This week, I came across an interview featuring mothers who are struggling to convince their children to let go of unhealthy snacks and eat more healthy foods, aka Sukuma wiki, sweet potatoes, nduma and the like.
The feature reminded me of a story a young friend recounted of the rude awakening her seven-year-old pampered son got when he visited his grandmother upcountry for a few days during the April holidays.
As is the case with many middle-class families, especially those in urban areas, coddled children have access to a variety of foods in their homes, such that if the family is having ugali and vegetables on a certain day, a child that doesn’t “like” the food can always walk to the fridge and have some slices of bread or leftover pancakes from breakfast with store-bought fruit juice.
Some have an endless supply of snacks such as crisps and biscuits, which they snack on throughout the day. The especially pampered ones can even get away with having the help fry them some chips after whining or sulking a bit because they don’t like whatever else the family is having.
Anyway, this friend took her young son to live with her mother for a few days since she was travelling out of town for work. When she bid him goodbye, he was beside himself with joy and excitement at being in the vast outdoors where he could roam with cows and goats and play outside until nightfall with his cousins.
The following day, his grandmother made githeri with a side of freshly picked Sukuma wiki for lunch, but her grandson refused to eat, announcing that he did not eat githeri or ‘sukuma’. He wanted chips and sausage, he told his astonished grandmother. But she is one of those no-nonsense cucus, so she dug in her heels and informed him that was the only meal she was serving, so he had better eat up.
The town-raised boy, having gotten used to getting what he wanted, raised his nose in the air, folded his arms across his chest and refused to eat, unaware that he had underestimated his battle-hardened cucu.
Come supper in the evening, she presented the same plate of food he had eyed with disdain, much to the surprise of the boy. But he was still determined to have his chips and sausage, and even though his stomach was growling, his hunger was yet to become an emergency. He slept hungry, sure that come morning, his grandmother would have given up and succumbed to his manipulation.
But grandma had been in this world for 80-plus years and had seen everything there was to see under the sun, therefore she was unmoved. This explains why, to the boy’s utter disbelief, the next morning he was presented with the same untouched plate of food for breakfast.
By then, his stomach was growling audibly and he was faint with hunger. This friend says that her son scoffed down that food like a prisoner that had been denied food for weeks, and that in the days that followed, he meekly ate whatever food that was placed before him without a squeak.
As a child, I too hated certain foods, and especially disliked sukumu wiki, which I called “manyeni”. In my mother tongue, sukuma is called nyeni. But there was an unbending rule in homes back then: You ate whatever you were given, and if you didn’t eat, then you’d go to bed hungry.
In my time, there was no variety, and certainly no fridge to store ice-cream or sausages. It was eat or die. Your choice. You could complain about the endless githeri and the bitter Sukuma wiki as you ate it, but never loudly, otherwise a resounding slap would send you to the after life.
The irony is that today I eat ‘manyeni’ as if my life depends on it. Come to think of it, at my age, my life does depend on it...
Now, I am astonished at how lenient my generation is with children where food is concerned. If they refuse the nduma and cassava, many run to the kitchen and fry them up something, sure that they will die in their sleep if they go to bed on an empty stomach, in the process enabling an entitled attitude, bad eating habits, not to mention that one effectively becomes their lifelong hostage.
