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 lucky, my generation had to do domestic science in school, so I learned how to cook, and the benefit of good nutrition.

I have taught DS how to cook some basics and DD loves cooking.
It is such a shame it isn't taught now, I am sure the nation's health would be better if everyone was taught some basic nutrition and cooking skills at school.

I could cook when I left home. I would cook proper meals from being 14 ish like risotto, pasta, noodles, chicken dishes etc I would make them for my young brother as parents worked

Yes, I could cook a bit. Cooked stuff at uni. I had the skills to manage money and manage my studying aswell.

I'm shocked that so many posters couldn't.

I left home being able to cook and bake reasonably well, my mother used to involve me a lot with cooking and taught me, and I've built on that over the years. 6I've made sure my DSes can cook too, I wasn't going to let them out in the world without that skill. They've also had a good role model in DH because he loves to cook.

I could cook quite a few meals. From quite young we were always in the kitchen with my mum. Then she would get us to help out with little bits of meals or putting the oven on, putting the sausages on the tray, rubbing the flour and butter for pastry or watching the toast under the grill or stirring a sauce or gravy while she did something else etc.

I now make and cook quite lots of different meals, much more variety than we would have eaten when younger. But I had quite a good list of things I could do when I left home.

I knew how to make "proper" meals like roast dinners before I was 16/17.

Not at all, I've no idea why DM (who despite what she says, believes strongly in a woman's role in taking care of her husband) never made any effort.

Actually, DM hates cooking and isn't very good at it so that's probably my answer there.

I taught myself when DS was born (he's 17 next month) and made all his food from scratch using the Annabel Karmel books. Today it's one of my favourite things and I cook 99% of the time if I'm at home.

In contrast, DS also enjoys cooking and can cook a range of meals independently and well. He will never starve when he leaves home

I could only cook pasta as my teacher at college told me how! And jacket potatoes. I watched people at uni and learned. I remember someone wiping a mushroom with a kitchen towel and I thought it was practically fine dining! I lived on my own in early 20s and taught myself to cook.

I think you don’t really have to know much, but just get some practice with knives and also practice making a few basic recipes. It’s now much easier with the internet. It’s far more useful to be able to make a few key recipes without resorting to buying loads of niche ingredients and completely messing up the kitchen than it is to be a “good cook”.

Yes, I could cook and was used to doing so. I left home able to cook, clean, mend clothes etc. I spent my time drinking and ordering pizza, but I was well equipped to do otherwise.

Yes because either me or my big brother made the tea Monday to friday from about 10/11ish. We also did the washing, ironing, housework, pet care, chopping firewood, fire lighting etc.

I don't think there was anything I didn't really know what to do. Except having enough money to actually feed myself.

Yep, I did (leave home knowing how to cook). Though to be honest, I think it was just because I showed an interest - I don't think my parents would have forced me to cook if I hadn't wanted to. But then I guess I showed an interest because they got me involved when I was quite young (more in baking but I think that led to cooking). My speciality was chop suey, also carbonara. That didn't stop me living largely off Dairy Milk and Doritos the first year that I lived out at uni. By third year I had developed a pretty reliable rotation involving daal, a pasta dish with courgette and cream, occasional spag bol and pasta pesto with chopped up salad and grilled chicken in it. Now cooking is my hobby but has kind of lost its shine as the baby sleeps in the room next door and wakes up if you so much as drop a spoon!

Same as you, made sure my kids have life skills and competencies, good for their self esteem too.

Yeah, my dad taught me how to cook most things.

I could do homemade pizza, pasta with homemade sauces, steaks, stir fries, roast dinners, pan fried fish etc.

I learned to cook at school but more like a specific procedure, making pastry one term, gutting fish the next, baking bread, cakes, etc rather than how to put an actual meal together unless it was a particular task for an exam assignment. In the olden days cooking was taught as a practical subject which probably helped. It was a double lesson each Friday morning and I dreaded it as mistakes were held up for all the class to see. Humiliation was the name of the game.

Mum advised, "Never mind, when you are in your own home without a teacher looking over your shoulder and picking up on every little thing it will be better," and she was right. I got to enjoy cooking and never thought I'd say that when I was a very nervous schoolgirl.

Completely knew how to cook. I left at 17. My mum had been very unstable for many years prior to her throwing me out and I spent time in and out of care but once I hot senior school age we (me and my siblings) stopped going into care when mum had one of her many, many admissions to hospital and I would be in the position of chief cook and bottle washer.

I also made sure my two could run a home long before they left home.

Yes, what you need to be able to do is make a meal which involves planning. And timing several different things, rather than just making pastry or a cake.

Realising that if cooking a sauce for pasta, the pasta needs to go on about 10-15 mins before the pasta sauce takes some realising and get I got grips with to start with. It's not hard, but many haven't done all the multi stage planning of full meals before uni, but perhaps cooked cakes or pasta with pesto, or shoved oven chips and fish fingers in the oven.

I need to do more with my kids who don't seem motivated without me encouraging them....far more keen to let me serve the dinner.l..but that's my fault for not making them do it...in the end it's the only way if you practice.

That said, I'm not excessively worried, as I went knowing diddly squat and learned within an few weeks as it's actually not that hard and when you're hungry you learn. What did help me in my 2nd year uni (so out of catered halls for first time) was living with a couple of people who had much more clue than me. They thought my ignorance was hysterical and showed me basics....so perhaps they taught me rather than home. Makes me think I must push the kids harder and make them do it....the ore that do the more confident they will be. Sometimes I think it helps if I'm not there as then they can take ages (which won't matter) and do t like me loitering anyway.

Okay, this has inspired me to try harder......shame I've not made most of lockdown. Did I the first one, but haven't bothered so much this time. And

Yes. Was brought up cooking. Am teaching my boys too. It's a life skill. 🤷🏻‍♀️

No I was hopeless. Lived off pot noodles and crap for the first few years.

I couldn't do anything fancy but I could make pasta with nice sauces (am Italian), bake a sponge cake, make scrambled eggs, bake potatoes, cook vegetables and heat up oven food. It was a bit boring but reasonably well balanced for a student. I wasn't very interested in cooking then beyond "not being hungry".

I remember in first year there was a girl who'd been to boarding school who couldn't make oven pizza.

I could clean and pay bills fine.

No idea at all, my Mum wasn't very maternal, she prided herself in her kids but looking back she did the right things, but stuff like preparing us for real life she didn't really do. No teaching us to cook or bake or anything like that

Compared to now - I knew very little. Compared to my housemates at the time I was an expert!

I was a good cook. I can't remember when I couldn't make an omelette or soup. From my early teens I cooked at least one night a week when my mum wasn't there. I like cooking and when I was in my late teens/early 20s I'd come back to my mum's and we'd make fancy meals for the fun of it. I try to do the same with DD so she can make scrambled eggs and white sauce and things like that, and when she's bigger I will teach her more.

I think equipping a child with skills is good, but expecting them to fill in for parents is not. I was expected to fill in for my mum, and neither one of my brothers was expected to do the same. It makes me pretty cross.

Had no idea. Thankfully in the 90s had a brilliant, subsidised work restaurant. Lived on marmite and peanut butter sandwiches at home.