Last week, I forgot to eat a handful of bananas before they became too ripe. One of my roommates, who was in the middle of making falafel, pointed to them with his wooden spatula and said: “You can make banana bread.”
“But how?” I whined.
“Go and look up the recipe. I think you can make use of them.”
Sure enough, I did. In a little under two hours, I made a huge loaf. As I chewed my first slice, I beamed with pride and gushed to my roommate, “I feel so happy.”
I had made something for myself to enjoy, and no one could take that accomplishment from me.
Growing up, my mother always pestered me to watch her as she cooked baked ziti, macaroni and cheese or chicken soups in her crockpot. “Watch me, Morgan. You’re going to be doing this for your family someday,” she’d say. I’d watch for three minutes or so before retreating to my room, and wouldn’t come back down until the aroma of the food infused the entire house. While I delighted in the result of my mother’s work, I wasn’t interested in how it was made.
Now that I’m on my own, I’ve realized that it wasn’t the meal that she wanted me to focus on, but rather the love that was imbued in the process, to teach me that as a person, especially as a woman, I need to nourish myself with the best food.
As I matured and explored feminism, however, I thought of the kitchen as the site of oppression for women. Besides “the cult of domesticity”, when I closely observed my own background I realized, it was always the women in the kitchen feeding everyone.
The kitchen has historically been a site of oppression for black women. After emancipation, black women worked as domestic servants and the kitchen was a prime spot for sexual assault and rape. Literary and cultural critic Trudier Harris called the kitchen “the nigger room of the white house”. Even today, at barbecues and other family hangouts, while black men may be near the grill, it’s mostly the black women near the stove. In predominately black churches, women are rarely involved in the service – their responsibilities lie in the kitchen.
But the kitchen can also be a sacred place, one in which black women converse on their own terms as they planned to nourish their families. When I step into my own kitchen, I’m reminded of this tradition, and the serenity that complements it.
I don’t like my roommates walking past the kitchen and gazing at what I’m doing. Half of the time, I’m extremely nervous of how my concoctions are going to turn out, afraid that my ardor and concentration are not going to compensate for if I forget to add more garlic, salt, or a few basil leaves.
During this process, I have no one else to depend on but myself. If the meat is not set out the night before, I cannot make curry chicken. If I cook ramen I’m not taking good care of myself. If I forget to buy butter, my meal won’t be as good as it could be. My roommates aren’t going to check to see if I forgot to use up all the milk before it expired.
Each meal is a testament to how invested I am in keeping myself alive.
I suppose that’s the magic of it all: I know all the ingredients that I’m putting into my body. I have complete autonomy over what will and will not work for me, and how certain foods affect my mood.
Although I can’t make green smoothies or heart-shaped pancakes like my mother, I know poached eggs and blueberries make me more spirited, whereas a TV macaroni and cheese dinner makes me sluggish.
In my childhood home, I underestimated how much of an emotional investment there is in cooking for someone else. Unlike my mother, who used cooking to spread love, cooking is liberating me because it’s a selfish activity – my satisfaction is what matters, and my dependency on others disappears. As I take my first bite of my fried chicken or ramen with a poached egg, I swell with happiness.
