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 best way to learn is a recipe book then you go all free form. I make up recipes all the time, but I needed a foundation first

I rarely bother measuring Ingediants for savoury dishes now

Though I agree with baking, that requires very specific measurement this would take years to know by sight how much exact flour you had etc

It's just like Learing to ride a bike, you need stabilisers first

I have a copy of Marguerite Patten's Cookery in Colour fron the late 50s that my mum gave me. It tells you how to make basic things like yorkshire pudding and gravy and how long to cook pheasant etc. There are recipes for more complex things but they are a bit odd and the photos are distinctly unappealing.

Baking def needs measured...I am just starting to bake(well sort of) and you can't just throw it all together....and it makes you fat

"but I don't think that warrants slamming people who feel happier using one."

Slamming?

I don't meal plan religiously. I find it boring. I get a veg & fruit box, often a meat box, have a huge larder and buy the odd thing or two each week, also have herbs, veg, lettuce growing in greenhouse/garden. I do cook some recipes but my family love my "what ever is in the bottom of the fridge" meals. IMO most people need to go through the recipe stage to be able to make things up effectively. Although my MIL has to have a recipe for every meal, which I think is really weird given she is 70 she uses Delia and knows it off by heart but never improvises.

I lament the fact that the skills of baking, jam/chutney making, bottling are being lost.

I'm happy for people to use recipe books all their life as long as they don't buy ready meals every night.

Theres never any leftovers in my house either. I must either be great at portions or we are all a little piggy and eat everything thats going. On the odd time there is something left (like some potatoes) I take them to work for lunch.

My stand by is sweet chilli sauce. If you make something and it doesn't taste great, add sweet chilli sauce. And its always lovely.

Edit : will only work if you like sweet chilli sauce!

OrmIrian Was that to me? I don't know that it will get eaten in one meal, but I usually buy enough to portion up dinner and then enough for DH and I to bring for lunch the next day. Sometimes, if I am making something especially popular, I will make enough to have a couple of days running.

I don't know how I know this will work. I think I just look at it and see how it will portion out.

"Slamming?"

You said that people who use recipe books 'don't actually know how to cook'.... Do people who read music 'not really know how to play music' because they're not making up their own compositions or playing by ear?... Just sounds rather contemptuous and a little snobbish.

Hmm. I don't really agree with the OP. I cook from memory or just according to my internal repertoire of recipes/techniques quite a lot because I am old and experienced and also because I live in a country where we still have street markets and it is hard to meal plan because one often just wants to buy whatever is freshest or on offer when one gets to the market.

But I do look at recipes and follow them and, tbh, I wouldn't get such great results if I didn't have all those techniques to hand. Learning to cater for a family requires multiple skills (shopping, cooking but also nutrition, catering to individual needs and tastes as children grow etc) that are frequently underestimated by those who do not possess them!

Portion control is pretty easy surely? You just use your eyes....

Or with pasta no more than cup per person

YABU to learn to cook, you need to learn a few things:
The technical parts - how to cut, how to fry, how to whatever.
The flavour combinations that work together, and those that definately won't.
The results of cooking, and how to achieve what you want - ie you need to know how to thicken a sauce for example.

To do those things, you need to learn, you could just experiment from first principles, but that would take forever and I'm still not completely sure you'd figure out a basic thickened cheese sauce within the first 20years of experimentation. So the normal way is to learn from recipes, either ones from other cooks (your mother, school, TV) or simply from recipes.

Until you've learnt from a recipe, you'll never learn to create from first principles. Obviously some people will never get the confidence or interest to move on from the recipe to applying the knowledge, but recipes are simply the basic way that you get the skills to cook.

I've not used a recipe other than for inspiration for a meal I've cooked since I was about 17, but I learnt to cook with them for sure.

YANBU. It is a dying art and so many people throw away decent leftovers for lack of imagination/knowledge of what to do with them. I love the challenge of a pile of leftovers!

It's just me and DD2 at home now. I buy meat, then divide it up into 2 portion amounts. If we have someone over, I just get 2 bags out instead of one.

Exactly Fred

I wanted to make vanilla custard the other day from scratch

I wouldn't just "know" what to do. Especially as I rarely eat it.

I needed to look it up on the Internet.

I am also rigorous about buying new recipe books every year and updating my repertoire. I don't want to eat the same meals for the rest of my life!

I absolutely agree with you Orm. As well as your main points about versatility and knowing techniques, not recipes, most people are very narrow in what they can/will cook - most of my friends of my own age will only cook chicken breasts, mince, already-prepared meat. They wouldn't dream of buying a whole chicken/chicken thighs etc or the more unusual cuts like skirt steak, offal, pork cheek or whole fish such as rainbow trout. These cuts are so often reduced and we pick up meat cheap as chips because I will buy and use literally anything. You can eat very well on a very small budget if you know how to cook cheaper cuts.

fredfred - I learned those skills but not from a recipe book. From my mum by and large.

I know what Orm means by 'just following recipes' though Cogito. my DH can follow a recipe very well and can turn out some credible stuff, but what he is not is an instinctive and experienced cook. He would be completely thrown by being given a pile of random ingredients and being told to produce a meal with no recipe and no plan. He would not know what to substitute if an ingredient was missing and he has little knowledge of the basic techniques/processes needed to achieve certain end results. They come through practice and experience, yes, but someone usually has to teach you in the first place.

I think you are right op !! I'm in my 40's and grew up in a household where my mother and grandmother cooked traditional food from scratch. My shopping usually consists of raw ingredients and I buy meat when I see an offer and freeze it.
I often use the ready, steady, cook approach when things need using up or I'm trying to avoid a trip to the shops!
I am shocked by how many people don't have basic cooking skills, we eat really well but my food budget is low as I make most things myself - when I look at the price of ready meals I am horrified...............

I'm teaching my children to cook, they love helping, one of my daughters favorites is home made burgers. Last week she had some friends over for tea and we made pizza - each girl rolled out their base and topped it with whatever they wanted - we had great fun and they enjoyed eating it.

To me being able to cook is an important life skill, it's good to know how to make a cheap healthy meal in next to no time and is a great help when money is tight!

A lot of people in the UK don't know how to diagnose and fix a GC-IRMS either

Yeah, it's not quite the same though is it ? I've never had to do that in 36 years but I do have to feed myself and my family 3 times a day

I think you are very lucky if you grow up in a household where you are taught skills like that, otherwise you have to teach yourself. I used to have to follow books but am now quite good I think at making things from scratch and meal planning. I like to do a casserole, eat most of the meat out of it the first day and the second day I whizz it up and make it into a soup and serve with crusty bread.

I agree that masterchef is rubbish now maryz.

You are right. I can be quite a good cook but I don't know how to cook in the way you describe. I don't I ever will either.