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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

'I can't even cook cheese on toast'

649 replies

NaughtyLittlePassport · 07/12/2016 13:09

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 Shock
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?

OP posts:
ravenmum · 07/12/2016 14:47

My daughter (soon 19) is aupairing with a French family now and the parents were amazed that she can do crêpes, and asked her for the recipe :)
Both busy professionals with plenty of cash to buy ready meals. Their au pairs cook for the kids!

I didn't cook until I was at uni, and even then I was so embarrassed I knew zilch that I only really started learning any skills when I had a kitchen of my own and could do it in private. Would have been very embarrassed if someone who was theoretically my equal offered to teach me, underlining quite how useless I was.

Jellybean83 · 07/12/2016 14:48

My DH can't cook, he can heat things in the oven but he can't cook.

I cook 100% of our meals, I've had a few stays in hospital this year and my DH stocked the fridge with M&S microwave kids meals and chicken teddies for DS. I don't mind cooking, I'm a good cook and the rule is I cook, he does dishes.... I know which one I prefer to do. Grin

If a new friend told me that she couldn't cook I'd just assume that it was her partner that done the cooking, my first thought wouldn't be that the children aren't being provided with home cooked food because she doesn't cook.

HoopsandEverything · 07/12/2016 14:49

Soubriquet How old are you children?

I would totally put your category in the "reasonable" reasons for not cooking - it's not just that you haven't learnt (which is where I started out - I think I did post that five years ago I couldn't cook a thing). A phobia is a phobia and I know with phobias they aren't nice things to have and you have probably tried many things to conquer it.

But I also think, from what you posted about "getting creative" your children have more of balanced / nutritional diet than what the OP posted her friend feeds her children.

As I am kind of adventuring into the whole "child friendly cooking" now, once i've tried and tested the new recipes I would be more than happy to send them to you and you could see if the kids liked them? I won't send anything that I don't think tastes anything less than exceptional, that way there is no pressure on you to taste test them.

Also, do your children cook with you? Could they do the tasting bit as you went along?

Serin · 07/12/2016 14:52

I never saw my mother cook a meal, not even once in my entire childhood.

My DDad did all the food prep/cooking/baking etc. He was a chef in the navy before they met and I am sure that was part of the reason she married him Grin

In our house both DH and I love cooking, both of our teenage sons are quite competent with things like steak/roast chicken or chilli but their older sister is terrible in a kitchen. Clumsy/burns everything/is generally beyond useless. She also lacks any interest in trying to improve. She is at uni and assembles salads or eats fruit and nuts like a squirrel.

You sound very judgemental OP, people have survived for thousands of years without double ovens and microwaves.

Soubriquet · 07/12/2016 14:54

Oh I was totally expecting to be flamed for that...you've just made me cry a little bit Blush

They are 3 and 1. So not really old enough to be in the kitchen.

The 3 year old is better being served it otherwise if she sees it cooking it's "yucky"

For example yesterday they had sausage chips and beans for dinner.( was fajitas Monday) and I got the potatoes out to peel. She immediatly saw them and said "I don't like that one"

Obviously once cooked she was fine

honeylulu · 07/12/2016 14:55

I doubt I would say so directly but it really gets on my tits when people claim "I can't cook" when they actually mean "I don't want to cook and have no interest in learning/I am much too busy and important for domestic dross like that".

user1471439240 · 07/12/2016 14:57

She was perhaps feigning helplessness to secure an invite to xmas dinner from you?

CheerfulYank · 07/12/2016 14:57

I don't actually believe that anyone CAN'T cook.

I don't care if people do or not, mind, but I don't think anyone actually cannot make cheese on toast. Or like...scrambled eggs or something.

Temporaryname137 · 07/12/2016 14:57

I thought I was the only person who did a microwave cheese toastie!!!

DP says I am disgusting. I shall inform him of this forthwith.

LunaLoveg00d · 07/12/2016 14:58

Yes I would be shocked. My 11 year old can cook - not a cordon bleu meal, but things like spag bol, scrambled eggs, fairy cakes. If a child can do it, an adult that can't is distinctly odd.

Catra · 07/12/2016 15:03

YANBU.

Any able bodied adult without a food phobia should know how to cook.

Some people may choose not to cook and who am I to question their life decisions, but to actually never have learned to cook - a basic lifestyle skill - is utterly baffling to me.

I'd have acted with the same astonishment as you, OP.

pooh2 · 07/12/2016 15:03

Jfc you sound really rude... I don't blame her for avoiding you.

HoopsandEverything · 07/12/2016 15:07

Soubriquet I was perfectly prepared for someone else to come in and tell me to mind my own business when I replied to you!

Kids at three can taken random objections to anything - remember that, because you are maybe (obviously I don't know you) so concerned that she's picking things up from you that you are mislabelling normal three year old behaviour. My friends three year olds are all trying to find their feet, and their voices, and their opinions, and they also know that food is quite an easy subject because it's a time when lots of new foods are being tried and tested (so, if you are three, it's a lot easier to use your "No" voice).

Fajitas is a really good meal for kids to enjoy - do you do it with flour tortillas? Because from the base of the tortilla you can make several dishes - pizzas and California wraps (both which the kids can help create without being involved with the cooking and both with different ingredients to the fajitas). Not sure how comfortable you would be trying both of those out?

With the fajita "stuffing" you can adapt to spaghetti Bolognese, loaded sweet potatoes (or normal potatoes), Taco shells (maybe too crunchy for a 1 year old though?). We tend to make a big batch and freeze and vary the contents by adding in carrots / corn / beans etc. when we get the portions out. Again, not really sure if you would be comfortable with changing some ingredients in or out for a meal.

Is that helpful or are you sitting there reading this thinking "what is this fucking idiot on about (I won't be insulted if you are, just let me know)"?

And you're kids have had two super varied meals in two days as well just on Monday and Tuesday :-)

MrsKoala · 07/12/2016 15:07

My DH can't cook anything . Not even cheese on toast. He buys food ready made if he has to eat or feed the children.

He is dyslexic and massively struggles with instructions, organisation and timings. He also seems unable to tell when the gas is high or low (it just looks 'on' to him). He gets irritated if people try to teach him or make out he is flawed in some way.

SeaCabbage · 07/12/2016 15:07

Soubriquet, please don't be put off giving your children food just because you can't taste it. If there is anything you could cope with trying to cook, as long as you follow the recipe it should be fine. The kids will soon show you if they like it. Smile

HoopsandEverything · 07/12/2016 15:08

My friends three year olds are all trying to find their feet, and their voices, and their opinions, and they also know that food is quite an easy subject to rebel against because it's a time when lots of new foods are being tried and tested (so, if you are three, it's a lot easier to use your "No" voice).

Soubriquet · 07/12/2016 15:11

Thank you both Hoops and SeaCabbage

I'll have to look into it

YesItsMeIDontCare · 07/12/2016 15:12

To those of you who think all adults should be able to cook and look down on those that don't -

One of my ex-husband's controlling tactics was to do the cooking. When we first moved in I admit I couldn't cook much, but he soon refused to eat what I could cook (because it wasn't to the exact specification that his mum used to do it) and took over cooking. Every time I tried I was ridiculed because I "didn't know what I was doing"... that turned in to the "fact" that I couldn't survive without him... blah blah blah.

Please just bear that in mind. You don't know what goes on behind closed doors.

motherinferior · 07/12/2016 15:13

My father can't cook. Nothing at all. He can't make a sandwich.

I find this appalling.

ravenmum · 07/12/2016 15:15

I don't think anyone actually cannot make cheese on toast. Or like...scrambled eggs or something.
If you really haven't got a clue, you might struggle with anything.
When I left home I hadn't made anything more than a sandwich. I was really too embarrassed to boil an egg in front of anyone else, as I didn't know how hot you'd have to set the ring, how bubbly the water should be, if you should put the egg in before it boiled, or how long you should leave it in after. And I had a vague idea that you might have to put it in cold water at some point or the shell wouldn't come off. I was so scared of someone laughing at me for getting it wrong that I never dared try! (OK, so I did suffer from social anxiety, but that's not that uncommon either!)

Madinche1sea · 07/12/2016 15:16

Many people don't bother learning to cook much. My DH makes the kids cereal and that's about it, but even he would know how to make cheese on toast because it's all in the name and the grill is in the kitchen with an on / off switch. So even though I don't think he has ever made it, I'd be shocked if he actually couldn't. It's a bit like saying you don't know how to brush your teeth.
OP - I think you either went on about it a bit too much, or your friend has some kind of neurosis about cooking and can't even bear the subject to to be mentioned!

SelfCleaningVagina · 07/12/2016 15:26

I do understand that people might not have had the time or inclination to pick up much, if any skills, but I find the glee with which some people announce not being able to cook, as if it were some odd badge of honour, annoying. People don't brag that they are functionally illiterate, crap at sex, or can't drive without almost killing someone, why be so pleased with yourself that you can't do even basic cooking?

Totally agree with this. With women particularly it's as though they think they think cooking is demeaning and for boring 1950s housewives and they are so above all that.

It's a pretty important life skill and some might say essential. We live in a country and a time where pre-cooked food is readily available but who knows when that might change? If there was a major war or national emergency as an extreme example, or if our financial circumstances suddenly changed for the worst and we had a much smaller budget and still needed to feed the family reasonably healthily. Or you might find yourself living in a different country where there just isn't a culture of buying ready made food so you have no choice but cook.

It's perfectly okay to be just adequate at it without being brilliant, especially if you have a partner who is happy to take responsibility for it most of the time. But it's really nothing to be proud of to say you can't and won't cook even the most simple thing. It's embarrassing. It makes you look a bit stupid.

BravoPanda · 07/12/2016 15:26

Anyone can cook, those that say they can't are just too lazy or scared, for whatever reason, to bother.

I find it hard to believe anyone is unable to brown off some veg and mince in a pan and add a tin of chopped tomato and let it simmer while boiling some pasta? Or is it that they just don't want to?

Is sticking a chop under the grill and some diced spuds in the oven, to make wedges, suddenly rocket science?

Bollocks, sorry. Everyone should know how to cook, even if they're not doing it every day.

user1480946351 · 07/12/2016 15:27

I think people are missing the fact that anyone CAN (or easily learn to) cook simple things like cheese on toast.
But some people choose not to. And they don't have to if they don't want to. It's a perfectly valid life choice, even if you have children.

YesItsMeIDontCare · 07/12/2016 15:31

I do understand that people might not have had the time or inclination to pick up much, if any skills, but I find the glee with which some people announce not being able to cook, as if it were some odd badge of honour, annoying. People don't brag that they are functionally illiterate, crap at sex, or can't drive without almost killing someone, why be so pleased with yourself that you can't do even basic cooking?

Totally agree with this. With women particularly it's as though they think they think cooking is demeaning and for boring 1950s housewives and they are so above all that.

^ Or it's a form of self-preservation because they want to hide the fact that they are in an abusive relationship with a control freak.