If I MUST LEARN HOW TO COOK
I wrote an article last year titled “if I must learn how to cook …” the article generated more negative responses than I could ever have imagined. I wrote about my secondary school experience where I struggled with cooking especially ‘amala’ mainly because the ONLY reason Iya Ondo told me to learn how to cook was basically for a man to marry me. That did not go down well with me, because I felt there was more to my life than cooking.
I struggled with it and was rebellious to any form of kitchen training; I had lesser concern about it. This therefore made me the object of ridicule and embarrassment at public functions; older women were ready to tear me up with their piercing words at any slightest provocation. They flung my brilliance, beauty and smartness in my face. I simply avoided them!
Gaining admission to the university was a turning point for me because I became a fantastic cook, there was practically any close male friend of mine that visited me at the Hall who chose to eat that didn’t eat (if you had eaten any of my food and you are not shy to testify to the glory of God in my life, please comment) Serving as a sister executive at the Baptist Student Fellowship presented an opportunity to learn from sisters in an atmosphere devoid of abuse or criticisms. I learnt faster than I could imagine. I cooked and cooked my way through OAU.
The essence of this write up and the previous one, which majority of my readers missed is that the idea of evaluating and assessing a woman ONLY by her culinary skills is worrisome. If the only thing that worries you about a woman is her cooking skills, perhaps all you need is a CHEF and not a WIFE, the idea of tying the worth and value of a woman with just a single story of cooking is depressing.
Cooking is a basic survival skill and both genders should have it.
I would teach my sons and daughters how to cook. I would teach her to cook because it is a survival skill then leave her with the choices to make.
Hammering it to her ears at that age that the paramount reason I am teaching her to cook is because of a man, is not what I will do.