I was not allowed to cook even if I was exposed to cooking at all the time!
In Sicily, children, as well as some other countries (for example, like Greece), are not allowed to touch and make food for adults (only adults do cook); but we were rather told to go away to play.
From my experience, children’ role was just limited to watch all process making, tasting every now and then the prep when we would get hungry after being at the beach all day long and/or just ate the final dish around a long dining table with everyone else.
So my cousin Ramona (she is more like a twin to me as she is 11 days older than me) and I would spent hours staring at our women’s in the family making pizzas and patiently waiting for a piece of dough to play with making pizza (I would sneakily eat a lot raw dough)!
The taste, the smell and flavors of those ingredients, the dough, tomatoes… It’s definitely something I struggle to describe because one would only need to experience to appreciate and understand what I am striving to convey, and something I’ll always cherish.
So if you one would have asked me “Who would you like to be when you are older?” The answer to this question wouldn’t have been definitely cooking as it was an action I was not actively involved with - except for some baking on rainy days, or at least not being a huge part of my current present. It definitely took me a while to realise that food has always being a very huge part of who I am (friends would always asked me to cook since I can remember!) and yet it is very obvious that food culture (grown, produced and eaten) was very impeded in me since an early age - as a Sicilian, Italian and being grown in a family of home-cooks and artisans.
