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!

This is not cooking. This is an abomination.

www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a37939616/buffalo-chicken-dip-recipe/

I know some Americans who are great cooks, and I’ve eaten great food in America, so I’m not going to tar the whole nation.

But there is a sub-section of American cuisine that seems very 1960s ‘add two cans of Campbell’s chicken soup, a can of chopped chicken, and a bag of shredded cheese, sprinkle with cornflakes…’.

And I got lost in a ‘what is a watergate salad?’ rabbit hole on TikTok last week too. Answer: not a salad.

The thing that really does fascinate me is the fact that a lot of Americans eat their meals from paper plates. And it’s not just the more economically deprived.

I've never seen the Pioneer Woman make anything vaguely tempting. I'm an Ina fan.

Two words. Pioneer Woman.

My DH is off sick and is watching this and has just texted me her recipe for festive haystack cookies which is crushed dried egg noodles in melted chocolate formed into haystack shapes. She has made millions from this kind of cooking so it must be popular.

Couldn't get the holiday haystacks link to work. Perhaps just as well.

It seems the OP depends on US bloggers or whatever they call themselves now to teach her how to cook then complains about it. These people are not cooks, they are SAHMs who have a youtube or blog going to pass the time. If you don't want US measurements, then don't look up US recipes, look up a UK site, problem solved! Or god forbid, buy a book. I'm not American but I think this is very unfair coming from a country that seems considers greasy chips or takeaway pie as a meal.

@IClaudine Not that processed but sounds disgusting!!

When I lived in Texas I'd regularly get fellow shoppers peering into my cart and wondering if I was really going to cook everything 'from scratch'. My trolley has never been remarked upon in the U.K

Can I just though says kind word about pasta and tuna with condensed mushroom soup (add peas). My mum used to make this when I was young and added in a bit of Worcester sauce and it was actually rather tasty - sometimes used to do the same mix on rice too

Australian recipes are even worse. Their idea of a show-stopping party dessert seems to involve emptying a tub of ice cream into a bowl and stirring chopped up Tim Tams into it

Exactly this. Most Americans live in vast cities and sububs hundreds of miles from farms and market gardens. (Not to mention a lot of them live in desert - California, Arizona and Nevada are among the highest populated states.) Zoning laws also dictate how living is organised - so housing is segregated from business and shops and agriculture. This means a lot of food is by necessity processed because it's the only way it can be transported and sold.

In the UK we are a tiny country where even the most central city dweller is still a short drive away from a farmshop or a walk from a farmer's market. What's our excuse? I live in London, a 15 minute drive from a pick your own farm.

America is huge so you’re going to see a lot more bad cooks just because of the numbers, I follow a lot of American food blogger types that make everything from scratch and I love their recipes. I don’t think the whole country is bad cooks, lots of places in the states have absolutely amazing food and food culture.

I think it's just how Capitalism wants people to eat. Feed them crap jammed with corn syrup. When they get ill, make them pay through the nose for medicine and healthcare. It's a system optimised for profit rather than health. Our own system isn't all that great either tbh.

I lived for three years in the States, and have been invited to some pretty amazing dinners. Can't really agree with your statement. It is such a vast country, with a rich heritage of international cuisines. Obviously there are people who cannot cook but that's everywhere.
I subscribe to Taste of Home newsletter, and find it quite fascinating, to see the recipes passed down from grandparents.

Plonk all the ingredients (egg, flour, sugar, oil, whatever) into the pan you are going to use to cook it. Stir it all together (not significantly more difficult than using a bowl). Cook.

You can do a sponge with flour,sugar, eggs butter (not oil shudder) using the all in one method but you have to use baking powder.

I think another thing is they don't go a bundle on what we call fresh ready meals for whatever reason- yet have enormous freezer sections and stuff in packets and jars.

You can get some nice ready meals but it's more high end like whole foods etc- so it tends to be more cook from scratch or packets, frozen or jars - believe me I love a good snoop round an American supermarket. !!

And I got lost in a ‘what is a watergate salad?’ rabbit hole on TikTok last week too. Answer: not a salad.

Top tip: a Glasgow salad isn't a salad, either.

@ pluvia
On different weights and measures being used, it's an interesting topic.
I have an old (1943) Indian recipe book that gives its measurements in seers and chattacks, and an even older Indian one (1920s) that is even more frustrating because it gives ingredient amounts in the amount of money they cost to buy at the time (e.g. two annas worth of flour). An anna is an obselete subdivision of a rupee.
Also have a Greek and several Eastern European cookbooks where the liquid measurements are given in either "glasses" or "wineglasses".

On the topic in general: I lived four years in America, three years in the UK, four years in Japan, three years in India,a year in China and now in Germany for over twenty years. Every place has had good cooks, bad cooks, amazing cooks and lousy cooks.

Oh, and using oil in cakes rather than butter. Surely at least in some cases it will be to keep it kosher. So perhaps indicative of religious requirements or inclusivity rather than simply "bad taste".

I'm not sure that's true. The taste and texture is usually massively inferior from a box cake. Sometimes it doesn't really matter (kids parties, for example) but generally I wouldn't touch a box cake.

And I am not averse to slinging a jar of sauce and some frozen veg in a pan of mince and calling it bolognese, so no saint in this area.

I think that is just a TikTok thing
really don't think Americans are any different to British

Some will cook from scratch
Some will use packets and jars
Some will eat ready meals and takeaway.
Most will do a mix

What with the packet hate anyways
They are great for midweek speed and ease

While the UK is filled with people using processed food, I think a major difference in the US is the number of additives and scary sounding ingredients in their processed food. Even sweets and biscuits etc have double the ingredients than in the uK version. Maybe they have to list everything and we don't? I don't know.

@DazedandConfused1234 yep I'm making bolognese tonight and it will involve a Lloyd grossman jar and some Waitrose sofrito

I’ve just googled that out of interest, and the percentage of unemployed mothers in the USA is higher than any country in Europe

I love how she suggests mozarella to add flavour! But actually while your arteries would fur up just looking at a bowl of this, I bet it is quite tasty with breaded chicken strips.