9 benefits of Morning Workouts

FAMILY DINNERS

We rarely went out to eat. It was a luxury or “an unhealthy habit” as my grandmother would say. “Nothing tastes better than food cooked in the home, because it’s cooked with love and care” mother would add agreeing with granny. It always made me cringe whenever I thought of eating cooked food in restaurants, cooked by strangers who probably didn’t care about what I was eating. I would hear stories of people finding pieces of insects in their foods and others getting food poison. That was enough to scare me and discourage any ideas of eating out. So my siblings and I came to appreciate mother’s cooking and the important role it played in bringing the family together. Mother was more into traditional methods of cooking. Some foods she cooked without cooking oil, some foods on a real fire instead of the stove, “ because it tastes better that way” she would always say when I asked her why? Her foods were never spicy but nevertheless delicious, she did use spices once in a while, her favorite being mint and garlic, but you could hardly taste the spices because they did not musk the flavor and aroma of the food being cooked. The teasing aromas and scents whenever she cooked always made me salivated as I tried to imagine what the food would taste like and my taste buds would always tingle in anticipation. The food was always good.

What we ate in my family was determined on whether it was healthy or not. For my siblings and i, it was simple, I learned that whatever mother cooked was healthy and we had to finish everything on our plates. It was disrespectful to the person who had cooked if you left anything untouched on your plate. This was hard for me, especially when we ate foods like beef liver, tongue, hooves, stomach and intestines. I simply couldn’t eat that gluey, fatty and stretchy meat. During such meals, I ate really slow and sometimes exchanged the intestines for vegetables with my siblings who seemed to love them.

I loved watching mother cook because she did it so effortlessly without paying so much attention to what she was cooking, but the food was always wonderful. Mother would throw some freshly chopped vegetables in a pot, add a pinch of salt and cover the pot then go back to her crossword puzzle in the living room. But she would get up at the right times, before the water ran dry, or before food became overcooked, and added more ingredients one at a time; some onions, tomatoes or sometimes peanut butter which always blended together into one thick bubbly stew. I would look at her and wonder how she did it. Sometimes I sneaked into the kitchen to watch her whilst she cooked.

Dinner was my favorite meal. The whole family was present. With the TV switched off. Sound of cutlery and people chewing was bad. We never began eating before making sure that everyone was at the table. It was compulsory, unless you were away from home or seriously ill in hospital. It was the only time of the day when we all got together and talked about our well being, how our day had been, the good and bad, the surprising and shocking events of the day. But sometimes, it was also an opportunity to point out other people’s mistakes and wrongs, to admonish and advise. For me especially, I would wait for dinnertime to tell father how one of my siblings had Brocken a window or been mean to somebody at school. I did not enjoy getting my siblings in trouble, I just wanted to have something to say and not feel left out in the conversations at the table. So whilst we ate, mother’s food worked its magic and made us feel safe and comfortable to express ourselves. The dinners were always lively and there were always things to talk about, because our family was big. We lived with some cousins, uncles, aunties and grandmother. The dinners were always lively with laughter or arguments.

Watching my mother cook inspired me to learn how to cook. With patience, mother would always help me out by cooking other meals whenever I messed up one or two of the meals for dinner. No matter how I tried, my cooking was always bad, I cooked brown burned nsima, I burned the rice, undercooked beef stew with all the detached ingredients floating on top, or overcooked vegetables which looked more like a thick green porridge. My family would sometimes endure and eat these horribly cooked foods just to show their appreciation for my effort and they would tell me the food was good, I knew it wasn’t but I felt a sense of accomplishment all the same. Sometimes discussion and criticism of the food I had cooked dominated the dinner talk and my brothers teased me relentlessly afterwards. Whenever I cooked I would stand by the stove watching cooking pot unblinking, making sure nothing went wrong, but of course things always went wrong somehow. Maybe it’s because I was nervous or trying to be too careful, maybe I had to take it easy like mother always did.

Fast-forward to thirteen years later. I can now cook good food, but I always prefer mother’s cooking because her food tastes so much better. At first I was reluctant and hesitant to eat different foods but I realized that I have no option, there was no way I could get mother’s food when I was this far away. I have started eating out regularly, something that I never had to do at home. The food is good and I really enjoy eating the different kinds and varieties. For the first time in my life, I have tasted Chinese, Indian and Mexican foods. Even though I enjoy the food, I am never fully satisfied and I always look forward to summer vacation when I enjoy mother’s cooking again.