The Radio 1 presenter on student food, fighting with her brothers over fish eyes and her mum’s lockdown Nigerian food Zoom classes
My mum did Zoom masterclasses for the family in the pandemic. I hadn’t cooked Nigerian food before, ever. She’d send us the ingredients list early in the week, and then, wherever we were, we would cook and then eat together.. I learned all of these dishes that I probably should have learned growing up. I’m really excited to have dinner parties again, so I can actually exhibit my jollof rice.
It was survival of the fittest in our household. My three brothers are 6ft 7in and they eat so much. We used to have competitions around the dinner table. Like when you roast a chicken, we would take it in turns to see who could suck the spinal cord out in one go. And whoever could would be rewarded by getting the chicken feet. Which was a delicacy. If we were having a whole fish, we’d fight over the head. On I’m a Celeb they say, “Oh, you have to eat a fish eye,” and they’re all retching. In our household, we were fighting over the fish eyes!