Everyday is always a busy day in so many homes, most especially those living in rural areas. From the moment one wakes up till one goes to bed. Also, making meals is not exempted from this especially for those who do not have means to store food in refrigerators.
Because most rural dwellers do not own refrigerators, people cook their meals everyday. Most meals when cooked in plenty are always preserved by heating on fire twice in a day. This process most times makes the food change its original taste and become darker or saltier. But in a family of many, the food can be consumed all at once and another food prepared for the next square meal.
heated soup
Having a refrigerator at home is a big plus because it helps to store foods and makes the food last longer. My aunty, who lives in a big house in the city, owns a deep freezer and a refrigerator. She prepares her meals once in two weeks and in very large quantities. Although she makes different kinds of tasty meals, this includes but not limited to, large pots of stew, large pots of afang soup, large pot of banga soup, and a large pot of okra soup.
She has a family of seven, she, her husband and five grown up children. Then her housemaids are just two. Making it a home of nine people. Most times she also has visitors who visit the house on every Sunday evening and she entertains them with her sumptuous meals.
Having this kind of large family and so many mouths to feed, puts the pressure of ensuring there is enough food to go round the house and at least every one must eat at least three square meals a day that is morning, afternoon and night. Those who go to work outside, pack lunch which they eat at their lunchtime in their various work places.
How she preserves this food is that, after cooking these meals, she turns them into large buckets and places them gently in the big freezer. Also where she is living has greater advantage of electricity. They always have constant light because that particular area is meant for the wealthy and influential.
In my country, electricity has been distributed to various places according to the number of wealthy and influential people living around there. It was distributed in bands. Band A, B, C, D. The rich own band A, middle class are under band B, the lower class are under the band C, while the poor and people living in rural areas are under band D.
These various bands determine how electricity will be distributed. It determines if one will have constant electricity or not. From the letter A to D simply tells it all that band the has the poorest power supply, in this rural areas electricity is only seen thrice in a month. Therefore, even people who run their small scale businesses in rural areas and are able to afford refrigerators are not even able to use it to preserve anything because there is no power supply.
In our own home, situated in the rural area, we do not own a refrigerator nor do we have constant electricity because we are under the band D electricity distribution. Also because of this band D electricity thing, we mostly pay the sum of N200 to charge our phones or gadgets in the rural area. We always cook our foods in small quantities and heat the remaining on fire as a way of preservation.
I prefer owning a refrigerator and a deep freezer, living where there is constant power supply, cooking my meals once in two weeks and living a stress free life. I think it is better than cooking every 8 hours of the day.
Photo is mine, taken with my Infinix smart 5 phone camera
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