To feel that sad that basic cooking skills are dying out

I don't think I know a single person who can't cook.
And why does it have to be cheap?

You seem to be getting a lot of stick OP. If you work with people who are struggling with cooking then why is that? Why don't they have the confidence or ability? Seems like you have an interesting insight based on your experience that is being lost here. Can you tell us more?

Another thing I'd add is that buying a jar of pasta sauce isn't necessarily so much more money. Lidl sell pasta sauces for about 80p. I don't think I could make it for scratch for that by the time I'd bought onion, tomatoes, garlic, oil and paid for the gas. Sometimes good basic ready food is the bargain.

I don’t think this is the case at all. I think people are cooking more adventurous stuff than ever. You only have to look at Instagram and the insane amount of cooking reels aimed at young people. My teens are all amazing cooks, always hosting and trying out new nutritious recipes. They astound me in fact!
Then we have all the madly ambitious cookery programmes on tv, masterchef, junior masterchef, is it cake, bake off….
People are using global ingredients and doing it well, cooking for health , cooking for economy, it’s everywhere.

Done that, I doesn’t work. We have hens and I think the eggs are just too fresh. Can normally get shells off when they are about two weeks old!
But who wants to eat two week old eggs! Yuck

I don’t think it’s about being taught to cook as such, it’s more you tend to replicate what you were brought up with. Both my parents cooked and have the attitude that it’s cheaper and more nutritious than ready meals, which has rubbed off on me - I know this isn’t always the case.

I imagine that because a lot of families are probably very busy these days, they rely more on convenience food, so that will become the norm for a lot of kids growing up and they won’t see the value in cooking themselves.

Not everybody wants or needs to have expert cooking skills. I don't know anyone who can't prepare food, for example, make a sandwich, pasta, baked potato and salad. No, its not sophisticated but a lot of people are happy eating like that.

Jamie Oliver showed me how to do this (on TV, he didn't pop round to my kitchen).

Gentle roll the egg on a work surface until the whole shell is cracked all over. Then it peels off easily enough.

It takes me a long time to cook only a few minutes to eat. I learnt to cook myself influenced by food I enjoyed in restaurants and got the recipe online. I wasn't brilliant straight away , but I found that I enjoyed cooking and kept going. Soon, my repeated failures became skills. It took years of progress until I could could something decent. Not everyone enjoys cooking or just give up after the first few failures.

I can’t boil eggs, well I can but I can’t get the shells off. Tried every trick and still shell is stuck on. Unless old, fresh no chance.

OK. Make every single thread about that. The Op is clearly not talking about people who have a reason not to be able to cook, and that’s what the post referred to.

The person I quoted stated that anyone who could read would be able to cook, I’m not sure why that means we aren’t allowes to acknowledge the existence of people with disabilities.

This isn't really true. I've been abroad for a few years, but last time I Iived in the UK you could get a ready meal for just over a pound. Bread can also be quite cheap and not require any cooking.

I find this argument hard to get behind in the age of TikTok

Again. Yes. The OP is talking nonsense. Don’t see how that’s relevant to the fact that generally people can follow a recipe if they can read.

I was taught to cook in school. Did ‘ Home Economics’ to O Level… I am that old.

But I learned the basics of cooking that means I can pretty much rustle up a meal out of very little and cook from scratch every evening. Saves us a huge amount of money

I think there are endless resources available. TikTok is really good for this- loads of feed a family for a fiver simple recipes etc. when I was young there were student cookbooks that were similar. There are endless free recipes for everything you can google.

I learnt some but not a lot from my parents. But I was well paid and time poor so takeaways/ eating out were the go to. Then lockdown and living somewhere with no deliveries and no ready meals and lots of time changed everything. Now I can cook most things I want and I have the confidence to try others or make subs in recipes. I don't think you need mega knowledge or skills to cook moderately well, and actually knowing a few bases that you like- a basic curry, chilli, etc etc whatever is fine. I've found it very liberating to be able to knock up a curry and naan in the time it would take a takeaway to deliver!

But it’s not based on anything except some random idea she has that loads of people can’t boil an egg 🤷‍♀️

I feel sad for you. Sad you have such friends who can't cook. It's so sad you have to give them your sadness. In real life away from the sadness I don't know anyone who can't cook to some extent. In fact everyone seems a lot better than me. Yabu. I feel sad for you.

I'm not sure where you're getting this from OP. It's never been easier to learn to cook. The young ones at my workplace are always trying out things they've seen on SM.

I wasn't taught how to cook as such by my parents, I just got into it once I started living by myself. It's not exactly rocket science. My teens know how to cook basic meals and I'm sure they'll learn more once they have to.

It wasn’t the OP and she wasn’t commenting in people who have reasons not to be able to cook. The actual OP is about general levels of cooking skills.

You are never too old to learn. You could look on line, watch TV shows, get a cookery book from the library.

Unless OP knows everyone’s health history, she has no place judging whether someone just can’t cook or is unable to cook for some reason 🙄

You can learn!

This is a great website, there's a video and notes on every recipe and you can adjust for how many people you are feeding
I've never had one of his recipes go wrong

www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk