Mumsnet Talk

Silly me I'm just a man" act to get out of it

<nods> or even worse when a woman says oh hes a man what do you expect

The thing is, plenty of people have never been taught to cook - they grew up on ready meals and takeaways, or had family who cooked but didn't teach them. And schools aren't much use at teaching people to actually cook on a day-to-day basis. So there are plenty of people who don't have the confidence to try it out.

And also people who don't feel they can afford to splash out on lots of separate ingredients when the end result might not get eaten, so they fall back on something ready made or a jar of sauce instead of buying separate ingredients.

I can't cook.

I can assemble meals from packaged components if pressed, but starting from scratch with random ingredients would utterly defeat me. I have lots of cook books, I understand the theory, but in practice I get into a tizz and the end result never justifies the time and stress it required.

I can run a business that generates a seven figure turnover in a recession, employs 8 people and pays for me to have domestic help however, so I'm not quite "useless." Or underfed.

I dont think its a case of anyone not being able to cook when they say i cant cook its more not knowing how to or not having practiced enough! Personally, its something that can get learnt

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CAN'T still echoes in my ears....... thank you kind riding instructress!!!

I don't mind if people admit they're crap at something, it's when they trumpet the failing as an attribute I have a problem. Those proudly declaring that they can't do ordinary things like cook, drive or do maths etc. often give the impression that they're far too good for such menial stuff...

I can cook a decent roast, but that's about it.

Everything else is very simple, beef in a slow cooker with a jar of Beef In Ale sauce, or cooked in stock with carrots and onions, and just discovered gammon in coke. Just that though, I don't do the glaze.

I make Bolognese using a jar, and that's just about the only meals I eat.

DD2 likes Curry, Lasagne and Chilli, but as she's the only one who does, she's happy with a ready meal, or sometimes I buy a small jar of Chilli sauce and make it with that.

Everything else is just very easy stuff like sausages, pizza and chicken nuggets.

I'm not great at cooking, I can cook simple meals like chilli or garlic chicken etc.

Great at baking though, does that count?

I can cook, however I'm a terrible baker, no idea what I do wrong, and I do keep trying.

Hahaha.

I just knew this would be you.

Yes yabu.

My oldest friend who is older than me has never cooked a roast in her life.

She thinks I'm frigging Nigella because we have a roast every Sunday.

Would you say the same to someone with literacy or numeracy problems? We're not all wired the same way and don't all find the same things easy or even possible.

YABU.

When I first left home I couldn't cook a thing. I really thought it was hard but I just bought a basic cook book and got stuck in.

I'm now a great cook and I've made sure both my dc have helped with the cooking from a young age. I didn't want them thinking cooking was difficult.

When people say "I can't cook" I just think "You just haven't tried hard enough"

Schro, we should teach each other if you can bake and I can cook!

I'm a pretty bad cook < shrugs > obviously I'm useless.

I get paranoid about things being cooked well enough so they tend to end up very overdone. Epecially things like chicken, I dont want to poison anyone so I tend to cut it in half when I think it's done, just to be sure. My plates sure don't look pretty!

The thing is, cooking is boooring! Really really boring and dull. So sue me.

DH is an excellent cook and enjoys it.

I like cooking and baking, most of our meals are from scratch but I don't look down on people who say they can't cook. I can't drive I've failed my test a couple of times and it just seems a waste of money to keep on trying so I fully understand why people don't want to waste money buying expensive ingredients and not have a decent meal at the end of it.

I always say that I can't cook but Ican prepare meals. Cooking in my view is creating a restaurant standard meal out of a load of random ingredients. Preparing meals is wrapping bacon around the chicken breast, sticking it in the oven and boiling some potatoes and carrots.

I am very good at meal-planning so I will always have the chicken, bacon, potatoes and carrots in the fridge when I need them.

QuickLook I'm not interested in trying harder. There are other more enjoyable and more lucrative ways of spending my time.

I'm full of admiration for my friends who can cook, but I don't think their skills in one arena somehow trump mine in another, to the extent that some MNetters can announce that women like me are "useless".

Being able to cook, drive and swim to a reasonable standard are all important life skills.

However my SIL is the worst cook I know. I would suggest she at least shouldn't cook. Also, she's not so much with the driving - she has a scrape every few months.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

I don't care whether other people can cook or not but I get irritated by people who wear it as some kind of badge of honour.

Driving is not a life skill, being able to get on a bus and get off where you need to is a life skill.

I've tried following a recipe in the past. If I'm lucky it's edible, if not then it's a disaster <shrugs>

DH can't cook.

He tries and can make basic things like toasties but give him a recipe and his mind boggles. He can build an website no problem, but he can't roast a chicken.

He also takes cooking instructions very seriously and would stand there watching something burning and say "but it said 35 minutes!".

I just let him get on with it.

Oh and YABU.

I'd argue that driving was a life skill.

I try my best but I used to just say I couldn't cook.

My great grandmother died when my grandmother was a baby. My grandmother grew up with her father until she was thirteen when she went to live with an aunt. She married early. She had my mum and was unable to teach her how to cook very much. They managed but it was basic; my grandmother can burn a salad. My mum got married and moved away from all of her family. My dad tried to teach her to cook but he was away a lot and they got divorced when I was two. My mum tried to teach me to cook but it was very basic; she was poor and did not have a natural talent for it. I left home at fifteen. I moved away from all my family. I could not cook rice or pasta or homemade chips and I certainly could not and have never attempted a roast dinner.

Now I have money and the internet, I can have a go at teaching myself. But the ability to cook is so reliant on history. What did my great grandmother have to teach me, given the chance?

Or maybe she was a shit cook too and that's where we all got it from.

Eitherway, park your judgement. It's Sunday. I'm sure you have some culinary masterpiece that you're just dying to whip up.

YANBU. It's the ones who inform you of their culinary ineptitude with a tinge of pride in their voice who make me disproportionately cross.