Garlic, Chicken, and Choosing My Own Taste

How a couple of ingredients became the beginning of choosing for myself.

I grew up in South London — where the corner shops sell plantain next to Polish dumplings, and every other street smells like jerk smoke on a hot day. My childhood was a mash-up of cultures before “fusion” was a restaurant concept. Food wasn’t just food — it was identity. It was history. It was love.

But also… conflict.

My dad hated chicken.

What kind of plot twist is that?

I asked him about it once when I was a kid. He gave me the look — the one that shuts down curiosity faster than a teacher saying, “We’ll continue this after break.” I never asked again.

In our house, Dad’s preferences were law. If he didn’t like something, nobody liked it.

No chicken.
No garlic.
And definitely no experimenting.

Meanwhile, the food around me was built on layers of flavour — the kind that announces itself from down the street:

• onions sizzling
• palm oil warming
• garlic and pepper punching the air like they’re fighting for dominance

But Dad shut all of that down. He claimed garlic “smelled disrespectful.”

Disrespectful. Garlic.

So when meals were cooked, everything became about avoiding the landmines of his tastebuds. Palm oil, yes. Fish, yes — especially if it came from someone’s cousin who “knew a guy at Billingsgate.” But chicken? A sin. Garlic? An offense.

The irony? I loved both.

Chicken tastes like freedom

My rebellion started in secondary school. While some classmates were skipping class to smoke, I was sneaking to Morley’s for wings.

Morley’s > Religion.

Those wings — hot, salty, dripping with sauce — tasted like everything I wasn’t allowed at home. Every bite said:

“You can be who you want.”

Chicken wings and garlic mayo were my teenage therapy.

Garlic was my gateway drug

Uni was where I went full rebel. Little halls kitchen. Three mismatched pots. One pan that looked like it had survived war. And suddenly I was free. No rules. No Dad hovering.

I started buying garlic by the braid.

I’d roast whole bulbs until they collapsed into butter. Press them onto bread. Stir them into stews. Smear them onto chicken (obviously).

My kitchen smelled like rebellion. Like independence. Like everything Dad tried to stop me from liking.

“Too much” becomes magic

Garlic is dramatic. That’s what I love about it.

Burn it? It’s bitter and unforgiving. Warm it slowly? It becomes sweet — like butter with secrets.

Some things taste harsh until you give them time.

Sometimes I wonder if that’s how my dad was.

Black garlic is my final form

London will expose you to everything — especially if you hang around weekend markets where oat lattes cost too much and tote bags come with personality disorders. That’s where I first saw it.

Black garlic. Aged like it pays rent. Sweet. Dark. Soft like date paste.

I turned it into aioli and brushed it onto roast chicken thighs — the kind of meal that never would have been allowed growing up — and it tasted like everything I’d grown into:

• cultural complexity
• London creativity
• a little hipster indulgence

Black garlic is what happens when you give something time and space to transform. Kind of like people.

What my father never understood

Sometimes I imagine serving him chicken roasted with garlic and rosemary. Would he finally taste the sweetness? The softness? Would he still reject it on sight?

Would he reject me?

I’ll never know.

What I do know is: I cook with garlic because he wouldn’t. I eat chicken because he didn’t.

And if I ever have a child, I won’t tell them what to like. I’ll just offer a wing, pass the aioli, and say:

“Taste it for yourself.”