'Dietary shifts will feature strongly in the coming years as man explores many hitherto untested foodstuffs in a globalised market,' reminiscences Ayub Chege in a recall of his and of some of his visitors' exploits.
Things gastronomic have never held me with the awe that chefs and celebrity cooks compete to evoke live or in other mass media. May be my reluctance to appreciate their "call of trade" stems from early upbringing that "taught" me that kitchens were the preserve for women. And nothing kills a budding African male's bravado than the link with anything womanly, and especially after it is cooed "big girls don"t cry.'
That initial alienation from kitchens was reinforced by the presence of several sisters and an occasional live-in carer whose pride and joy was the kitchen as it guaranteed her continued habitation and wages. And who was I to challenge her resolve to self-imposed slavery especially with my dread for open fires and boiling liquids? I had once witnessed one such housegirl suffer horrendous burns and her screams had held me in a vice grip for hours and I had gone to bed expecting nightmares that did not dissipate for months.
It is this background that made me a super poor cook even when I had to live on my own. Dinners of bread and hot chocolate (after I managed to wean myself off alcohol) were the norm, and those days were not days of Pizza Hut and Nandos. Nights spent on empty stomachs were innumerable, and the escape was to eat what came available and when. As a result, visits to my mum saw me eat quantities that would feed "a miraculous five thousand" that served to keep me strong for a number of days until the next feeding. In that, I could challenge a python.
Sadly, I never really "matured" from the sporadic mammoth eating disorder (SMED) even when I had a full time "Gordon Ramsey" and not even today when a plate has been pushed towards me. Eating disorder is and has perhaps been my greatest vice.
A few years back, I was a liaison officer in a collaborative research program comprising of international and national scholars. It was often left to me to host the visitors. In so doing, it was also a challenge to me as I too had to learn the practices of other ethnic cultures in a very diverse background. I had traversed the lands trying many a dishes, many of which might bring up yesterday's dinner. Like one day we arrived at a small village and tore the roast meat like vultures only to be told it was donkey's- strange that a few threw up unlike I who requested for the soup from the carcase. At another town we were served huge plates of matoke (banana mash) only to realise too late that the delicious roast chicken pieces were hidden at the bottom of the mountain of yellowish mash when we were really full- a few of us improvised takeaways. In another village we had been served maize meal raced with cannabis- and it wasn't until one of the quietest girls in the team had laughed herself hoarse we were told of the extra ingredient. These are trials and tribulations of field officers.
Often, the visitors would be younger than me, and thus I had to blaze through everything that we met on account of my "advanced experiences." There were many problems that way, as often I had to turn the guardian angel to some lost lass or a drunken lad. But that was not as worrisome as hosting my tutor who was old enough to be my dad.
We had once travelled to Western Kenya, a place where the dietary concoctions were mythically too potent even for the locals. I, a confirmed palate sensitised weakling who can't hold down "certain nauseating items" knew I would be in deep trouble too. First, I disliked fish- anything "fishy" whether canned or fresh. The smell was enough to make me dash to the garden for a good evacuation.
The first night I did survive on bread and soft drink. As the elderly scholar cleared his plate of a large fish, I could see the crucifying eye of the hotelier wanting to vapourise me for not indulging in his cookery and so inflating his intakes that day. But I wasn't about to fall for his easy entreat following an earlier encounter that had seen me suffer a misfire episode that could have put a Kawasaki engine to shame. And it so happens that farting is an abhorred practice unless for the old and senile. So, with my neighbours in full knowledge, I had to camp in the communal bath as they had been lining outside for services.
