FAMILY DINNERS

Before I went to college I rarely ate out. My family lived on a farm on the outskirts of Lusaka city. We had a few pigs, goats, chickens and ducks, and a vegetable garden. Mother loved cooking and hated eating out, it was a luxury or “an unhealthy habit” as granny would say. “Nothing tastes better than food cooked in the home, because it’s cooked with love and care” mother would say whenever my siblings and I asked if we could eat out. Both women would then tell us stories of people finding pieces of insects in their foods, uncooked or rotten meat and others getting food poisoning. That was enough to scare me and discourage any ideas of eating out. It always made me cringe whenever I thought of eating food cooked in restaurants, by strangers who probably didn’t care about what I was eating or how safe the food was. I have now come to appreciate mother’s cooking and the important role it played in keeping the family close. Mother was more into traditional Zambian foods and methods of cooking. She cooked most foods with peanut butter, some foods she cooked without cooking oil, other 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 mask the genuine flavor and aroma of the food. Whenever she cooked, the tantalizing aroma emanating from the kitchen 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.

From the time I was five, I enjoyed being around mother in the kitchen. My four brothers and I believed that everything that mother cooked was good and healthy, and we always finished everything she put on our plates. Leaving anything untouched on your plate was disrespectful to the cook, so we ate everything, sometimes because it was delicious and other times to show appreciation and respect to the cook. This was hard for me, especially when we ate liver, tripe, tongue, hooves, stomach or intestines. I simply couldn’t eat the gluey, fatty and stretchy meat, so I ate really slow and sometimes exchanged the intestines for vegetables with my siblings who seemed to love them.

I loved watching my mother cook. She would throw chunks of dried red breams 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 moments, before the water ran dry or before the fish overcooked, she would add more ingredients one at a time; some onions, tomatoes, pumpkin leaves or peanut butter which always blended together into a thick bubbly stew (visashi). I would look at her and wonder how she did it, so effortless and yet the food was always scrumptious and tasty. Most of the times, I would sneak into the kitchen to watch and ask her questions whilst she cooked.

Dinner was my favorite meal. The whole family was always present, with mother and father at either ends of the big oval plywood table. With the TV switched off, the only sounds were that of cutlery, people chewing, talking and laughing. We always made sure everyone was present at the table before we begun eating. 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 and news of the day. Father told jokes, asked everyone a lot of questions and told us long, boring stories from work. Granny was always complaining about something or someone. I would always tell on one of my brothers for something wrong they had done. 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. There was always enough for everyone to eat and the leftovers where always used for other meals the next day. Dinners connected everyone, made us feel safe and comfortable to express ourselves. It was always lively with laughter or arguments. Being a big family; we always had lots of things to talk about. The six of us lived with our granny but there were always some visiting relatives; cousins, uncles, aunties and sometimes, family friends.

After two years of pestering her to let me cook something, she finally let me try when I was 9 years old, it was a disaster. I was too short for the stove, and I ended up in tears with hot porridge splattered on my arm. 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 burnt Nsima (it is supposed to be white), I burnt the rice, put too much salt, undercooked the beef stew with all the ingredients detached and floating in a watery soup, and overcooked vegetables into a thick green porridge. My family would sometimes endure and eat these horribly cooked foods and tell me that they them. I know it wasn’t true, but I felt a sense of encouragement and accomplishment all the same. Whenever I cooked, discussion and criticism of the food dominated the dinner talk, and my two older brothers teased me relentlessly afterwards. I always stood by the stove watching my cooking pot, intently to make sure nothing went wrong, but of course something always went wrong somehow.

Fast-forward to eleven years. Far way from home, in a different continent with a different culture. At first I was reluctant and hesitant to try the American cuisine, which seemed so strange and different. The cafeteria always made me homesick; there was always pizza, hamburgers, sandwiches and French fries for both lunch and dinner! (Usually eaten as snacks in Zambia). “I miss eating real food,” I would tell mother whenever I called her. I started eating out regularly and realized that there so many options; Chinese, spicy Indian, Italian and even restaurants with some African foods! 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 food. Even though I enjoy it, I am never fully satisfied and I always look forward to summer vacation when I can enjoy mother’s cooking again. I haven’t mastered mother’s art of great cooking but I can now cook good food. I cook Zambian dishes once in a while when I am homesick, and whenever I do, I always call mother just to let her know what I’ve cooked. My homesickness is strongly connected to mother’s cooking. Whenever someone asks me what I miss most about Zambia, my mind immediately flies to food, mother’s cooking, cooking with mother, and family dinners, but I simply say “I miss the food.”