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This is my entry for the weekend engagement prompt WE96.
I have chosen to write on the "not so good food" prompt.
Everyone knows that cooking is hard. Well, only those who know how to cook will understand. If you can't cook and you don't cook, you may not understand what it means to sit in the kitchen waiting for your meat to get soft so you can add the other ingredient that would enable you to add the next one.
You see those cooking shows where they stimulate your taste buds for nothing? And it usually looks like the whole cooking takes 30mins? Don't believe it. They are lying. They have edited the video down to 30mins, but the real cooking takes a lot more time...
As a medical student, we didn't have a lot of time to cook, so we devised special ways to make our regular meals. Of course, they sometimes tasted like the dead sea, but we regularly made it out with a decent meal.
The summary of all I am saying is that good food takes time.
I lived and schooled in the northern part of Nigeria up until I finished high school/secondary school. Then I decided that the north was no longer fun to stay in, so I decided to apply to college/university in the west of Nigeria. And the west of Nigeria is populated by the Yoruba tribe.
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So, I get to the west, Ibadan precisely and the first thing I notice is the food. I eat a lot. That's why I try to cook my own meals. Ever noticed that food from restaurants are never as filling as they should be? Not for you? Well,, shift I am talking to my village people, the ones that know that 1 plate of KFC rice is just appetizer where we come from. Anyways, I get to Ibadan and I discover that I am always hungry. I would buy food, eat. Then after 2hrs my tummy begins to growl with hunger.
That's how I got to learn to make food fast. If I didn't want to go late to class and I didn't want to starve, I needed to make food fast. I did. And I was able to have a full stomach after a long time. Then one day, it happened.
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On this fateful day, I was really exhausted from the long hours of classes we had. I was hungry, but I didn't have the strength to cook myself something. Even if I had strength to cook, I still needed to walk a long way back, under the son. I couldn't call a cab, they weren't available at that time. They only option was to walk down to my room. Meanwhile, I had a bag on my back that contained 3 of my texts because I intended to follow the teachers as the ran through their lecture.
My back hurt. My legs were aching severely. I was panting on account of dehydration under a really unforgiving sun. Then something touched my nose, then my nostrils and before long, I was tasting the most delicious thing I ever did in my life. Only that I hadn't seen it, I only perceived the aroma.
By this time, I was already salivating. I decided to make the decision to find out where the smell was from. It didn't take long for me to discover a newly opened restaurant around the corner. I loved what my nose was tasting. Now it was time for my tongue to smell it too.
I sat down and dropped my heavy backpack in a chair beside me and decided to buy a chilled bottle of water first. Then I decided to treat myself to the peppered rice and chicken. The smell was heavenly. I couldn't wait to get this thing into my mouth. ( I am already salivating as I am typing this...hahaπ)
I couldn't stop eating the food, because I paid a large sum for it. And I was dead hungry. Besides, the meal was delicious, except for the pepper. Before I knew it, I was gulping down my third bottle of water to quench the fire in my mouth.
That was the last time I ate there. I spent the next 4hrs with my mouth open, looking for air to cool my tongue. That day I understood what the rich man was facing in hell when he told Abraham to send Lazarus to dip his hand in water and put a drop in his tongue. My stomach was full because of the huge amount of water I had consumed.
Thank you for reading.