WHY CAN’T I COOK?
This piece is going to be exploring my journey with my identity and cooking.
For an extremely long time I have had huge anxiety around cooking. Cooking is one of those skills as a woman that society makes you feel as though you should magically know and if you don’t know how to do it then you’re some sort of failure. Add that pressure with the pressures of coming from an ethnic background where every grandmother, mother, auntie and cousin can cook, it really makes you feel less than when you don’t know your way around the kitchen.
Let me re-wind back to my childhood and explain my story. I write this not just because I want to tell a story but because I’m sure there is another woman out there who can relate and I would also like to provide a different perspective on the topic.
Growing up I was predominantly raised by my mother until age 15. Being an only child and an extremely fat and lazy one too my mum did majority of tasks for me. Whether it was washing my clothes, or cooking me food, or doing my hair my mum practically did everything. When it came to cooking I noticed from a young age that my mum didn’t really enjoy cooking. I feel as though she would cook out of survival because she knew she had to feed me but not because she enjoyed it. I feel as though that lack of enthusiasm for cooking from her rubbed off on me and that’s why I wasn’t really bothered to learn. One thing I will say is that when I was in primary school my mum cooked a lot of cultural food (Ghanaian) but as I got older this faded out an a lot of our dishes tended to be British or other cuisines and again this caused issues for me growing up as I became quite disconnected with my ethnic food.
Age 15 due to my mother passing I began living with my grandmother who is a caterer by profession. Once again my grandma would cook all my meals and just do what grandmothers do which is to take care of you. My grandma is extremely passionate about education and at the time her main concern was that I finish college and get in to university. Of course at the time this was amazing for me but in the long run it created so many issues.
University
Now university we all know is one of the biggest rollercoasters for a number of reasons which I won’t go in to but one of the main challenges of uni is finding yourself. Before I went to uni I would always see jokes being made online about girls only being able to make mac and cheese and barbeque wings and I would just think to myself well at least they can make something! The girls I lived with were all from African or Caribbean backgrounds and everyday they were in the kitchen making curry chicken, jollof rice, jerk chicken and many other fabulous meals and there I was eating takeaway everyday as I couldn’t face the shame of being in the kitchen with them and them finding out that I didn’t know how to cook.
I was honestly so scared of what people would think of my lack of cooking skills and in my first year of university due to anxiety I ate takeaway most days for the whole year which made me get to a UK size 22/24. I couldn’t see how much my fears were eating in to my life and destroying my health and there were multiple times I would sob in my room.
Getting to such a large size it started to impact my daily life and I decided to join the gym towards the end of my first year. After joining the gym I knew I had to change my eating habits and asked the only flatmate of mine which wasn’t black to teach me how to cook. This flatmate taught me many healthy ways to make food and before I knew it I was eating healthy salads, vegetables and other nutritious meals on a daily basis. Right, so it seems at this point that I had overcome my fear of cooking? Unfortunately not. Although I was now starting to learn the basics of cooking I still longed to learn some Ghanaian/West African dishes and once again I was petrified of asking the girls I lived with so I just accepted that I will never know how to make these dishes.
In my second and third year of uni I disclosed to some of the girls who I had made friends with that I couldn’t cook and they didn’t have a problem with it so they cooked for me most days. Once again I found myself in a position where people were doing things for me when I should have been learning for myself.
Now let’s go to life after university. I would constantly ask one of my cousins who is a Ghanaian caterer to teach me how to make certain dishes but I would find myself getting lost with the ingredients and just couldn’t seem to pay attention for long due to working long hours and putting my energy in to multiple projects. I kept finding excuses to why I couldn’t learn how to cook but deep inside it was affecting me the older I became. I started to think what am I going to feed my future kids? Oven food? Mcdonalds? The thought of that made me sick but at the same time I couldn’t confront who I’d become. A woman who lacked skill in one of the areas which society and my culture deemed so important.
2018 I moved out of my grandmothers house and moved from London to Birmingham. During my first year in Birmingham I lived in a studio flat and it didn’t have an oven but only two stoves. I don’t know if any of you have ever tried living without an oven but let me tell you it’s almost impossible. There are so many dishes which you are prohibited from cooking as they are not suitable for the microwave and due to this I once again became extremely big in weight and this took a huge toll on my mental health.
2019 is when I met my partner and I remember one of the first conversations we had was about my cooking skills and the fact that I had never cooked for a man before. I was so scared that he was going to say ‘I can’t be with a woman that can’t cook’ however he reassured me that it was fine and all I needed to do was practice and that I would get there. I’ll be honest, coming from an West African background I have always seen women in my family cooking for their men and this is something which is championed a lot and knowing that I couldn’t do this was extremely painful but having a motivating and loving partner can change anything!
Let’s fast forward to 2020. The GLOBAL pandemic! There are over 100 negative remarks I could make about this pandemic especially as we are still experiencing it in 2021 but I would like to focus on how the pandemic has changed my life for the better. In July 2020 I moved in to my first apartment and I said to myself THIS is the TIME to learn how to cook! I now have no excuses. I don’t have anyone watching me or judging me. I have a good paying job. I have all the equipment and utensils I will need, so there is literally no excuse.
Before I knew it I was cooking multiple dishes and I was learning something new each week through YouTube or Facebook. Since July 2020 I have made so many amazing meals and I have really enjoyed learning about the different ingredients and food I have been making. One thing about food is it is important to know what ingredients compliment each other and what you are aiming for. That really in my opinion makes the process a lot more fun.
I am now very confident in my cooking skills and I genuinely enjoy it. I never thought I would get to this place but it just goes to show that anything in your life can change for the better, you just have to take the decision to want to change it!
Next time you are judging someone or want to pass negative remarks on someones ability just remember that everyone has a story and those stories are what make us who we are. Learn how to encourage people’s flaws and know that you can have whatever you want for yourself just by putting in the effort.
I would like to share some of my favourite chefs below that help me with my cooking skills:
Ghanaian Cuisine
Oriental Cuisine
Caribbean Cuisine
