To think that cooking isn’t hard...

[CrabappleBiscuit]

....as long as you are physically fit and not unwell and don’t have a disability that makes it hard, and have access to a kitchen and equipment (disclaimer)

Friends who say they or their partners ‘can’t cook’. But hold down jobs, drive cars and can put together flat pack furniture.

It’s not rocket science, read a recipe and do it. I like cooking and I’m good at it, dh isn’t a great cook but he still cooks a fairly limited repertoire but he does.

Is it just laziness?

Oh BertrandRussell here you are! How are you today?

No, sorry, it really is not a male/female issue. Unless you mean that men are being thrown out of the kitchen when the Womenz kicked them out for not respecting their space and doing things wrong, meaning in a different way?

Maybe on tv, but not in real life for most people, sorry

I'm depressed to hear that children aren't taught to cook at school any more.

My mum could cook but I didn't learn as much from her as I did at school. My Home Economics teacher taught me cooking 'skills' such as baking cakes and biscuits, making bread, sauces, different types of pastry, and ordinary family dishes such as spaghetti bolognese, macaroni cheese and stew.

Why don't schools teach cooking any more? Is it just because of lack of funds, time and/or facilities? Or is not considered important?

I think culture plays a part as well.

White working class men have traditionally had a mother or wife to cook for them, white working class women have traditionally had to cook.

In some cultures it is almost shameful not to cook or at least to know how to.

stayathomer

You need some guidelines and a confidence boost, don't try to replicate your husband's cooking - it will never be the same.

Avoid pork chicken and shellfish and you will be fine with not poisoning people.

Steaks, chops, most fish can be eaten raw.

Start with the things you can do and then build up on them.

You can do lasagna, so you can do moussaka. You can do spag boll so you can do other spag / pasta dishes.

Build up gradually.

Try pesto spaghetti. Just buy a jar of pesto, cook the spaghetti, drain, put it in a bowl and add some of the pesto. Stir it and you have another thing you can cook.

There are lots of things that influence the lack of cooking. People work long and stressful hours now and don't have the time to do it. My DC have never had cooking lessons at school. It also depends on the culture of your family. In my house we have a Sunday roast every week or go out for lunch. My friend can't remember the last time she did this. To me this is a very important part of my British culture. My DH is not British and because of his influence we all cook together and chat and then sit wound the dining table every day and eat and chat for at least an hour or so. My eldest is a brilliant cook and this is because he has learned that hanging out in the kitchen is the place to talk and laugh and be close to each other. Many families don't even eat together now. It is so sad.

The thing with the Internet and recipes in general, is that you don't know which to trust - there's actually too much choice and a lot of poor recipes and bad advice out there. It can be overwhelming.
This is very true. I can't count the number of new recipies I have tried (in my never ending quest to find quick, nutricious, tasty vegetarian meals that both DH and DS will like) but they very often turn out very bland and not great at all.

The basic dishes I know how to do very well are Italian ones because my mother was Italian and a great cook. Over the years I learnt about making a good sofitto, risotto, ragu, home made tortelli etc, lasagne, cannelloni etc. I learnt the techniques from her just by helping out and her telling me stuff. My cooking is not as good as hers but on Italian food, I get lots and lots of compliments because I know how to do the basics very well without a recipes mostly and do it by eye/feel/smell .

Other cuisines are more tricky for me and as I have very little real interest in cooking, I often can't be bothered to learn the basic techniques. Many wonderful cuisines rely on someone (usually the woman) spending a lot of time in the kitchen and that is a lot of work often and I learnt early on that if I got very good at cooking, I might get stuck with it for life .

Our Christmas lunches (prepared exclusively by my mother) were legendary for many years amongst family and friends,. 6 courses of lovely home-made food including ravioli. Those homemade ravioli needed a whole day put aside beforehand with us helping my mother to make them, all by hand, including making the pasta, rolling it out, stuffing them and cutting them out individually. That didn't include the cooking of the stuffing the day before or the making of the broth to cook them in.

This was just for the second of the 6 courses (yes we had antipasto first) and before we even started on the roast dinner or other fish/meat dishes that she prepared.

Yes it was nice and in a romantic view you might see that it was lovely for family to gather and cook together. The reality though was that my mother (who always worked) found it a lot of work and quite a lot more stressful over the years but felt obliged to keep doing it as she felt it how she showed her love. Whilst the memories are nice, I also know it took a toll on her.

On the year I was born (on 13 Dec), my older sister tells me we had 20 people for christmas lunch. I was a very difficult birth so we both stayed in hospital for 10 days and came home on 24 Dec. As my father knew nothing about cooking, nothing had been done and no-one had contracted guests so they were still coming (Thanks dad!).

So she set about making ravioli for Christmas lunch the next day and making the desserts. Luckily she had bought/ordered the ingredients in advance. aas I was due so close to Christmas

She did it most of it on Christmas eve with my sister (7 years old at the time) 'helping' a bit. Knowing my dad she probably also had to wrap DS's presents as well before going to bed.

She ended up collapsing to bed as soon as everyone had eaten the next day. That is just bonkers but she felt so wedded to how important the food was to a celebration and how everyone expected the lunch to be great that she couldn't see another way out than to exhaust herself.

Quite frankly , looking back I'd have preferred a quicker easier meal for Christmas and most of the other "celebrations" she did this for.
I'd have preferred to spend more time with her doing something less stressful and which did not require so much work in preparing and cleaning up etc. Then again maybe that is just me.

Kids haven't been taught to cook in school properly for years. I did Food Technology up to fifth year in secondary school (and I took my GCSEs in 2000) and I never made anything sensible or useful at all. It was pitta bread pizza with pre grated cheese and packet jellies for dessert. My mothers generation were taught to make pastry, stews, proper family meals.

I'm still not great at pastry. I've improved but only when I met DH and his 92 year old grandmother shared her recipe with me, then corrected me by taste on my first go!

To be able to cook you need a knowledge of the basics eg how you need to fry off onions and garlic before you put them in anything, the speed at which things cook etc etc.

@stayathomer are we the same person? I'm lucky to not set off the fire alarm at least once a week. My DS has also commented on my weird tasting food

I want to learn, I LOVE food/eating and people assume I'm a total foodie, I just cannot seem to master actually making it properly myself. I have considered cooking lessons but the thought of cooking in public terrifies me.

I married a chef.

A book recommendation for anyone who wants to learn to cook - Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Cookery

Someone borrowed my original one so I have recently rebought it - it isn't a recipe book it tells you how to cook, what the words / jargon mean, where different meat comes from and even how to peel and chop garlic.

Unfortunately it is out of print but is available second hand.

www.amazon.co.uk/Readers-Digest-Complete-Guide-Cookery/dp/B0007CEG4W/ref=sr_1_33?s=books&keywords=readers+digest+cook+book&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1527165482&sr=1-33

Cooking might be easy if you can read but some people hate it and it isn't a priority. All of my ex boyfriends have, to a man, been far better cooks than me. I can't bear cooking, I hate food shopping, I hate the time it takes and I hate the clearing up. I have no inclination to experiment with food or cook anything more exotic than a bolognese or stir fry that I can knock together in a wok in 10 minutes. I wouldn't know where to start with introducing extra ingredients, how to bake a cake or how to do a roast, and I have less than zero interest in learning. I feed myself and I'm still alive and that's as good as my cooking gets. Conversely though I love eating, if I could afford a live-in chef I'd have one.

Absolutely if you can read and follow instructions then you can cook.

Being a good cook comes with practice and probably a bit of natural ability, but anyone can cook enough to feed themselves and their kids.

I’m not a great cook, but I can follow a recipe and have it be edible if not amazing. My dad loves cooking and has reached the level that he doesn’t follow recipes, it’s instinct for him. He taught me a few basics (after demanding “who taught you to peel potatoes?!” When I was making a mess of it “no one!” Was the answer!)

The internet has meant people no longer need to rely on their parents teaching them the basics like how to boil an egg, you can just google it. There’s no shame in admitting it or asking for help because it’s an anonymous search engine.

I definitely think that for some people it’s a learned helplessness and they choose not to learn. People who can drive and hold down demanding jobs but claim to be incapable of following a simple recipe

Try pesto spaghetti. Just buy a jar of pesto, cook the spaghetti, drain, put it in a bowl and add some of the pesto. Stir it and you have another thing you can cook.

This is not an easy thing to do to someone who is totally a novice in the kitchen
Cook the spaghetti - how much? How long for? How do you get the long spaghetti in a round pan of boiling water? Then what do you do? leave it, stir it?
Then what's the best way of draining it? And then does it have to go back in the pan?
And how much pesto? What's best to use to stir it in? Wooden spoon or metal? Then what?

See... its not that easy if you've never done it before and never seen anyone do it before.

I get the impression that Food Technology courses at school are more about skills for the commercial food industry than about preparing delicious food to eat at home. Possibly, the intention is to promote the processed food industries and free up people to spend more time working for the economy rather than ‘wasting’ time cooking their own meals?

Emmasmum2013

Please read what I said, start with what you know, ie the poster I was replying to can make spag bol.

stayathomer and sweaty I wonder if your cooking is as bad as you say. OK, yes you set off fire alarms and set fire to kitchen roll but honestly if you can knock up a spag bol, you are actually an OK cook, and your kids saying that are perhaps parrotting something you have said? (do you say, oh this tastes funny, my spag bol isn't as good as Dad's, his tastes better etc)

I honestly think confidence plays a big part.

On the pesto spaghetti thing, surely someone can read a packet, it says explicitly how to cook it. Then drain it and dollop in some pesto and if it's not right, you just try less or more next time. |You won't ruin it by shoving it back in the pan, or swirling pesto when it's in your bowl or whatever....

If you want to cook better, you have to stick at it. I did when I was younger, I honestly was more clueless than anyone on here but I wanted to get better slowly but surely so just persisted. I do think some people just give up after one disaster and almost think it's cool to say they can't cook or something. (Disclaimer - not everyone, some people have issues that cause them anxiety when under pressure like cooking a meal)

My DCs boss me about in the kitchen, but they're better cooks than me now! However, I do say to them that I've been cooking meals for decades and the novelty has worn off somewhat

Some people just can't cook just like some people can't draw.

I can cook and I love spending time in the kitchen making meals.
It annoys me when people don't eat it or say they don't like it (when I can't see how they don't ) I can't afford to do trial and error.

I taught myself how to cook as my dm was a NIGHTMARE. I wasn't allowed to cook at home unless it was something she liked so pasta, rice, pork anything with herbs or spices was out. Even if I put a pizza in the oven she would stand next to me telling me ide done it wrong
Even baking which is one of my hobbies. I wasn't allowed to make anything other than fruit cake or Victoria sponge. Then there shed be pushing me out the way to do it herself. I gave up in the end and went to my nans and cooked for her. She also thinks dm is batshit

I remember watching a Jamie Oliver (I know) show years ago where he was teaching young single mothers how to cook.

There was a woman who gave her kids takeaway chips with kebab meat shavings covered in melted cheese virtually every single day (JO theatrically ran outside crying saying he had seen orphans in Africa eat better). It cost a £1 a portion from the chippy next door and she said she didn't have the money or time to go to the nearest supermarket. Buses ran hourly and cost a fortune.

The children ate from plastic cartons with their hands as she did not have cutlery.

Jamie decided to make spaghetti bolognese. He told her the first step was to brown the mince. She told him she had no idea what that meant, had never handled meat before. She did not own a saucepan or frying pan. She was about 25. It would be easy to think this woman was lazy but she had never once seen either of her parents ever cook. She eventually grew up in care, had kids young and simply never learned. She was fed a diet of crap and passed that on to her kids.

I wouldn't be quick to judge someone who can't or seemingly 'won't' cook. You never know the back story.

@sashh

That's good, and I wasn't trying to knock your suggestion to the previous poster, pesto pasta is amazing and simple. But a lot of the time people will suggest 'easy' recipe's to people who say they can't cook (and are genuinely total novices) and expect them to have some level of skill, and I think that's where the anxiety comes from for some... they genuinely don't know the best way to do things that others take for granted.

Sorry for singling out your post!

Being taught at a young age is a huge advantage. I was cooking beside my mum as a kid so basic things like when the onions are done enough to add the next thing are second nature. It’s easy to mess up a lot of cooking and get discouraged when you’re starting to learn as an adult. Things like how big to cut potato wedges to have them cook in a certain time - you can easily end up with one part of the meal that feels like it’s never going to cook, and another that’s already burning. I had the advantage of someone experienced catching potential mistakes before they happened, showing me how to save stuff when I’d gone wrong, and guiding me through it so I never thought ‘I’m shit at this’. I did make a really crap tomato sauce the other day, though. Just really disappointing, after 20 years of making the same bastard thing.

On the flip side, my PIL are far from lazy and cook from scratch every night. I would say they can’t cook, though. They follow recipes to the letter so often things are under or over cooked because 12 min is 12 min no matter what the actual food in front of them looks like.

I'm putting him together a cook book of my recipes for when he does leave home (very soon).

When you do I must pass on my dad's recipe for a fried egg with out oil in the pan. He was so pleased that he had managed to fry an egg. (could not find the oil in the cupboard though. Baby steps!)

In some cultures it is almost shameful not to cook or at least to know how to

name one (that covers men and women)?

Miggel

I've yet to meet a Jamaican, male or female, who can't cook.

The Aka tribe are quite famous for the fluidity of 'male' and 'female' roles.

In Samoa, cooking is traditionally done by men.

Eastie77

I remember that.

Emmasmum

NP.

I always think threads about not being able to cook seem to go from not cooking at all to cooking from scratch everything including making pickles and chutneys.

I always think it is better to start with what yo have got, so if it is a ready meal try making a veg to go with it, that kind of thing.

I've know very few men who can't cook.

My father, uncle, all of my partners, all decent cooks. My son is now a good cook. Friend's husbands are good cooks- where is this idea that men can't or won't cook coming from?
It's not my experience.
I have met one or two who are a hopeless disaster in the kitchen- but equally I have met a couple of women who are of the same bad ability.