Americans are lazy cooks

[Dogonthebed]

I’m an avid Pinterest collector of recipes. I see something I like the look of then pin to that’s week meal plan only to find out it is an American recipe Recipe stretching it as they seem to have shortcuts for everything we can’t get in the UK. Can they actually cook? It is the equivalent of us making a cottage pie from a Coleman mix. Anyone else find it bizarre how much help they get for basic recipes then having the cheek to set up a blog as recipes??? They could just read the back of the instructions fgs!

@RetinolStings ha cool whip, all I can think of is Stewie in Family Guy…

what is cool whip anyway? like birds dream topping? or canned squirty cream?

Excellent butter chat, thanks to pp's. Every day is a school day.

It's arse FYI

I'm not the poster you were replying to but you've blown mine! This sounds like an excellent and convenient system and I wish we did butter like that- I'd always wondered how one could scoop a precise tablespoon of butter from a block, now I know!

American recipes use volume over weight as a measurement. Negates the need for scales which seems odd nowadays but is maybe left over from pioneer days. I’m guessing.

You needed a copy of the old Better Homes new cookbook it's the one with red checker pattern on the front. Everything was from scratch, times and temps for meat etc.
Every one of my friends in the US had a copy.

They may well have lots of things processed, but ready meals are not easy to come by. No big fridge sections with meal deals to make your life easier. Processed isn't a requirement anywhere.

American family food is incredibly processed. I couldn’t believe how poor the basic home cooking was. A good example of this is Ann Romney’s cook book. I picked it up in charity shop and lots of the recipes included cans of soup etc. and it was marketed as good family cooking.

But people in the UK have been eating similarly unhealthy things for years too, it's just that they're different foods because they're different countries and have different products available.

20 years ago, while my American relative's mother was serving casseroles made with mushroom soup, across the pond mine was serving curry made with gloopy ready-made sauces etc (I'm not remotely judging either btw because I don't always serve 100% cooked from scratch food either!) And I'm sure in both countries, there were also people making everything from fresh ingredients. It may seem odd to use condensed mushroom soup (for example) in a casserole, but I'm sure many UK culinary quirks sound completely bonkers too if you're not used to them.

I thought was WAS the definitive opinion of Brits anywhere outside our shores. In fact I thought that was the opinion we have of our fellow countrymates as well, at least if they live in a different part of the country.

I do cook from scratch 98% of the time, but my favourite ‘just CBA’ meal, I don’t mind admitting, consists of a tin of tuna, a tin of condensed mushroom soup, cooked penne, and frozen peas. Recipe came decades ago from one of those cookbooks compiled from school mums’ recipes. Sounds vile but actually v tasty.

A Dsis has lived in the US for decades and is a very fussy eater - all organic, no crap at all, so I was 😱 when once looking after her young dd to be told she could have ‘Mac ‘n cheese’ - out of a packet!! As a pp said, pasta and bright orange powder, just add milk and butter.

Should add that DSis loathes all dairy, though, always has, so she’d never have made macaroni cheese from scratch.
Niece evidently enjoyed it, though!

Are you familiar with the Class system in Britain all over MN, I don't think we all raid Greggs!

Using condensed soup was a pretty standard way to make a quick casserole when I was growing up.
Mum would cook ahead at the weekend for a few midweek meals and other nights we'd need quick (cheap) options that me or my sister could throw together.

Given we can now buy jarred bechemal sauce in the UK I don't think it's so different.

Some people seem quite narrow minded.

Cups are a very quick and easy way of measuring. You can knock up muffins while the kettle boils and the tea brews. Brilliant for recipes that can cope with a bit of leniency in the measurements. Handy for small kitchens or students, no scales needed just and enamel cup.

Google shapes your searches to you. If you watch the silly how bad can you cook videos, it will give you those recipes. There are loads of good American cooking sites out there that will allow you to toggle between measurements.

Have some of you never heard of The Joy of Cooking, the US equivalent of Mrs Beeton?

I think cup measurements are standard. Used in many recipes across the world.

my mum has a cup wedged in her bag of rice and bag of flour. Normal stuff.

i like watching the Pioneer woman. Don’t make her recipies (fish with cheese? Cheese with everything). But she cooks nicely for her very active family and it looks nice. Marshmallows on parsnips I couldn’t do.

in the uk we eat lots of crap. Our laziness is takeaways, lots of them.

my sil is Italian in Italy and is a shit cook - about 15 years ago they introduced findus crispy pancakes and she’s hooked. Laziness or no time to think properly about cooking all over the world as we get time more time harried.

I think cup measurements are standard. Used in many recipes across the world.

There isn't one 'standard cup', see the wiki page I linked to on cup (unit).

I think mine are ones I bought when living in the US.

Marshmallows on parsnips I couldn’t do. Neither does anyone in the US that I know of. Sweet potatoes, yes for Thanksgiving in some regions. Parsnips (which aren't even eaten much in the US), no.

Just FYI, you old charmer, I read all the way through the thread to the end, then started my post about wtf is a stick of butter but was interrupted by needing to take my old dog out into the garden for him to be sick. I don't know what he'd eaten but he had me up till 3am. Having settled him again, I finished my post and posted 17 minutes after the butter stick explanation.

Do many other countries have different measures that they use when writing up recipes? I went to some cooking classes in Thailand and when we needed to measure we used scales and grams. I've also done Indian cookery classes in India: scales and grams too. But what do I know — because according to you I'm stupid.

I recently had some of the best food o have ever had on holiday in California- amazing fresh stuff , great smoothies- but none of this was cheap and some of the street food down at TheGrove in LA was first rate

To balance it out I've had some of the crappiest shit I've ever had has been in the US too

As someone else said there doesn't seem much in the middle- it's top class high end and all fresh or lots of processed gunk

I think it comes down to price- the USA is a hard country to get by in if you aren't doing nicely (not dissimilar to here but more so) and hence processed gunk is a lot lot cheaper to do on a daily basis

I think the issue is that some bad cooks have a platform in social media to peddle receipes made of the most processed stuff.

When it's the ones that use fresh, good quality ingredients, the food looks amazing.

There's two I keep seeing that have a habit of shoving raw pasta in a dish with a tiny amount of liquid and unholy amount of cheese, and calling it a pasta bake.

I used to work in the USA (Texas) and started a family there. Still cook a lot of American recipes, prefer fluffy American blueberry pancakes to our flat ones for example.

Plus Ina Garten got me through the breastfeeding years. Love that woman and her books/TV shows.

The teens\young adults seem to be all enjoying a resurge of the late Anthony Bourdain. Don't think anyone would have been brave enough to call him lazy!

That is a bit of a sweeping statement! Mind you, the Pioneer Woman is very guilty of this sort of not-cooking at times.

Gives you the absolute boak. Have seen some on YouTube videos online and it's disgusting to see. Especially on channels geared towards young children. As if it's totally normal!

There seems to be plenty of comments from Americans saying that British food is shit and we're all shit cooks, so have at it <shrug>

Same to you @mathanxiety