to be annoyed by grown adults who say they can't cook?

[Mintyy]

I don't think I am.

It just makes me think that the person saying as much is a little bit useless.

Who enjoys cooking everyday? I bloody don't. I have a dh who does half the cooking during the week. The thing is, cooking is a necessity. In this day and age when everyone is crying about the economy, I feel it's pretty important to know how to eat healthily and economically. I'm glad you can afford to eat out or buy in food everyday, but most people can't.

Hmm, it is the saying it as a badge of honour that winds me up too. Have had it said to me by another woman in a 'and it makes me more emancipated and therefore better than you' kind of way. Wanted to take the plate with my beautiful banana loaf on it back off her.

My parents aren't keen on cooking, so mostly gave us ready meals. I didn't even know how to toast a slice of bread without a toaster at first. I spent 6 months living on supernoodles before I couldn't stomach another packet of supernoodles and bought a very cheap cookbook.

Purple, forgive ne if this sounds like I'm judging or looking down on your dps, I am really not, I just think this sums up exactly why we should show our kids how to cook, especially now.

As already mentioned, economics alone should get everyone trying to master the basics. It is incredibly expensive to only eat pre prepared food, notwithstanding the health risks.

I also agree with whoever said earlier that it tasted completely different. I think it's as important to teach kids to cook as it is yo potty train them.

I know not everyone's such a food nazi tho

I can't cook. Not at all

I am not useless or lazy or inhuman. What I am is severely disabled

It's not true that everyone could cook if they tried

i can cook but most of the time i cant stand cooking.

now and again i have a cooking bug and do lovely homemade things, but the rest of the time i will use jars of sauces and bulk it out with veg.

OP, I take it you get equally annoyed by people who don't know how to make their own clothes?

I would say I can´t cook-but I suppose what I really mean is that I make as little effort as possible & use short cuts.

But certainly that doesn´t mean ready meals.

Just a lot of easy stuff like chilli, lasagne, carbonara...

DD is now 12 and about once a fortnight she's coooking dinner. I'm getting her to choose something, and we are looking at good but cheap recipes as I want her to be able to budget as well.

She's just completed this year's block of cookery lessons at school, and luckily her school have focused on cheap basic recipes that are more concerned with techniques. For example a macaroni cheese with the emphasis on learning about basic sauces, and things like roux and what it's for/how to do it.

DS is aged 8 and he's getting started on some basic stuff too.

I describe myself as being 'unable to cook'. I have several recipe books, and given the right ingredients and plenty of time can produce something pretty fantastic. But when I walk in from work, have half an hour to feed the family, and open the cupboards to a mixed bag of ingredients, I simply have no idea where to start, so opt for something from the freezer straight into the oven. Similarly, if one ingredient of a recipe is missing, I can't predict the effect that will have on the outcome, or what I could use instead.

DP, on the other hand, just knows what herbs and spices work with what meat, how to rustle up a sauce from a random selection of ingedients, can create a meal appropriate to the time available, and can swap in different things to alter a staple classic.

My mother was the queen of the microwave and we always had a freezer bulging with convenience foods, so it wasn't never part of my upbringing. I've tried working my way through Delia's 'How to Cook', to learn the basics, but when maternity leave ended and I went back to work, that half hour time slot in the evenings just isn't enough to continue learning.

I dont like cooking so i dont cook. I just shove something in the oven. I probably could cook if i tried but i hate it. Dont think i should be judged for that.

LisasCat. You can cook. Perhaps you aren't an intuitive cook, but you can follow a recipe.

YANBU OP. You need to get out of the kitchen and start living life!

I fucking HATE cooking.

My dh loves it and is a genius cook.

I say 'I can't cook' not because I am thick and can't follow a recipe but because I enjoy it so little that I rush it/burn it/ruin it/mush it and therefore my meals are revolting so the whole family say 'Mum can't cook'.

I don't eat processed food nor do my kids save for the odd takeaway/pizza etc.

We eat out loads, dh cooks or I make them brown bread sandwiches with eggs or chicken or cheese and shove some cucumber, carrots and fruit on the plate. Perfectly wholesome and filling.

I agree OP but only if I find the person abit annoying anyway. FIL claims he "cant cook" reality is wont cook as MIL flits around practically waiting on him makes me shudder. He shovels in her lovely food without comment which really pisses me off on her behalf. What gets me is the wont cook male brigade who have no idea of the effort it can take to produce a meal and dont appreciate it.

Do you want to know a cracking example? BiL 'can't' cook - so last time that I was there, helping out with DN one day because my DSiL was ill, BiL expected ME to cook him his meals! I looked at him absolutely gobsmacked.

I so agree about the whole boiling an egg-good cook.

I consider myself a good cook, can do a range of home made food and even indian food after working for an indian family. I cant boil an egg to save my life! It just wont go hard, i even forgot about it once, it was boiling for 20 mins it should have been solid and it still had a bit of drippy white.
I was so proud when at the grand age of 29 i made my first poached egg and fried egg and my dad was like really, you have gone 29 years without being able to do that well maybe if i ws allowed to cook as a teen instead of banned "in case i burn the house down" i would be able to, instead i had to self-teach when i became a nanny and children relied on me to feed them!

i make everything, all meals, bread, cakes etc for my family (thats how i feed 6 on £70 a week) apart from yorkshire puddings, despite actually being from yorkshire i annot make them, ive never made a proper one, they rise like buns

Aren't Yorkshires supposed to rise? Isn't that the whole point?

I make mine in a bun tin.

Kerala Absolutely! I've known several men who say they 'can't' cook or they do it but deliberately mess it up because 'you do it so much better'. And yes, you need someone to enable them to behave in this twattish manner but it's one of my bugbears too. My dad would have starved in a well equipped kitchen. Just after mum was recovering from cancer dad phoned me because he was making her beans on toast in the kitchen of the home he had lived in for forty years and rang ME because being a woman I'd just know by ovarian satnav where the kitcheny stuff was. I didn't know so he shouted 'Mary! Where's the beans!' up the stairs to my cancer striken mum. She shouted back down where it was. Two minute later he was shouting up the stairs: 'Where's the bread?'

But I know men of our generation who think cooking has nothing to do with them as well. I know one bloke who put ginger into spaghetti bolognaise for fuck sake. Spag bog is practically the first thing you learn to cook - it's not POSSIBLE to fuck it up but he managed. I ask my friend: 'He can read - why can't he follow a recipe?' And she says: 'Oh he'd manage to ruin it ho ho ho.'

One of the things I love about my DP is that he cooks. Not as a Big Favour but because we're partners and I'm not his mother and he's not a child.

My mum is a really good cook. BUT she can't cook Yorkshire pudding! Always tuned out like pancakes...

I firmly believe that, given time and motivation, anyone could learn a basic handful of recipes that they could then cook on rotation. It is not difficult but it does take practice. Thing is though, if you don't enjoy cooking, that's just not going to happen. It's a life skill, and it takes time to learn, so as an adult, if you can't cook well, it's going to take a fair bit of time and effort to learn and you just might not be arsed. In the same way I know I should learn some basic car maintenance, but find it shit boring, so I'm not going to bother.

This is why I totally agree it is ideal for children to learn the basics whilst they're young though - so they always know enough to look after themselves, and can build on that if they develop an interest in cooking.

FWIW I love cooking and am obsessed with buying cookbooks - but they all assume differing level of basic knowledge and competence so a novice cook could get put off if they pick up the wrong one. I've always found Jamie Oliver recipes simple, easy and really tasty (except 30 minute meals which I actually think you need a decent level of competence to start with)

My DD is in year eight and has another 18 months before cooking lessons are over unless she takes it for GCSE and ALL she has made is puddings. Oh, and a french bread pizza

Given the economic climate and future health issues it is more important than ever that the next generation know how to put together a basic balanced meal. I do agree that cookery has been poncerised as well.

Frizzbonce at your Dad. Your poor Mum

I can't be assed to cook.

Nobody starves in here, but gourmet it is not.

I'd love to teach people how to cook
That probably sounds weird but I've helped a few friends and seeing how much they enjoyed it and found it easier than they thought made me happy
I'm not great, I learnt from my Mum and growing up in pubs. I can follow a recipe and make things without recipes. Not good with unfamiliar ingredients but I will give it a go

I can follow a recipe. But I don't consider that "being able to cook", that's just following instructions, it's hardly difficult!

Being able to cook, to me, means being like my mum - being able to just look at a cupboard of ingredients and go "I can make this, this and that". And then do it without recipes or any sort of outside help.
The only thing I can make like that is pancakes And even then it's hit and miss! So I don't think I can cook, really.