to beleive that a lot of people in the UK don't actually know how to cook.

[OrmIrian]

They know how to follow recipes. And it isn't the same thing.

I am quite old. I was brought up with a mum who had been through the war and was totally intolerant of waste. So left over meat from Sunday roast was always used up - cold with salad and baked potatoes, or made into cottage pie or a stew. Whatever was left over in the fridge got made into something and if you were a half-decent cook it was delicious. For example last Sundays lamb shoulder leftover were taken off the bone and slow-cooked with some pearl barley, lentils, sweet potatoes and the remains of the red wine gravy. On Tuesday there was half a pack of sausages in the fridge - they were chopped and cooked with some chorizo, garlic, passata, basil, chilli and onions and served with pasta. Dh was about to get a load of mince out of the freezer and cook spag bol - the sausages would have stayed there till they were ready to walk out of the fridge on their own.

When my children cook at school they always seem to learn how to cook specific dishes - not the general techniques that would serve them well for general day-to-day cooking. DD loves cookery programs - when she decides to cook she comes out with a huge list of ingredients that would cost a small fortune because someone on Masterchef did it! They are learning to do it my way, but it's slow progress.

Cooking is being able to make something good out of whatever is available. Not just being able to make something good out of a trolley load of expensive ingredients.

"The 'bung in a bit of this that and the other' is a different method which, unless you know what you're doing, can easily result in big old tasteless mess" But that is how you learn to know what you are doing. Otherwise you are only ever cooking other people's ideas.

I can cook as you describe, but can also be put off by a fear of "best before dates"; I know that these are essential for certain ingredients, but I think that they are unhelpful mentally with regards to discouraging me from chucking unlovely but still ok looking stuff into casseroles etc.

"that is how you learn to know what you are doing. "

DM is 75. She has learned nothing because she thinks she thinks she knows what she's doing. I had to learn to cook using a Delia book because, if I'd copied DM, I'd be producing the same carelessly tossed together crap.

Cooking is an art and should not rely on a recipe.

Baking on the other hand, is a science and recipes need to strictly adhered to.

Also i had to teach myself to cook vegan recipes and used recipes. I now eat mainly vegaterian and wouldn't want the dishes served up from most "traditional" cooks and eat what is their idea of veggie cooking.

Sorecipes are not a bad thing, most of the ingredients that i use, my grandmother couldn't have got in the UK, due to the poverty of the 30's then the war, so couldn't have taught me or my mother how to cook.

"But cooking is a very basic life skill. " Exactly. It isn't an artform, it's way of keeping body and soul together in an enjoyable fashion.

What was the Korma Incident Stratters?

I don't understand

You know how to use leftovers. How is this a skill ?

Heston is more of a showman IMO. He can cook amazingly, but it is flamboyant, pushing the limits, experimental cookery, not your basic wholesome cooking.

I'm a bung it all in cook, I don't need recipes, apart from baking, because I grew up in a family where cooking was valued and passed down. But when I do need a recipe I will go for Delia, Mary Berry, Jamie Oliver or Good Housekeeping more often than not, because I know they will work. Simple, but doable.

Not trying be mean btw, I genuinely Im not getting this

"It isn't an artform"

Maybe not but it is a skill. If no-one shows you the basics, it doesn't matter how much innate talent you have, it will never emerge.

Funnily enough I can cook the basics really well, I know how to make sauces and I know how to thicken things up etc and make up recipes BUT give me an actual recipe and I always fuck it up as I am not precise enough!

"If no-one shows you the basics" But that is what I am saying cogito. Only following recipes won't show you the basics - it will show you how to cook a particular dish. You need to have the courage to go off piste.

This thread makes me feel like I am the only person who shops with meals in mind. We don't ever have just leftovers or unspecified bits in the fridge. It is all meant for something.

I am a ready-steady-cook too. I am always putting things on the table the family have never seen before with a disclaimer that it has only just been invented and I always get told 'oh that means it will be delicious then'

I can follow recipes of course but it is soooo handy to just 'know' how things go together, it has been useful and got me out of a pickle (think unexpected guests) several times. But it came from years of experimentation and much exposure to different methods ingredients etc working in kitchens.

My sis is a great cook too but she can't work from glancing in fridge, she has to have a recipe and right ingredients. She can cook though and avoids waste by buying to her menus and not buying spares or unplanned stuff.

Horses for courses.

You must be better at portion control than me then if you buy a chocken or a joint of meat how do you know it will all get eaten in one meal?

"Only following recipes won't show you the basics "

Disagree again. If you follow a recipe for a basic tomato sauce often enough then you've got a building block for a lot of other dishes whether you realise it or not and whether you go on to make those other dishes or not. Yes, it takes courage & experience to leave the recipe book behind but I don't think that warrants slamming people who feel happier using one.

I don't think anyone really showed me the basics, my parents never taught me to cook and the only things I saw them cook were basic meat and potatoes type meals which is nothing like the (vegetarian) food I tend to make.

I started off using recipes then just started to change and adapt things as I went along, it just seemed like a natural progression.

It is a bit of a risk to start with as you don't know how it might turn out - but tbh most things are edible even if they've gone a bit wrong, and you learn a lesson for next time about what works and what doesn't!

A totally unworkable recipe from Food Tech. DD, DD's BF and I cooked it 2 days before, but it was obvious it wasn't going to work. Frying cauliflower florets for 10 minutes is not the way to cook them for starters.

Did a thread and it turned out that the recipe is in some Government booklet aimed at getting kids cooking in secondary school. Well, that ain't going to work, cos the recipes are shit.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/1429330-Jesus-wept-DD2s-Food-Tech-teacher-has-excelled-herself-today

YABalittleU

But actually the last part of what worldgonecrazy said is true. I grew up in a house where both my parents worked FT and so even though pastry for pies and some meals were made from scratch, occasionally Mum would make a meat pie with tinned meat because of time constraints.

But these days if you don't have the skills and want to learn, buying the raw ingredients can be really expensive. So yes, I am scared that I'll get it wrong and money will be wasted. Plus things don't seem to last like they used to. Everything is 'use within 2 days' which isn't always ideal unless you want to eat the same thing two days in a row!

I would love to be able and have the time to make things from scratch and maybe if someone can write a cookery book on making the basics, I would buy it and give it a go!

making up recipes from leftovers is half the fun of cooking! DH doesn't always agree with me on this one, but I have created so many different pasta sauces just by lobbing different leftovers into a cheese sauce/tomato sauce/ white sauce/ curry base. Some of them have been requested the following week, and I have to admit to not remembering how I made the original one.

I think learning to cook from various recipe books should tell you what flavours generally go together well, and from that, you SHOULD be able to make up a meal. However, this obviously doesn't hold for everyone, and I'm not sure why.

I'm another who doesn't tend to use recipes as such, but I do use Jamie Oliver books as a starting point sometimes. Good Housekeeping too, but there aren't any other recipe books that I really rate.

I think recipe books can help with confidence. I learned how to make macaroni cheese from my mum. And how to triple fry chips( Heston is so copying her). But that's about it. Everything else is self taught...from books! My kids eat a wide and varied diet because of it....I do agree it's you about being taught the. Basics would be good. We had utterly homemade pizza last night from the dough to the sauce....v easy and kids loved it.

Maybe it depends on size of family this - there's only me and dp, and toddler who only eats at home on weekends, so we often have half a package of meat or whatever to use up.