member of the human race

the other day my mother came home from work looking really annoyed, she came into the kitchen muttering something and sighing now and then.

i was observing her for a few minutes thinking to myself 'she must have had a really bad time at work'.

so i went up to her and asked 'mama, you ok? whats wrong' in a really ''i care about you'' type of voice.

she replies: ' (sighs) I'm annoyed'

me: 'why? whats happened?'

mama: 'well, one of the teachers at lunch, sat down and came out with toast'

at this point i started thinking i wonder where this is going, i had the urge to laugh but chose not to.

me: 'toast?'

mama: 'yep toast, which is fine, but what really got to me was that she takes out this container full of couscous and piles the couscous on top of the toast then takes another toast and puts it on top of the couscous, she made a couscous sandwich!!!'

me: 'loooooooooooooool, that's why your annoyed?'

mama: white african, have you ever heard of a couscous sandwich?'

me: to be honest no'

mama: 'exactly, why do people take a perfectly good dish and abuse it by making it into a sandwich?????'

me: 'did you say anything?'

mama: 'yes, of course, i told her how offensive it was to my national dish'

me: 'mama!!! you said that?'

mama: 'yes, and even one of the teachers turned around and said i had a point it was like putting potatoes with pasta'

me: 'potatoes with pasta? whats wrong with that? we always have potatoes with pasta'

mama: 'well according to this teacher its a forbidden rule, so she totally understood me, couscous with toast???? what next couscous with milk, like cereal?'

me: 'well she likes it'

mama: 'its not about whether she likes it, couscous with busla (onions) with vegetables not toast, ruining a perfectly amazing dish like that, whats the world come to'

and that was the mystery behind her annoyance, to which she made us a beautiful couscous dish that weekend to illustrate her point of how perfect this dish is lol.

i guess she has a point, it depends what your used to, but people like to experiment with dishes all the time, all you need to do is walk to your local supermarket and you will find all sorts of wonderful mixtures that the older generation would frown upon.

i remember one time my grandmother came to visit us when i was around 12-13 years of age for the first time, and she was constantly asking me to cook and learn how to cook and to be honest at that age all i could do was cornflakes and toast, these 2 culinary dishes where my proudest creations, i eventually taught myself how to boil and fry an egg thank you to food technology, but at that time i was not interested and i would argue with my grand mother all the time regarding this issue, and i remember one time she asked me what i would do if my husband asked me to cook him a certain dish like bazeen (Libyan national dish) to which i replied i would go to the supermarket and get him a ready made meal or a DIY meal.

she really laughed allot that night i think because she never took my answer seriously and also because she was kinda hoping i would forget about it also the fact that she never would have thought that most dishes can be obtained from your local supermarket (baseen is yet to be manufactured but people i am working on it, asda, tesco here i come).

some dishes should not be experimented with in my opinion, the classics should not be touched, but saying that there seriously isn't anything wrong with mixing potatoes with pasta is there?????