Did you leave home knowing how to cook?

[lemorella]

I left home so unprepared for adulthood.

I arrived at uni and thought it was perfectly fine to live off peanut butter. I didn't start cooking properly until I met my DH in my mid 20s and was trying to impress him. I just taught myself through a bit of trial and error and the bbc good food website. I love cooking now and do most of it as it's my way to unwind. I was never involved with any cooking when I lived at home and was never asked to contribute to the household in any way chores-wise.

I also had no idea how to manage money, I could set up and pay bills just fine but constantly lived in my overdraft despite having a job through uni and a good loan, then subsequently an okay paying job. It wasn't until I started saving for a house that I learned to budget.

I don't blame my parents at all for my hopelessness but I can't believe they let me be so lazy and contribute so little to the household when I lived there and then let me leave home never having cooked a meal! (We were quite poor not that that makes a difference, always had food in the house).

Did anyone else leave home the same way or did you have parents who instilled the life skills needed in you?

I was married at the age of 19 (back in the olden days in 1963) and I couldn't cook. I expect my then husband could, but of course it was never questioned who would take on that role. He'd been at university for 3 years so I suppose he could. I learned by trial and error, so he had to suffer! I used to be a good cook, now I can't be bothered most of the time.
I didn't know anything about money management either but luckily he was red hot at that. We were poor for a long time and when we were in a position to think about saving up for a house he didn't want to. Property is theft etc. But I did know I didn't want to pay rent when mortgage payments wouldn't be much more. Of course in those days you could save up for a year or two without prices sky-rocketing out of reach.
Because we got on the housing ladder then we could have a property each when we divorced 27 years later.. I feel sorry for today's young people.

I used to have cookery lessons at primary school, so did my DSs. I would cook family meals in my early teens because my parents were working and home late, I encouraged my sons to find a recipe each per week and cook it. It was great!

Depends how you define cooking.

I knew how to prepare vegetables, make cake, read a recipe. I knew how to tell if something was cooked, especially meat. I knew that I needed a varied diet.

Specific meals? Not really. But enough to get by, and learnt through experience.

I moved in with my OH aged 21. I couldn’t cook but soon learned how to! Was rubbish with money and he was even worse. He’d been brought up in poverty and suddenly had a fairly well paid job and he just went bananas!!

I knew how to put burgers/ sausages/chips etc in the oven, how to open a tin of something and microwave it and how to boil veg until they were inedible. 😁

I learned to actually cook after I married and had my sons.

And to make sure they didn't have the same problem I had I taught them to cook (and clean) bloody young!

Yes as other than a vile evening dinner (my mum is a rotten cook) we had to fend for ourselves.

My parents gave me no life skills because they didn’t have them themselves. Cooking, however, is not a ‘skill’, the way, say, driving is. If you can read, you can follow a simple recipe.

I could cook bolognese, pasta and sauce and a roast dinner. Was enough to get me by while I learned to cook other things

Exactly the same as you! My mum was a SAHM so I was never asked to do any chores or cook. If I ever had a go I’d usually get laughed at ‘for doing it wrong’ so I gave up.

Taught myself to cook through uni but DH now does the cooking - he enjoys it.

I’m still horribly lazy at household maintainence.

Yes I cooked my own dinners from the age of about 14.

I moved out at 16 when I was pregnant. I had no clue how to cook or budget. I learned pretty quick. Now I bake cakes as a side job and have bought a house only took me nearly 10 years.

No, I was bloody useless.
In my second year at uni tried to boil an egg and didn’t know you had to boil the water first = raw egg.

But to be honest, when you need to feel yourself you learn fast, and within a year in a house instead of catered hall, I was perfectly capable.

Learning g how to cook a Victoria Spomge won’t keep most people fed, but basic dinners like shepherds pie or a spag Bol are often missing for lots of people. But when you’re motivated and hungry you do learn fast.

Yes, I could cook all sorts of things by the time I went to university. I actually think my home economics GCSE is one of the most useful qualifications I have, despite 10 other GCSEs, A levels, and three degrees. It's a shame there isn't more emphasis on life skills (including managing finances) at school. As someone has already said, a lot of parents don't have life skills themselves.

My mother couldn't stand housework and made sure it was distributed around members of the household. I don't think it had much to do with wanting to prepare me for leaving home.

I really didn't either! My mum hated mess in the kitchen so we were always banned from there. I remember her being REALLY antsy if we tried to make something for ourselves and she hovered, fussed and generally made it miserable. I remember pestering her for recipes/methods of some favourite meals so I could make them myself when I left for university. I had no clue about using a washing machine either or really cleaning my home, I remember being surprised that the white shower tray went pink when it was dirty! How naive was I?
I did know about finances though, dad made sure of that.

I was the same. I lived on Dolmio and pasta really. I rang my mum really confused by how I would wash a cream top with dark stripes (a colour or a white?? tho in fairness this still gets me sometimes now some 3,560,456 loads of washing down the line).
I am really pleased that my eldest (17) is an amazing cook - largely because she became vegan. I know when she goes to uni she won’t be eating the jarred crap I did.

I can’t really remember learning how to cook, but I moved out at 18 and ate a lot of one-pot pasta and stir frys for a few years, as well as plenty of pub meals. I think as you get a little older and your tastes and lifestyle change, cooking becomes more of a feature of the evening. Until you have young children and it becomes a competition to balance adequate nutrition with speed of preparation and minimal clear up time..

I had to teach myself the cooking I do now.
But I was excited to get a free run at a kitchen and choose my own recipe / ingredients.
I ready knew how to peel a potato and how to boil a pan of soup up from lentils and bits of veg. I had learned how to bake a bit at school and at home.

Most people I know only really got going after they'd left home but I would say it helps to have been included in helping out at a younger age.

Nope, I left home at 17 thinking I knew it all, turns out I knew sweet fuck all.
I'd watched my mum cook plenty, heard her talking about paying bills, running the home, all sorts of adult stuff. Just assumed I could do it too and it would come naturally.
Years and years of trial and error, being on the phone to my mum whenever I needed to cook something that wasn't ready made in a box in the freezer, whenever my washing machine made funny noises and whenever I had a blocked drain, I realised I didn't know shit and wish I'd stayed home.
I'll definitely teach mine a thing or two before they fly the nest.

My mum doesn't like cooking herself and never taught me much. I've learnt myself and I'd say I'm pretty good now!

I went to university with someone who had never even made a cup of tea, his mum used to be waiting by the front door with one when he got home. Never done a single chore in his life. It made me really sad to watch him struggle with basics like taking the bin or making pasta.

No not really I could put things in the oven ,and heat things up but that was about it ,I was single throughout my 20,s and wasent interested in cooking ,I only really learnt through trial and error after I got married and had kids ,through necessity

Yes. I went to boarding school, and in the last year we were given raw ingredients to cook with rather than having evening meals with the rest of the school.

I heard of a kid in halls who didn't know how to cook his packet of pasta. Maybe it was an urban myth?

Yes, I was a reasonably competent cook when I left home (at 17, to go to university). My mum got me and my brother involved in cooking dinners from when we were in our early teens and on the two days a week where she and my dad both finished work later, we were responsible for getting dinner started. I definitely wasn't as skilled or creative a cook as I am now, but I had a solid range of dishes I could make and I knew how to navigate a recipe and skills like mise en place that aren't always obvious to those who have never cooked.

I keep meaning to leave the kids to it (older teens) but I can't get away due to covid😂.