To feel that sad that basic cooking skills are dying out

Probably been hated by many people for millennia as well.

I'm an 80s child and my sister and I would always be tasked with peeling and chopping vegetables. I have fond memories of pickled onion night. Mum would arrive home with a sack of shallots, boil up a huge vat of vinegar and spices on the stove. My sister and I would peel the onions like this 😭and cover them in salt to sit for the night. It was nice. Cooking and food preparation has been a part of family life since the beginning of civilisation.

😂

Oh dear. Just shows how different people are. Just the thought of it is enough for me.
I very occasionally cook a dish with sweet potatoes. I have to peel and chop them one night and cook them the next night. The whole thing in one go is too much for me.

I went to a girls Convent school in the 80's ( lots of 2nd generation Irish- big families). It was absolutely expected in home economics that we could already peel and chop vegetables, understood what for example " browning the mince" or "separting an egg" might mean. I remeber in yr7 having to write an essay on the different types of pastry and give examples of when I would use each one.

I quite like peeling potatoes and it is the one job everyone in the house ( Dd, Ds and DH) will volunteer for and do uncomplainigly, especially on a warm summer's day outside with a bucket of water.

"But on a global level, paying others for their labour in order to make your food - aka convenience food,is a privilege of sorts. "

Yep. A privilege that gives you heart attacks and diabetes type 2. It's a bit of a scam really.

Oh dear.

I don't boil eggs in the microwave. I sort of poach them so I crack open into a mug and then make many holes with a fork. Without the holes, the egg could burst.

I had a chickpea explosion in the microwave once.

If it’s not passed down through families I can easily see how people don’t place any importance on it.

Being passed down through families is still no guarantee that it'll be considered, important.

I see the hours my mum spends standing over the or faffing in the kitchen and think it looks like a total waste of time and effort 😂

I can cook and was taught to cook (and bake) quite well but I find it incredibly dull and soul-destroying so I pretty much never bother.

@SchoolQuestionnaire

I read something a while ago about asylum seekers. It was a help centre of some sort. They had to re-educate people about the foods they were buying.

One example was orange squash, people thought it was healthy because of the colour.

I did a short term teaching IT skills to ESOL students. I try to make things practical so I gave them a shopping list to check prices at different supermarkets.

What stumped people was I put, 1 pint of milk. Because if you look at a supermarket app it says 568ml.

These were not stupid people, they had for whatever reason had to start a new life in a new country where the food is different and what was cheap where they have come from is expensive here.

I don’t know many people who don’t cook. However one of the mums at toddler group years ago was raving about a free parent and child cookery course that she was going to at her Surestart centre. The things they were cooking seemed pretty basic, but she was amazed at how easy it was to cook the basics rather than buy them (although that didn’t extend to pastry as they apparently showed her how to use ready made - no judgement from me, pastry is a faff). This was in an area in the countryside where the vast majority of playgroup attendees were from farming families where literally everything was cooked from scratch (and were horrified at the shop-bought pastry). But if there is a demand in that sort of area, there must be even more of a demand in cities.

I cook because my dm always cooked. My kids cook because they like to trash my kitchen because I now cook. If it’s not passed down through families I can easily see how people don’t place any importance on it.

DNiece (22) has no idea how to cook any veg that aren't frozen, or how to prep anything apart from a potato. The idea that you could peel a potato, cut it into long sections and deep fry it to make chips was an absolute revelation to her a couple of years ago.

She also has no idea how veg grow, thought broccoli grew on trees, and that Brussels sprouts were just baby cabbages.

But on a global level, paying others for their labour in order to make your food - aka convenience food,is a privilege of sorts. Families in poorer countries have to make their own bread, and sometimes grow the grain to make that bread. Then if their harvest fails, they go hungry. There is no food bank to pick up the pieces.

I feel I need to shout something.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO PEEL POTATOES FOR MASH.

When you mash them the skins just mash into the potato and you don't notice them.

If you use a ricer, the potato will go through the ricer and the skins are left behind.

Interesting. I wonder if in the past, convenience food were for the well off and poorer people had to cook from scratch. Whereas now, it's probably the other way round

I think it goes in waves. I watched a thing years ago, they took 'celebrities' to the black county museum and had them live like victorians.

I was surprised that they bought pies for lunch because people working in factories didn't have time to go home for a meal and if they owned an oven then they might not be able to afford the fuel.

You just reminded me of a time where I boiled eggs and after opening the first I decided I wanted them a little more done, so popped the rest in the microwave for a few seconds.

They seemed fine...until I lightly tapped the first to open it and it exploded like a bomb - cats scattered in opposite directions and one had bits of egg on his tail that the other ate off him😂I'm half-tempted to repeat my experiment as a prank next time my brother's over...

The person on YouTube is not using YOUR pan and your stove the timings will never be perfect. It's very difficult to get the egg just how I like it.

Anyway, as I've said before, I prefer my eggs microwaved. Even then the timing is iffy. Sometimes 30 seconds is good, sometimes 35. My micro can't really do anything in between.

"Potatoes take 1 minutes to peel with a speed peeler, then boil, drain, season, large knob of butter and a hand mixer to mash. Otherwise, spin a knife around the equator of a couple of large potatoes, pop in a roasting dish and drizzle with oil, season and stick in oven. When done, scoop out the filling.

Sausages, in roasting dish, drizzle of oil, oven for 30 mins. Job done."

I would find this a HUGE faff, but then it was seeing my parents peeling potatoes all the time as a child that put me off both cooking AND having children. The very definition of drudgery.

Definitely and you can see this playing out on a global level now too, with richer people in developing countries eating junk food and developing the 'western' diseases of obesity, high blood-pressure etc. and rich people in western countries imitating traditional peasant foods to be healthier.

Yes, I could make a sandwich probably when I was about 7. It was ridiculous.

I think that's true to some extent.
We weren't what I would call poor when I was growing up but there wasn't a lot of money to spare and when I went to University and met people from different social backgrounds for the first time I realised that we were indeed poor by many people's standards.
My Mum cooked cheap cuts of meat beautifully, because she had the time to do it slowly. She made things like pies and puddings from scratch and as we didn't have a fridge or freezer til I was about 10 most food was bought and cooked on the same day. But I confess I didn't really appreciate that until I was an adult. As a child I got excited about crispy pancakes and a Vespa Curry was a real treat - my family would look at me as if I had lost my mind if I served that now! I saw bought baked goods as luxury too whereas in fact Mum's were much better.
I don't think the well off people I met at University ate that kind of convenience food either though, but they did eat stuff I'd never seen like steak and salmon. And chicken was a luxury food then too, for special occasions only in our house. Funny how times change.

Some time ago my dog was unwell and I asked my neighbour (who also dog sits for me) to boil her some rice as she was being made sick by her usual food.

He didn't know how to do it, and wasn't understanding the instructions. I suggested pasta instead and he didn't know how to do that either.

Interesting. I wonder if in the past, convenience food were for the well off and poorer people had to cook from scratch. Whereas now, it's probably the other way round

It is awful isn't it. I feel for you

That's how I am (FT work, health issues)

Weekends I batch cook as I do enjoy it but weekdays I can manage either cereal or microwaving what I have in the freezer
I try and make sure I have easy stuff in but sometimes it's beyond tiredness and I just go to bed without eating

Tell that to my MIL who had had several goes at me for scratch cooking when I could "let the professionals" put a jar of sauce together.

She thinks that the only reason I scratch cook, is because we are poor and therefore can't afford "luxury food"