I come home from school exhausted beyond belief; my eyes are heavy. I am mentally drained from the day’s lectures, and the walking from one class to another has taken a toll on my legs. It’s times like these that make me want to throw in the towel. Unfortunately, that would mean that the sense of family unity, in the form of a family dinner we have become so accustomed to, would suffer. Having one home-cooked meal a day and eating together as a family is something I remember having done since I was a young girl growing up in my mother’s Langata house in Nairobi, Kenya.
Today, I live with my aunt and cousin in a three-bedroom townhouse in Hillsborough, N.J. It’s a small, laid-back town in Somerset County, where the idea of fun is that which I make for myself; a far cry from the upbeat neighborhood I left back in Kenya. My aunt, the sole provider of the house, is a single mother of one who works tirelessly around the clock, leaving me with the designated role of the family cook.
We Kenyans take pride in our culture, which goes hand in hand with hospitality. I remember the good old days back in Kenya when a visitor or two would always show up unannounced at my mother’s house. This meant that we had to have a constant supply of cooked food and refreshments. This was a good thing then because we had, and my family still has, household help who does all the cooking—a chore that I have taken up since coming to the United States.
Despite my exhaustion, I still have to cook tonight. I’m hoping that no one will stay true to the common Kenyan practice of popping in unannounced. But as a precautionary measure, I decide to cook for two extra people. What a bummer!
Anyhow, I still have to cook. With the notion of Kenyan food on my mind, I sum up all the strength I can to start on the meal. I also have reading assignments to do before I go to bed. A chapter from Bonnie & Clyde for my special topics film class, the other from my environmental geology course text. I cannot afford to slack off on these readings because they are vital to my understanding of the next day’s lectures.
To ensure my success in these courses, I have no option but to try and balance working on assignments and cooking. In order for me to have ample time to finish the assignments, I decide to cook muthokoi, a signature meal of the Kamba, the Kenyan tribe I come from. Muthokoi is composed primarily of kidney beans and hominy. To save time, I decide to use canned beans and hominy instead of going through the task of boiling each separately before frying them. I remember my grandma used to take four hours to make this meal because she had to go through the process of pounding the hominy to remove the outside covering, then boiling the hominy with the beans for a few hours. People back home rarely use any canned foods—everything has to be made from scratch. This is mainly because the fresh vegetable and grain stores are a stone’s throw away from the neighborhoods.
I also decide to make kachumbari as a side dish. It is composed mainly of tomatoes, onions, cilantro and a splash of lemon juice. I assemble all the spices on the long counter between the stove and the sink. I then begin chopping and dicing vegetables. As I’m chopping onions and cilantro, my knees start feeling weak. I move to the table at the far end of the kitchen, pull out a chair and continue dicing tomatoes, pounding garlic and juicing lemons. Finally, I stand up and walk over to the sink and run the beans and hominy through cold water. At this point, my legs feel a little bit better.
I mix some of the tomatoes, onions, cilantro and lemon juice together and put them in the fridge. I then fry the hominy and beans in the rest of the tomatoes, onions and garlic and season them with the spices. While the muthokoi is cooking, I sit at the table and start working on my reading assignments. As a result of being so engrossed in my readings, I forget about the food. The smell of burning food jolts me back to reality. I rush to the stove and turn it off before any more damage is done.
As I pour the muthokoi into a serving dish, my cousin comes into the kitchen to help set the table. Before he sets the first fork down, the doorbell rings. “Is that perfect timing or what?” he asks. I respond with laughter, thinking to myself what a good idea it was for me to have made food for two extra people. It’s my Aunt Nelly, who was in the neighborhood and decided to pop in and say hello. As my cousin finishes setting the table and laying out the food, I run upstairs to wake up my aunt. Dinner is finally served. I managed to salvage most of the muthokoi. After a word of prayer, everyone digs in. I beam with pride at the compliments on the delicious food.
The conversation at the table centers on everyone’s uneventful day and news from back home. I learn that one of my cousins will be coming to visit sometime in May and that everyone is doing well.
All in all, I have killed two birds with one stone. I have cooked the meal in record time and finished my reading assignments. The satisfied look on everyone’s face makes it all worthwhile.
Linda N. Mutinda is a journalism and media studies major at Rutgers-Newark. Posted August 2005.
