Living in Lagos is living a dream – sometimes it is nightmarish.
The food scene here goes from chaos, to heat, to spice and to love shared over a meal. Sometimes it is healing a heartbreak or warmth thawing the ice of sorrow. The other times it is just diarrhea trying to take your life – because you have eaten the wrong meal
If you earn around, slightly or below NGN 250K you have no business buying food outside routinely. You do not allow yourself the room to save or grow financially. Financial growth like all else may happen in little drops – so do financial ruins.
I can describe with ease my taste buds. I have lived long enough by myself and experimented just a tiny bit enough, to know what a fraction of the fundamentals of what I enjoy would be. For example I abhor ice creams. And adore yoghurts of most kinds, prefer vegetable and fish cooked just enough to be done and not so much it becomes fishy. Eggs of any kind – other than runny are a perfect delight to me. Puddings are gold(moi moi,okpa, igbabu oka). If the cost were not an issue, my plate would have more animal and seafood protein, veggies than staples.
The particular preference of my taste buds translates to a much higher financial commitments with eating out. But I also have a deep disdain for penury, so my best bet has been home made meals.
The argument for the cost saving dynamic of cooking goes thus; If one cooks at home frequently and routinely, when one is flush and plush in pocket – one is likely to store up a barrage of staple food items at home. During the locust days of being broke – one certainly has rice at home- and yam – dried fishes and spices. And perhaps one might feel less sad about the lightness and emptiness of ones pocket. A well fed stomach might likely come up with ways out of a sudden penury much quicker as opposed to hungry empty stomach.
Avoidable hospital bills in the manner of food poisoning could have been spent better on eating healthy. If you were trying to save in the first place – better pound wise than penny foolish.
