How I Started a Rebellion by Making and Sharing Food

I’m not trying to be nice or conform to gender roles.

Today I got up at 5.45 to make scrambled eggs for my Turkish friend who slept on my couch. When I offered it last night, she questioned whether I would do it out of pleasure or a sense of duty.

I hadn’t really thought about it, it was just a feeling. It wouldn’t be honest to claim I “enjoyed” getting up at 5.45, but it still gave me a sense of pleasure to make food for my guest. I said “I do it for all my friends. I did it for my boyfriend the other day.” When I said that, her fury blazed in her eyes. “Dog!” she screamed, “He should get up and do it for himself, not expect it from you!”

That was unexpected! “So you think I’m doing it just because it is my role as a woman? And I wouldn’t do it if I was a man?”

I was sure it wasn’t that, it was much deeper, but I didn’t know how to explain it at that moment, so I went to bed. My mind kept busy, and at 5.45 I had an answer for her.

Culture shock

I love living in New Zealand. But there is this one thing I really hate. It’s about people keeping their food to themselves other than special occasions.

I know it’s not about the whole country. I’ve learned how food holds a significant place in Maori culture. The preparation, sharing, and consumption of food are seen as opportunities to strengthen bonds and relationships. Sharing a meal signifies a sense of togetherness, warmth, and unity within the whanau (extended family) and community.

However, New Zealand does not have just one culture. I am relatively new and I didn’t have much chance to interact with Maori culture yet. I see and hear Maori concepts everywhere, and people are well-meaning in general, but I don’t believe those concepts are embraced by everyone.

Before I moved into my house only a few weeks ago, I lived with my ex-mother-in-law, paying a weekly board. She has been wonderful to me and my son (her grandson) in general. The only thing that bothered me about living with her was the fact that she didn’t want to share her kitchen. I had a fridge in the garage and cooked our meals in the bathroom in an electric pressure cooker because she wanted to keep the food separate.

I was mentally okay with it since I understood that a kitchen can be a war zone and this arrangement kept us respectful toward each other. As a result, our relationship was always friction-free in spite of our differences. I wrote a humorous story about it a while ago.

Even then, I felt a deep emotional discomfort.

I’m from Turkey, and in my culture food is the center of all social interactions. Refusing to share food feels like a slap in the face.

It’s not just her. In my five years living in New Zealand, I observed many others doing this. My son’s friend’s mother invited us to their home and clearly said “I don’t offer food because we have just enough for us.” I hadn’t expected anything in the first place, but hearing the statement shocked me.

Home is where I make and offer food

My ex-mother-in-law also has a gardener who comes every Saturday. She makes a drink for him at 11 o’clock for morning tea and offers him “two biscuits” to accompany his drink. When I saw this written on paper, it blew my mind.

As soon as I moved to my own place with a little yard, I asked her gardener to come and visit me at my new place to give me his opinion about where to plant my lemon tree. He was the first person I invited to my new home.

When he came, I made coffee, scrambled eggs, and toast for lunch. Then I put more or less everything in the fridge on the table, Turkish style. We enjoyed the food and a nice chit-chat.

After lunch, without me asking anything, he dug the garden and planted my lemon tree in the sunniest spot. He also cut dead branches, pulled out giant weeds that I didn’t know were weeds, and basically did all the yard work in under an hour, teaching me how to do it. I hadn’t invited him to work! But he did it from his heart, the same way I made food for him. For the first time in years, I felt at home.

“You are too generous.”

I felt so alive that day that I kept inviting him and other friends for lunch and dinner. I want my home to be like Turkey where people frequently come over and I don’t mind letting them in even if it’s not perfectly tidy or clean.

When I told a Kiwi friend that I made pizza for some other friends, he said I was “too generous.” He knows that I don’t have a lot of money and finds it unnecessary for me to share food with everyone.

The thing is, simple food made at home doesn’t cost all that much. For the price of one person’s meal at a cafe or restaurant, I can feed multiple people and experience the full satisfaction of sharing. It’s a price I am exhilarated to pay to feel at home in my home.

So, I do it for me!

For me, the act of preparing and sharing food has nothing to do with being nice or conforming to gender roles.

It has become my personal way of pushing back against the isolation that seems to define modern life. It’s not about grand gestures or extravagance. It’s about tearing down the invisible walls that separate people.

Even though I don’t consider myself “spiritual,” I do believe we all belong to a larger human family. By sharing something as basic and fundamental as a meal, I am simply rebuilding my connection with the rest of humanity!