when it comes to food
the relationship between women and food: a loving examination
As women we have such delicate relationships with food.
I thought this as I spoke to my Grandma on the phone. I live in Toronto, and she in Lagos, so we often had these calls to stay in touch despite the distance. I had asked her about Agidi, as I recalled she used to eat it with Ewedu soup, and would often offer generous bites of it to me. I remember eating it out of the same bowl with her, feeling the connection between the old and the young with every bite.
“Ah, Agidi!” She exclaimed wondrously, “I haven’t eaten Agidi in so long, I don’t know where I would get it from now. It’s not just anyone that can make it, you need to know where to get it from that is good…”
And thus, we were thrust into conversation. I recalled the jelly-like texture of each bite, its light fluffiness that felt like a comforting hug. She offered alternative ways to eat it, with Okro, with Moi-Moi, and always served hot.
As I write this now I recall my other Grandma, now venerated Ancestor, who would frequently invite me to eat with her. Her food came on a tray: one bowl for her swallow of choice (typically Eba or Pounded Yam), one bowl for the soup, be it Egusi, or Okro with stew, and one bowl of water, to wash her hands before she ate.
Before each meal, she would dip her hands into this water, and then dig in to eat. And once she was done, she would dip her hand into the bowl again; a rinsing, and the closing of the meal.
This ritual around food, this insistence on generosity, is inherently reflective of the culture of food both my Grandmothers grew up on.
For them, food was community. Both grandmas recalled to me frequently about their childhoods growing up in colonial Nigeria, and on meals they would share with all their siblings growing up. Same bowl and everything. Big bowls of Eba, accompanied by bigger bowls of soup, all shared within one family or group, enjoyed together in kinship. Perhaps this is also a driving force in why Nigerians still eat with our hands, centuries of the enjoyed kinship, the loving act of community, halts all desire to progress, to move. For if love is your wellspring in the present moment, what need do you have to seek anything else at all?
But perhaps the bigger point here is this: both of my grandmothers have always spoken about food reverently and with love. It’s not a relationship many of us modern women can say we have. Food for us, for me at the very least, feels like a war I’m waging on myself, a negotiation I’m bartering with, a life I’m pleading to live, the devil on my back I cannot shrug off.
I’m not saying my grandmothers were fully devoid and free of all body-image issues, but food has never seemed a specific pain point. From all that has been indicated, my Grandmothers speak of food as an ally.
As women, we have been stewards of food for so long. We have historically been given the task of the home-keeping, the hearth, the kitchen-stead. And thank God that feminism has gifted us the ability to lead lives of our own, to choose. But there is still a deep tie to food, that has now become a damaged relationship dictating a good majority of us. And we’re all more conscious of it now, but I believe it still lies beneath the surface, in more coded and hidden ways.
It’s hard to know what’s objective and what’s subjective when it comes to food & our self-image. Where’s the line between being healthy and performing diet culture? Because, to be completely candid, I think I toe that line sometimes. Am I accepting my body graciously or am I being complacent? How can I love myself if I wish my body would change? It’s confusing, it’s exhausting, it’s a lot.
I’m currently reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki, and it’s such a clever portrayal of the gendered dynamics of food in Japan. But I think it applies, in parts, to the world at large, at least from a Western perspective. A woman is most beautiful at the most carved-out and starved version of herself. A woman must not look plump or otherwise full of life. A woman can’t even struggle with portion control. But a man can.
And this is not to say men can’t or don’t struggle with body image issues. Because they do. But for a woman, this body struggle is an inheritance, because it’s so deeply programmed in society that a woman must be thin, that even the most innocent woman, with the most assured self-esteem, would baulk under the pressure.
So how do we remove this pressure? For one, I don’t think we need to keep trying to dismantle what already exists, because even though we try to dismantle it, it still exists in our memory, and so we will continue to enact it into the world subconsciously.
Rather, we should strive to bury it with so much sweetness that its pain loses all sting. We need to smother it in more loving stories, and more intentional meals, whether it be eating what we have lovingly crafted for ourselves, or eating the intentional concoction of another. I like going to restaurants that feel storied, where the passion they have for food is fully felt. We need to eat communally again and share our stories over bread and wine. We need to share recipes like love letters. We need to bring the magic alive again, the kinship alive again. We need to romanticize it, let it feel good. Smother it with love till it’s completely overpowered.
follow us on ig @daughteroftheesoil 💃🏿 connect with nneka: 📲 all my socials 📸 ig - @nnekaoflove 📹 yt - @nnekaoflove 🎶 my spotify 📚 my goodreads 💌 email me love letters: nnekauwefoh@gmail.com
communal eating is such an intimate experience. I like how you capture its essence through your memories of eating with your grandmas ✨