It's been 3 months since I wrote my final exams. Having to write about the cheapest food I've ever eaten makes me remember my early days in the higher institution. Apart from eating anywhere I saw food, I had to take measures to prepare low-budget meals so I could have enough money for my textbooks and handouts. There was a time when I didn't eat meat for up to a year because I was always trying to manage the funds I had on me all through that year. I was mostly eating vegetables and cheap fish as my protein for any food I was eating that was swallow. (Swallow includes; soup with cassava flakes like garri.) If I cooked rice during that period, I ensured I made palm oil rice, or jollof with egg in very rare cases.
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My norms then were rice, beans, potatoes, and swallow. Any other food would require me to spend extra which I wasn't ready for. One time I was so broke and without foodstuffs that rendered me stranded for days. I had to go to my friend's house to eat, but getting there he too had nothing to eat. It was at about 8:00 PM in the night, and we were so hungry when his girlfriend brought cassava flakes (garri) for us. We looked at the garri and immediately got the inspiration to prepare soup with the 150 naira ($0.19) we were both having at hand (his roommate came along and was having 50 naira, and I was also having 50 naira, and he was too.)
The inspiration for the soup came from his roommate who saw that there was little oil, seasoning, and salt at home so he asked why not we prepare soup instead of drinking garri (which was the first thing that came to mind when we saw the garri.) We were obliged to the idea that taking a swallow would feel our belles more even if it was for one night. We had a night market close to campus where we normally went wherever we missed the day market, and were able to get vegetables and okro (gumbo) with the money we had. That night we prepared our own kind of okro and vegetable soup which was very low budget but enough to satisfy us for that night and the next morning.
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For the most expensive food I have gotten for myself was on two occasions (after I got out of school) I decided to treat myself out and have a nice time alone. I would normally opt to cook with the money I had at hand but decided to purchase food worth about 7,000 naira ($7) which lasted me the whole day. It was a simple buffet of jollof rice, and beef, with swallow (fufu) and egusi soup/vegetable soup, and different assorted meats. I felt it was a cheap purchase seeing if I wanted to cook all those meals I would spend more. Another time I went on a treat with my friend and we got Chinese rice which was 2000 ($2) per plate. Normally I wouldn't go for such meals which wasn't satisfactory by the way, but I just did it because of my friend and went on to cook when I got home.
THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO THE HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 90 EPISODE 1
