written by Eniola Hundeyin
I remember being in the university outside of Nigeria and meeting fellow
African men who would ask me within the first few minutes of our
acquaintance, “can you cook?” That inquiry was never met well because I
truly did not see the relevance. For one, I thought it was awkward and
very forward coming from a complete stranger. I wondered if the next
question to follow if I replied cordially would be “can you wash clothes
and carry twins inside you?”
However, one fateful day I indulged my
interviewer, since the library had now become a place for house girl
application processing. And your guess was as good as mine- he was
another hungry man who saw Nigerian food as a miracle that could only
come out of blessed women. I told him to use his hands and brain because
that’s really the starting point to cooking. After a couple more days
of him stalking me, he disappeared. Yeah, he was a creepy one but how
about the others who were not as creepy but as clueless and even
condescending?
The expectation for women to know how to
cook in our culture generally as Nigerians is high. Such expectation on
the other hand, does not exist for men which is where the problem lies.
Why should a grown up be incapable of providing nutrition to their
bodies on their own? That sounds more like a child to me! It baffles me
how many men can eat a house but cannot fry a proper omelet without
turning it to crisps or soaking it in oil. Whether you are a man or a
woman, it is an important and I think, necessary skill to have.
In most Nigerian homes, when the mom
needs help in the kitchen, only the girls are summoned. And the dads do
not move from their thrones as such activity is not even made for him. I
have heard some awful comments that have emanated from this silly
ideology that women are made for the kitchen. A popular Nigerian singer
(who has even shown off his chef skills in the past) once mentioned that
he was hungry and the responses baffled me. Most people told him it was
time for him to marry because he’d have a live-in cook! I also
overheard a very intelligent young man say it would be a shame for him
to make his own lunch because he was married. Or was it the time the
disgruntled male divorcee was reporting his ex-wife on social media and
said “some days I’d cry for food because my wife would not cook”. Come
on dude! Get it together, for real.
Cooking is not a petty skill for the
less privileged. It is a skill that requires much intelligence and craft
and is not limited to any gender. Most of the world’s greatest chefs
are men. Majority of the biggest culinary geniuses have been men. The
tastiest jollof rice, pork chops, okra stew I ever tasted have been
prepared by men. I also find it super sexy when a man can cook too
because I know I’m not a babysitter but a partner. So why do so many
Nigerian men view it as something so low that it belongs to the “weaker
gender” (or isn’t that what they refer to us as?) Hysterical.
Men are not exempt from kitchen
activities, especially cooking. It is a very rewarding feat. Do not
completely leave your nutrition in the hands of others. Cooking is a
form of nurturing and sharing which we must admit our Nigerian men may
need to double up on. Maybe our parents’ generation did things a certain
way but things are different now. Gender roles are no longer binaries
as they used to be. Women are breaking boundaries, so should men. Women
cannot keep evolving but having to live with men who are comfortable
with mindless tradition.
In the words of Anne-Marie Slaughter,
“we need to re-socialize men… men have to see caregiving as cool”. We
can start by erasing that wacko mentality that domestication, including
cooking is only meant for women. It is a survival skill that is just as
important as making money, or building shelter or procreating, yes.