Betty Crocker

Since I've lived in Kenya, I have only been cooking for myself. Nearly everything I cook is from my local open-air market with fresh fruits, vegetables, and legumes. Corn and wheat flour, spaghetti noodles, and other things I find in the larger supermarkets or small storefronts. I cook a small array of dishes, from spaghetti with home-made tomato sauce, tortillas with guacamole, coconut rice and beans, or the local dish of fried kale and “ugali.” I cannot say I am much of a cook though, since I prefer quantity over quality and healthy over delicious if I had to choose. Luckily I have access a variety of spices, so if I somehow go wrong in the cooking process, I douse my meal with my local favorites.

Cooking here is quite a process. It takes me nearly half an hour just cutting the onions, tomatoes, and other vegetables, or peeling carrots and potatoes with my knife. If I am pressed for time, I usually opt to cook the “ugali” and fried kale, because once the vegetables are cut it is just 15 minutes until the food is ready to eat.

This past Sunday for lunch I had run out fresh food to prepare myself, so I shuffled through my storage box for something to eat. With luck I found a packet of “Betty Crocker” instant mashed potatoes, and another packet of instant gravy. I flipped the packet and read the directions which instructed me to boil water and add the contents, then stir for one minute. The gravy sauce packet actually took less time than that. After 2 minutes had passed, I had a steaming, creaming plate of mashed potatoes and gravy.

I chuckled to myself at how quickly it all happened. Being used to at least a half-hour's preparation before any meal, I felt like I somehow cheated. I even looked around my empty room, as if searching for confirmation that the food was ready. I decided I should share some with my neighbors as a cultural experience, showing them the empty packets and telling them that this is how American food is.

I was astounded at the taste. Despite the assurance from Betty Crocker herself that the mashed potatoes were “REAL” as written on the package, the taste was so foreign to me still. Just as one can taste the difference in aspartame or some other synthesized, non-calorie sweetener compared to the real granules of sugar, the packaged food instantly betrayed itself to my senses. I had become so used to real unadulterated foods, I found myself loath to finishing the instant potatoes and gravy. But I did finish them; there are starving children in Africa.

What I realized out of this was not the taste of Betty Crocker's mashed potatoes, but the lifestyle Americans lead that should require instant packaged foods, microwaves, and infomercials that can sell you a “Slap-chop.” Everything Americans do has to be expedited if possible, so that we can do more activities and be more productive throughout our day. Yet here in Kenya, I find myself living completely perpendicular to the fast-paced American life, and I am often frustrated at how I wait long hours for transportation, or how cooking takes a huge chunk of my evening. But the reminder of my American lifestyle made me a little bit sick inside. It seems we want so much out of every minute of our day that we miss many of the subtle flavors in life. We want our crops to grow bigger and tastier, our lines at the grocery store to be shorter, and our fast-food to be faster. I am beginning to think that maybe it's okay to live a little bit slower. Maybe it is okay to take the time to metaphorically cut your vegetables and prepare your food in such a way to make Betty Crocker turn her nose up: both in defiance of your boycott on her instant-mashed potatoes and at the enchanting aroma of your original, heavily spiced creations.