Steamed with Ajinimoto

I grew up in the days when a popular soup seasoning popularly known as 'Ajinomoto' was used in food. This substance was not just used as food but also as clothe washing substance and as a saccharine in palm wine yes, my dad was into palm wine tapping those days and we had this Ajinomoto in essence in our house because my dad added it into old palm-wine to sweeten the old wine and make them sweet for drinking.

On a particular Wednesday afternoon, we returned from school with a peak of hunger, dad and Mom had gone to the farm and they didn't leave any food at home as usual. We always have foodstuffs at home, they expected us to treat ourselves anytime we come back from school with food items at home.

"Brother, if it's beans you want me to cook this hot afternoon, count me out." One of my twin sisters frowned so hard when I told her to go to the kitchen and cook something for us to use as lunch. I expected her refusal because the sun was intense and our kitchen was the local one where we cook with firewood and it's more like a punishment to go inside such a hot kitchen to cook at that time with hunger.

"Okay, let's stay hungry until it's time for dinner since no one wants to cook beans and hey, no one should dare to cook yam alone!" My voice was loud, mixed with anger because I hate eating just yam alone and I wouldn't want to be left out if they decided to cook yam.

Just when we were still arguing about what to eat, Elvis, my immediate younger brother, came to the parlour with plates containing water used to steam meat and one containing garri(cassava flake) which he was going to mix the two and drink as lunch.

"You want to drink garri with that meat-steamed water? They added Ajinomoto to it or don't you know what such water is capable of doing if taken alone?"
My brother played deaf ear to my warning, he sat down, dropped the two plates on the table and went inside to get a cup of water and as he was coming back, the two twins came with him with their Spoons in their hands.
I was shocked because they knew that taking such meat-steamed water that was done with Ajinomoto was a recipe for disaster but they didn't mind. I stayed glued as they sat down, poured the garri onto the plate, poured the steamed water into it and they began to devour the mixture I was salivating and when I couldn't stand watching them having their lunch with the mixture, I jacked up from my seat and as I was rushing to the room to get a spoon, I heard Elvis telling me to come and use his spoon because he was done.

"Thank you" Out of hunger, I quickly grabbed the spoon and began to scoop the mixture in a rushing manner and all of them started laughing at me at how I was initially pretending to be a food scientist.

"Stop laughing oooh! We are all going to feel the effect after this, trust me" I announced to them aloud.

"Is it not a toilet? I prefer to sleep in the toilet afterwards than to die of hunger now" Elvis added as he got up and walked outside.

"Me too oooh!" The twins echoed in unison.

Because they started eating before me, they left the remaining spot for me and I made sure I ate everything on the plate. The water from the steamed meat with Ajinomoto was so sweet, sweeter than soup and the mixture with garri was a good combo.

Evening time came around 7:30 pm when we had taken real dinner, running stomach coupled with stooling held every one of us, and unfortunately, we had just one toilet in the house, elvis got in and locked himself there while the three of us made to use the bush in the backyard to pass out the rushing feces. Yes, it was night time but we were not scared of entering the bush to defecate.

Thanks for reading.

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