I think it’s fair to say my friends and family would have described little me as the life and soul of any party. Brimming with all the confidence of any theatre kid, and blissfully ignorant to any prejudice that I would later face in adult life. I miss little me.
My mother was the designated cook in the family home, where meals were born through convenience and frugality. Feeding a family of six was relentless, and although I had a keen interest in food, my mother was often far too busy to be supervising me with sharp knives and around gas hobs during the week. At weekends we were given free rein. Like most sugar-obsessed children we would often be baking. We would make anything from butterfly cakes to devils chocolate cake using our favourite Betty Crocker packet mix. I relished those weekends and that feeling of accomplishment, when you offered around one of your wares to grateful guests.
On the cusp of my sixteenth birthday, our whole world was turned on its head. Myself, my mother, one of my sisters and my now brother-in-law were involved in a road traffic collision. I was a front seat passenger and the force of the collision left me with several broken bones, but most devastatingly a “medium grade” brain injury. Once the amnesia and double vision passed, the doctors were pleased to discover that my speech and full-body movement didn’t seem to be affected. My personality however didn’t survive. The boy I once was had gone.
An eight year long court case followed. Countless medical experts wrote reports on the effects of the accident and the trajectory of my life. My parents would exclaim “He’s a lovely boy, but he’s not the person he was before”. That hurt more than anything else that was said. But they were right, how could I be the same person after something so catastrophic and at such a pivotal age. I went from outgoing to agoraphobic, placid to short-tempered, chatty to noiseless.
I had a lot of free time during the long and tedious recovery process. My mother was hospitalised on and off for the year following the accident, which means we lost the house cook, and my father was under so much pressure that I’d imagine what we were going to have for dinner was the least of his worries. We all stepped up and pulled our weight. I designated myself house cook as I had the most enthusiasm for it. There were days when bad news following operations shook the house. And although it couldn’t fix the situation, I took great comfort in knowing every evening be sat around the table that evening all with a steaming bowl of something homemade, forgetting our worries for a short while.
I had bouts of post concussive syndrome for around 6 years. I’d take myself off to bed and would not eat or speak for days at a time. My body needed sleep and silence. Perhaps the most devastating consequence of my brain injury was the impact it had on my communicative skills. The science behind it is complicated, but all I knew was I no longer enjoyed socialising with friends or family. I would form a sentence in my mind during conversations, but my mouth couldn’t follow through and deliver it, which was maddening. Cooking felt like the perfect hobby to undertake. The instruction-following helped rebuild my cognitive functions, I didn’t have to speak to anyone, and by the end of it I would have produced something that made people happy.
It’s been 11 years since our accident. The medical experts who represented me had argued that I would never be able to live independently and would spend my life working in “relatively unskilled” jobs. I’m pleased to say that today, in 2024, I am a fully functioning member of society (whatever that means). I enrolled at the prestigious Leiths school of Food and Wine in 2021 and graduated the following year with flying colours. I have lived independently and successfully, but I now enjoy life alongside my boyfriend and our beloved rescue dog, Jasper.
We are all so different, with our unique struggles. It is true that every stranger you pass in the street is facing a struggle we know nothing about. For a long time I was one of them. But food unites us all. It’s not just fuel to get us through the working day, but a love language that we can use to communicate. To gather your nearest and dearest around a table, and feed them something nutritious and delicious, is one of life's simple pleasures. And the most underrated form of communication.
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