I've seen and experienced situations within my own immediate family where I or my siblings are often making reference to the things we do at home to the point where it has become a family tradition. Growing up in a functional home with just one Dad and one Mum has its way of leaving that impact on us.
There are several stories to tell about the special tradition that's associated with my Dad, my Mum, and my siblings. Well, this post is specially carved out for the collaborative challenge that DreemPort is doing with the Ladies of Hive community and the prompt says;
Is there a special recipe or tradition that is associated with your mom (or mom figure) that you would love to share with us?
Oh, yeah!
The relationship I and my family have with Mum is punctuated with a series of special traditions that we still hold dear to this very day. We grew up eating delicacies that were specially made by Mum and she's the sort of Mum that trained each of us to be very helpful in the kitchen.
So, while growing up, we usually make ourselves useful in the kitchen. We did very trivial stuff like helping her slice vegetables, dice onions, and do other stuff while she handled the main cooking. Whenever she cooks with fish, she passes on the head of fish to us.
I don't think there was ever a moment that we added the head of fish to our meal and that's because it became a tradition at home to use that part of a fish as some sort of "thanks for assisting" package from Mum to us. And, I always looked forward to that moment as a kid.
The same applies to the moments we cooked with Chicken. Since our home is blessed with two guys and 3 ladies, whenever there's need to cook a meal with chicken, we buy live chicken and the job of killing and cleaning up the chicken usually falls on me and my younger brother. While my sisters take charge of cleaning up the intestine. Haha.
As a thank you gesture from Mum, she usually takes out the intestine, chicken head, and legs and passes it on to me and my siblings to share and enjoy while she carries on with the rest of the kitchen work.
I've been living away from home since years ago. Yet, whenever I decide to cook with fish or chicken, I do that without adding a head of fish or a head of chicken to the meal. It has become a tradition that I experienced too many times while watching Mum make meals for us.
One other special tradition that I'm keeping up with till this very moment is the one about cleaning things up and having the whole kitchen tidied up before having a meal. This is exactly how Mum handles her kitchen and it was stressful to watch her do that when we were kids. There were moments when I just wished she could come to the dining table immediately after cooking. However, in Mum's usual fashion, she prefers to clean things up before eating.
After watching her do that severally, my siblings and I started to pick up on the habit. It started with us making ourselves available to help in cleaning things up while Mum was doing the cooking. Fast-forward to this moment when I'm living in my own place...
Guess what?
Mum is not anywhere around here. Yet, I've been in the habit of cleaning up the kitchen and having everywhere tidy after cooking, before dishing out my meal. Memories of Mum comes flooding whenever I do each of these. Hehe.
Thanks For Not Missing Any Full-stop or Comma.
Thumbnail Image is mine, taken with my phone camera.