To wonder how someone can reach their early 20's without being able to even boil an egg?

[IceCreamAngel]

Just that really. I could boil an egg at about eight years old! By the time I was 10/11 I could fry bacon and heat up some soup, spaghetti or baked beans on the hob. I could also operate a microwave to prepare myself a ready meal. It wasn't of my parents making me do it either. I wanted to do it all myself, and once I could their response would always be, "ok well you know where everything is".

So quite frankly I'm disturbed that there are young adults out there who can't even manage the most basic of life skills. How the fuck is that even possible? It's appalling and quite sad really.

Because no one shows them how.
If you grow up in a family where no one boils an egg, then it's not a skill you're going to just absorb without intervention from elsewhere.

Did anyone else get the good housekeeping book that you could order from the milkman as a wedding present

Sunny you would think, but no, he thought it was perfectly normal.

When I was a student the homeowner would cook the same meals each night of the week. Things like chicken supreme were useful because all you need is a plate of rice and put some chicken and sauce on top. Faggots with gravy is another one. And, today we have all the ready sauces from the supermarket instead. I don't think they were around much in the past.

Yanbu.

There's another thread going at the moment about a cooking lesson at school or should that read a buying and assembling lesson.

I learnt through salvaging my mum's messes and at school and watching Delia with my dad.

no Wi fer generations are growing up dependant on fast food because no one ever showed them how take anything.

There should be proper home.ec lessons for sure. making things from.scratch and sparking an interest.

your never to young to start either. get those babies mixing cakes etc. sounds daft but they need to be learn asap and become interested. .

No wonder

What does salvaging your mum's messes involve?

Mum was a brilliant cook. She learned in a French restaurant. But, her explanations were things like: well, you know, you add this and that, stir it a bit and...I've got to get the telephone...

re doing lumpy cheese sauce/custard.

draining stuff

reminding her veg doesn't require 20 mins to cook. steam it and should be ready by the time you have dished up everything else.

stopping her cakes from sticking.

or sinking by constantly opening the oven door

My sister. Not interested in food, rarely hungry, treats food as fuel, doesn't get the idea of enjoying food. Works v long hours, lives in tiny rented flat with no storage and a basic kitchen.

As a result she goes for minimum effort meals - sandwiches, salads, ready meals. Quite often she has no eggs in the house which to me is unthinkable!

Given the above I don't judge.

Who are these people and how many of them, really, are there?

I learnt to cook by following what is popularly known as a recipe book. My mother could and did cook everything from scratch but never taught me -- it was just something that I absorbed as a norm. (My father could cook as well but it was a bit more of a performance from him.) There are now gazillions of how-to videos on youtube and recipes all over the internet. Delia even did a TV series/book starting with boiling an egg.

Someone who can't boil an egg is either joking or hasn't put their mind to it.

Grease the cake tin, or line it? I'm guessing that once it's in the oven, it's a bit late. How did you and mum not end up arguing all the time?

How much effort is a moot point. I wouldn't let someone who claimed not to be able to change car oil change my oil. The fact that it's simple doesn't mean that everyone can do it.

I now have an overgrown manchild fiance to look after so I've come on leaps and bounds in those few years! wink

How come you have but he hasn't?

She used to butter and flour tins.

my home ec teacher taught us to grease and line and grease. For the first time we had cakes where three wasn't a dent in the middle where a bit had stuck.

cakes and sauces became my job in the end. We did argue but only because she would hover over me all the time expecting my cheese sauce to need serving like hers

seiving

Yeah, mums

You do realise that I'm not going to make any of these mistakes, don't you!

At least she knew she sucked at somethings.
my father on the other hand thought he was next best thing to Delia.

We still don't mention. The honey carrots saga of 1987

Yes, I've known one my cooking is art, man. tbh, I'd rather not know how to boil an egg than go through all that again!

i don't like eggs so never needed to learn how to boil, fry or poach them!

When I went to uni I could only do very basic thing. Make a basic pasta sauce with mushrooms and pancetta, omlette, that kind of thing. I could follow a recipe but that's not exactly hard.

Took a few years but I'm now highly competent and enjoy cooking.

I don't see it as a major crime of people can't do much cooking, as long as they can get by and learn when the need to.

My DP had to do the cooking for himself and little brother after their mum died. He learnt by reading packets. As a concequence his cooking is functional and he doesn't really enjoy it.

I think there's so much ready cooked, just heat in the microwave type food available nowadays that a lot of people just can't be bothered to cook from scratch. Years ago young women (and it was usually the women) had no choice but to learn a few basic cooking skills when they left home if they didn't want themselves and their children to starve.

I agree thought that it's an awful pity and a skill that is no longer automatically being handed down from parents to children the way it once was. There's a whole generation out there who genuinely think heating up a saucepan of spaghetti and pouring a jar of ready made sauce on top of it is 'cooking the dinner'.

I'd be cross with a 17yo who asked me how to make smash

You'd be cross that a kid had a bit of a brain fart?
You have no teenagers do you?

Egg boiling has changed over the years though. Its one skills I rarely use though.

Isnt it because it was very expensive to buy ready meals. Nowdays ready meals, cakes, biscuits are cheaper than homemade ones.

Still i agree that everybody should know basic skills like how to cook few meals, wash his clothes, clean the house. I dont believe that people (men) cant use the w/m or clean the house. It is just excuses to get away and let others to do it imo.
And i dont find it funny at all when grown up people say ' i can not use the w/m, ' followed by 'ha ha funny'.