'I can't even cook cheese on toast'

[NaughtyLittlePassport]

Prepared to be told IABU.
Having coffee with a relatively new friend, I said something about making Christmas dinner, she then said that she 'couldn't even make cheese on toast'. I was visibly gobsmacked and as it turns out she really can't cook anything!
She was really offended that I was so surprised, and told me she'd always been too busy to learn. I've offered to help her with some basics but she's ignored my message and cancelled our DS's playing together
To not drip feed I was really shocked, going 'what not even. ....' and questioning what her kids eat probably a bit too much.
But really, wouldn't you be shocked if a 40 year old couldn't cook anything at all?

I'm not going to continue on with the beleaguered, bothered, and bewildered either. I'm off to drink my coffee in peace, and then do the menu plan for next week. Cheese on toast will NOT be on it.

The definition of someone who "can't cook" is so wide that it's sort of pointless, though.

My DM "can't cook". According to my DF, who was and is chief caterer. Cooking was never a gendered job for me growing up. Actually she is a fine cook, it's just he's better. And she likes to eat stuff he doesn't so he'd prefer to be in charge of the menu & catering and not have to be on the hook to clean up

My SIL "can't cook". She can heat up/follow instructions etc. But her DC are fine eating sandwiches, school lunches, ready meals and takeaway/meals out, or MIL will cook for them, so where is the incentive to learn?

My FIL "can't cook". When he got divorced from MIL, he found a new wife who could, so no worries. He makes an excellent cup of tea, however.

My DH "can't cook" (MIL is definitely a background factor in a lot of my examples!) He can make cheese on toast (in fact this is his go-to sole diner meal), can do eggs all ways, can stick stuff in the oven, can grill a sausage or panfry a steak, can follow a basic recipe and can totally fuck up a reasonable dish by adding a ridiculous ingredient He can feed the DC adequately well - pesto pasta peas, eggs, fishfingers/pizza/etc., wraps & sandwiches, soup & salad etc. But if he were the only parent catering it would be shit. He could choose to learn, and I hope he would, if I were not around.

I "can cook" - by which I mean I can make something balanced and nutritious out of any ingredients lurking in the fridge and the store cupboard, pretty much off the cuff and without a recipe or a plan. I care a lot that my DC eat a balanced diet - not too much wheat, not too much salt, more from scratch than from the freezer etc. But I agree with MrsHathaway who said way up thread

Cooking is such a lovely hobby and skill when you don't have to do it ten motherfucking times a motherfucking week.

I LIKE cooking. But in terms of feeding kids and a family it is a huge CHORE, and so I can see why no one in my examples above "can cook" - it's because in all cases someone else will step in and do it for them. I don't think it matters who has a penis or not, but it does matter that there is someone else assuming the burden of worrying about the nutrition. Just like cleaning the toilet or hoovering is a chore, or the laundry. If some other bugger will do it adequately then why rock the boat?

So the DC in the OP's example had nothing to fear. But I do have to agree that no one should be wearing the "can't cook" thing as a badge of pride.

I can cook - but for the past 12 months I have hardly bothered.
I put the odd soup together, but other than that I prepare salads - put ready made quiches in the oven and throw a jacket spud in. Make an omelette.
I try to keep takeaways to a minimum, but I am so tired of cooking proper meals from scratch.
I feel like I could live on cereal and toast rather than cook properly again.

This thread has got me thinking and I don't think I've cooked a meal for my dd for about 3 weeks.

If someone can't handle melting some cheese under a grill then how are they making a sandwich? I mean, most salads are more complicated than pesto pasta to prepare.

It's easy enough as an adult to eat without having to actually cook - but I'm loving the faux shock on here

Things like roast chicken can be purchased in the supermarket. They're already cooked. A parent could easily purchase that when it's hot at the supermarket and that's one meal that doesn't have to be cooked by the parent.

And it would be perfectly fine for those occasional days when you are in a rush and just want to throw a pre-cooked chicken and a bag of salad on the table.

But that chicken it would have been injected with a solution of salt and sugar and probably a bit of MSG.

Whereas a home roasted chicken is just a chicken. And how many people are truly incapable of:

1. Taking a fresh chicken off a polystyrene tray

2. Putting into a roasting dish

3. Putting it in the oven and turning it to 180 degrees

4. Going back approximately an hour and a half later and taking it out.

If you threw a few whole small potatoes and other chunky chopped root veg in and threw some oil at them you have a tray of roast veg too. You don't even have to peel them if you don't want to. That's a home cooked nutritious meal and it's no effort whatsoever.

I don't think you have to enjoy cooking to accept that you should be capable and willing of at least that level of effort a couple of times a week. Or chopping some chicken and throwing a jar of ready made sauce at it and boiling some rice or potatoes. It's just ridiculous to not even do that.

Everyone should be able to cook basic meals. My teenagers can cook a range of things, they look up recipes on the internet or in a cookery book and then follow the instructions, and do at least once a week. I'd consider myself a very poor parent if they couldn't cook to a decent level before leaving home. I asked ds what he thought about someone who couldn't cook and he looked at me very blankly and asked why not.

No gender bias involved, I'd think a single adult man who said they couldn't cook anything at all was incompetent and one that said they didn't ever cook was lazy. Sure for some people some aspects of cooking might be more of a struggle, and when you first learn some things might be daunting, but there are loads of resources available now.

When I first met my dh we did a I cook and he did everything else domestic for a while, but changed that pretty fast as cooking is a bigger chore than doing the washing and cleaning once a week, and washing up is only a few minutes really. He learned to cook from books and now cooks lots of stuff better than me.

Agree that everyone should be able to cook basically, and I think it's a little unusual for a 40 year old of any gender not to be able to.
However, unless she said 'I wish I could cook...' then ywbu to offer her cookery lessons and react with horror. Perhaps she is sensitive about it and feels offended. If she had said it to me I'd have just said 'oh right' and moved the conversation on.

Well that got a bit hysterical didn't it!

The decinotion of 'can't cook' has changed to mean that they can do a jacket spud, omelette and pesto pasta and that's not what it said in the OP.

If someone said to me that they couldn't even cook cheese on toast (as in didn't think they could even work it out and have a bash at it) and were serious, rather than being humorous, then I would genuinely be concerned for the welfare of their children. Not because I thought they would die of malnutrition, but because I wouldn't be fit to be in sole care of them. I mean how do they work the bath out? Do they know they need to stop them from running out onto a busy road?

Because let's be honest, making cheese on toast requires about the same amount of common sense as either of those things.

*definition

Oh for goodness sake do people really believe when someone says they "can't cook! Not even cheese on toast!" That they mean they are incapable of opening packets and putting things in the oven, then turning the oven on?

Because news check: that's not cooking. That's not what they mean

I burn toast

And trying to get a soft boiled is impossible.

I can cook if I follow a recipe diligently. I won't know if it's a bad or good recipe until it either tastes nice or awful.

I can heat stuff up in the oven though.

I don't think you have to enjoy cooking to accept that you should be capable and willing of at least that level of effort a couple of times a week. Or chopping some chicken and throwing a jar of ready made sauce at it and boiling some rice or potatoes. It's just ridiculous to not even do that.

Seriously? So as an adult who has nobody else to feed, I should cook a couple of times a week even though I don't want to and don't need to? Wow.

And I include 'heating things up' on the list of things I don't do

Navy you really have got a bee in your bonnet over all this

Frankly at the end of the day, it's none of your business. So why get s worked up over it?

Mrs hathaways comment touched a nerve with me - exactly having to cook day in bloody out drains all pleasure from it. Dh cooks well and does a meal at the weekend which he obviously enjoys doing yes cooking one headline meal a week is fun. Cooking has been ruined for me by the incessant ness.

Also I do not enjoy any food I have cooked -does anyone else have this? If someone else has made it however basic or frankly crap it is it tastes delicious to me.

In my next life I will be someone who "can't cook" like my fil. Mil just skivvys round after him.

I agree that cooking is a drag when you do it day in, day out. A bit like having to do laundry or washing up.

I find the opposite KERALA, I enjoy the food I've made myself more because in my mind I've made it 'my way'. Even if dp makes exactly the same thing using the same ingredients and techniques it's never the same. I'm sure it's entirely physiological for me though .

People on their own can do what they like.

Actually, people with children can do what they like too. They don't have to cook if they don't want to. A person can provide a healthy balanced diet for their children even if they cannot cook. Just because they do things differently from those who do cook doesn't mean it is wrong, and it doesn't mean they are depriving their children of anything either.

Life's funny like that. 😆

It's just such a shame that people have to be so judgemental and unsupportive of other people's valid choices.