Cooking is a basic skill that my mother instilled in me as a child. I am the third born of five children. The first was a girl who grew up under the custody of my maternal grandmother.
I grew up to meet my elder brother doing house chores including cooking. As young as twelve years old, he was already cooking food for the whole family. I learned the process from him more than I did from my mother.
There is an important policy of my parents that I would like to mention; the policy of not eating fast food under any condition. I could remember a day that my dad, my brother and I returned from the farm very late and there was no time for us to cook again. Instead of opting for fast food, we went for bread and tea. According to my father, he didn't want to introduce us into the habit of buying cooked food.
This basic skill helped me very well when I began to stay on my own.
When I was in university, I made sure that I cooked what I ate. It helped me in the sense that it saved me more cost of feeding myself.
Whenever there was a holiday and I went home to observe it, I always returned with loads of foodstuffs. I would travel with half a bag of garri, many tubers of yam, red oil and even soup ingredients. Some students would be mocking me in the hostel, asking me if I was bringing food to feed a community. I would just laugh it off. I didn't allow their mocking to get at me. Ironically, some of them would come to me later to beg for garri and other things. Throughout my stay in the university, I enjoyed cooking my meals.
There was a little adjustment after I started working. My first place of work consumed my time daily to the extent that I hardly arrived home not tired. I tried as much as I could to prepare my meals but my busy nature couldn't allow me to do that absolutely. If I was too tired to cook, I would just go to a restaurant to eat.
One thing that I prioritized is cooking my meals myself. It continued like that till I got married and my wife took over the kitchen department. She is a good cook who loves eating healthy. She takes her time to cook for us and we never had reason to order for cooked meals elsewhere.
The only time that I ordered food since we got married was when she gave birth to our son. My mother in-law was with her in the hospital and I was the one running errands up and down. There was no time for anyone to consider cooking. I had to order food for my mother-in-law and I. My wife hadn't recovered to the extent of eating food that time. Since then, we cook what we eat.
Presently, I don't forbid fast food but I make it the last option especially when the schedule of my family is tight. My wife doesn't like fast food either. Her reason aligned with mine. When you cook what you eat, you are not in doubt of what you are eating. This is in addition to saving costs and setting a good precedent for the kids.
In the last two days, I have been on transit. I have no option than to patronize fast food. On special occasions like this, I patronize fast food.
However, I cherish home cooked meals.