to dish out the portions, your plate of food falling while someone jostles past (true story, hot tears); or even something as random and so terribly impactful as having the right set of people along the path between your parents’ car and your dorm room as you walk/jog back with the cooler of goodies they brought you on visiting day.

Listen, those were the days of my rebirth. I suddenly realised that food was critical for sustenance. Like, how did nobody ever tell me that before? Terrible, I tell you! I looked forward to yam porridge day because a lot of people on my table didn’t like it. Yes, I’ll save you from scrolling back up, I did say yam! Eggs, by the way, were a luxury I dreamed of in those silent sober and introspective moments just before I would drift off to sleep on my 6-spring top bunk. Fish? Elite food for the bourgeois! I was so traumatized that I experienced real heartbreaking shock when in my adulthood, my dad lovingly and patiently explained to me that as a daughter of the south, loving scale-less fish was not a good look. He explained that they were the bottom barrel (clean-up crew types) of the sea and were typically seen as food for those who couldn’t afford any alternative proteins. I mean, he didn’t go as far as quoting to me the book of Leviticus. I came upon that all on my own while reading my Bible and choosing to interpret it as OT jewish law, but again, I digress. What’s heartbreaking about that, you ask. Well here’s why. Because for the longest time, during my days of low supply and fast increasing demand, the specific fish I loved so much and always looked forward to eating when I made it in life were none other than Mackerel and Catfish!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I fell in love with food. Making it, apportioning it, sharing it, planning to make it, planning to eat it, exploring varied recipes, cuisines, menu options, taste and texture combinations, presentation ideas. I was sold! Food was suddenly vital, enjoyable, necessary and desirable!

Again, maybe this whole process of becoming was orchestrated by my parents, but who even cares? And since my appetite dwindles in inverse proportion to the amount of effort I put in preparing the food, and I can’t do without the Process, I actually then developed an affinity for feeding people. Win-Win!

I loved the food process so much that it became the thing I would turn to, to keep me centred when life got skewed in any way, because regardless of what he said or she did, of what painful coincidences or disappointing surprises happened, if I cream equal parts butter and sugar, add eggs and flavouring to give it just the right curdle, fold in double the weight of the buttercream mixture in dry ingredients, set the oven temperature just right, grease the tin and bake the mixture for a specific number of minutes, I will definitely have a cake! Even if I didn’t get that thing I was praying for and had worked super hard for at the office, or a terrible driver dented my car on my way back from a tough day out; all I had to do was walk through my mum’s steps (thank you, photographic memory), and in a specified amount of time, we will be eating exactly what I ate 30 years ago at her kitchen counter.

Food has become therapy to me. It’s not just therapy but it’s comfort. It’s clarity and precision. It’s sustenance and a needed distraction. It’s a necessity and novelty. It’s routine and creativity. It’s my happy place that I get to visit very often. And I’m so grateful that I no longer only have to deal with food just because I want to survive, but that I get to walk through the process and even influence the economics in my own ecosystem of at least 4 mouths that need to be fed here. I count myself fortunate to not just have the opportunity to pass on these lessons, skills and stories to my boys but to actually have something to put in their hands as my mother (and father) did in mine. I am grateful that I don’t have to invoke a doctor to convince these guys to eat because God is merciful and didn’t let me reap what I sowed in this instance. And I am happy. I’m happy that I get to relieve this journey with you and now my head is full of Eva (Mum)- inspired recipes I need to try next week.

So, if you don’t like food, I’m really not sure I can trust you. Not sure anyone can convince me otherwise :)

Oh and by the way; I am nothing, if not authentic. I still love mackerel. We’ll talk about catfish another time!