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?

of course it's being lazy. We need to eat to survive, so choosing not to cook is just that, a lazy choice.

That said, nothing wrong with splitting household chores 50/50, and one doing most of the cooking because they like it whilst the other one does something else. You don't need to cook 50% of the meals to have a happy and fair relationship.

Having a penis has nothing to do with it (obviously).
My DP does most of the cooking at home, and he's a great cook, can do curries, roast... Even made sushi a couple of times.
I can cook, but the main difference is that I don't really enjoy the process like he does. I just cook because I like nice food.
I do enjoy baking though.
We had a housemate in his late 20s who couldn't cook though... Nobody had ever taught him. All he ate was pasta with sauce from a jar, and tinned soup.
I taught him to make a cake and bread though, and he bought himself a Japanese cook book and managed to make a couple of things.

I agree that if you can read a book you can cook. But my DH is hopeless. He can follow a recipe but he finds it really stressful and gets in a right flap. He also seems to lose his ability to use common sense. If for example a recipe calls for a teaspoon of dried oregano and we haven't got that he'll think that he can't make the meal. It wouldn't occur to him to just leave it out or use basil instead.

Anyone can learn to cook - it’s just a question of how motivated you are. My teenage son is a fantastic cook and often cooks for us he loves trying new ingredients and recipes, his older sister less so. I think it comes down to how much you enjoy eating and what priority you place on it.

I can cook and do cook and I don’t like processed stuff so cook from scratch. I don’t enjoy it because it’s boring, time-consuming etc. I’d rather be outdoors. I don’t do fancy stuff or use recipes. I just rotate a very healthy vegetarian menu that is in my head. Not killed anyone else.

Exactly Ikeep - he cooks, I clean and do washing... Works for us!

I have a few go-to recipes that I can throw together in the evening, I meal plan and shop accordingly but I bloody well hate it. I hate having to cook, make sure everyone is fed and then clean up afterwards, it is the bane of my life. If I never had to cook again I wouldn't.

I can cook. I just don't like doing it. I have noticed as I have got older that my cooking is worse than it used to be though and I have more thingd go wrong through not really caring and rushing too much.

I find myself resenting the time spent on it more and more. Particularly at this time of year
When I come home from work I want to be doing stuff in the garden, going for a walk/ going to my singing group, reading whatever I have on the go etc. The things that give me joy. Cooking is a chore, particularly everything associated with it, like planning, shopping and clearing up, though all the pouring, chipping, mixing, heating,cooling are not exactly riveting either.
I suppose having a vegetarian family (I eat meat) who doesn't much like food or eat to live has killed any small enjoyment I used to get from producing nice simple good meals. I could live on omelettes, grilled meat/fish and simple salads with some tinned pulses and simply cooked vegetables thrown in there -really easy and quick meals. This doesn't work for my carb addicted vegetarian family

I do think most people can learn to cook but I think some don't want to
So YANBU I suppose

Also agree that putting salmon in the oven, boiling potatoes and making a salad is cooking.

What SIL defines as cooking isn't - jars and packets for everything, frozen freezer food. She doesn't even cook rice, she buys those packets you just whack in the microwave. You can't serve up a tray of microwave rice with a tin of chicken curry and claim you've cooked it. You've not. You've heated it up.

In response to the comment by Freddiesgirl (and I'm genuinely interested so to how you manage this, not being goady/rude, you say "I'd agree- can't believe what people feed their children in particular. We'll probably get flamed, but both myself and husband have FT jobs/commutes and we still manage to cook from scratch most days!"

How do you manage to feed you kids from scratch meals - are they teens?

By the time I get in from work it's 6.30pm - I haven't even spoken to the kids at that point. There is no way they could wait for me to then go on and cook a meal from scratch before they ate it. They are in bed for 8pm (age 8 and 6).

Or do you do FT hours but start very early?

Oyster are you married to my DH?! That is him to a T !

I don't cook much. I don't enjoy it and don't attach any real importance to it. And I'll never understood the attitude that people who don't cook must be living on crap. Last night we had a choice of veggie sausages or chicken breast strips, pan fried in olive oil, frozen spinach and red peppers, tinned sweetcorn and ready made root vegetable mash.

The question isn't "Do you resent or dislike cooking, or sometimes find it a burden?". (I think everyone who is busy does at times).

The question is "Do you buy the excuse that certain men just can't cook, even in the most basic definition of the word "cook"?" E.g. "I'm going into hospital, and the doctor has ordered 3 weeks of bedrest after, but I'm still going to have to get up and cook otherwise the family won't be fed because DH doesn't know one end of a saucepan from the other".

My 18yo is a disorganised dyspraxic. Cooking is in fact very hard for her due to the motor skills (she gets burnt more often than not, and she is pretty lethal with a knife, and when stirring things get stuck to the bottom or fly over the edge) and the timing everything to come together, and actually the following written instructions. It takes her an hour to make a meal I can do in 20mins flat.

"Exactly Ikeep - he cooks, I clean and do washing... Works for us!"

Out of interest, how does that work out in terms of hours spend doing stuff? And do you clean up after he cooks?

I always say I can't cook but I really mean I don't want to cook I suppose. My husband cooks and if he's working I have Birdseye food, frozen pizza, soup, super noodles, those filled pasta things, something on toast etc. I don't care enough about cooking to give a shit.

The very first line of the OP's post exempted cases where there's a known medical issue that makes cooking more difficult.

It's not hard. It's just boring.

Ready meals and take away shave made it easy not to cook. It’s the same with many things, solutions have been found to save time and thought so people use them (because we are lazy and would rather take the easy option).

Schools are not great at teaching cookery, my dd’s School is particularly rubbish at it, we are asked to weigh out the ingredients at home and to even prepare most of it at home because there’s no enough time to do it at school, they are teaching our kids that cooking takes time and we don’t have time?

I enjoy cooking but I don’t always cook from scratch because sometimes it’s only me eating as the dd’s Have cooked school meals, although I love cooking from scratch I hate the washing up and mess left afterwards, I don’t have a dish washer (another item made to save time that we don’t really need) so cleaning up 20 items just to provide one meal for me seems a waste of time.

@BoxsetsAndPopcorn - •people saying they can't cook, need a cleaner, can't possibly by expected to work once they have a child etc. Lots see, lazy and entitled and leave it to others.*

Do you grow your own food, build your own furniture, work 16 hours a day? Let's see, lazy and entitled and leave it to others.

Of course anyone can cook if they can read. However many prefer to hire a cleaner (I do as I hate cleaning and prefer to spend time doing things I like), leaving the person who is better / prefers cooking to do so in an equitable division of labour in a relationship. Choosing to work when you have children is no more valid a choice than staying home with your children.

I am lazy as regards cooking so do eat too many ready meals. Maybe unrealistic about what cooking is after seeing friends cooking and chefs on TV.

Would you class stir fry as cooking if I prep veg and cut up a chicken breast but use a ready made sauce?

Nothing less attractive than a grown man who can't cook. Ugh, ugh, ugh. Who could possibly bring themselves to sleep with a manchild who lacks the basic skills of independent living.

Sorry but this really made me laugh. I can think of sooooo many things less attractive myself, but we're all different!

I left home not being able to cook, not because I'm lazy but because my mum wouldn't let me help in the kitchen because I 'make too much mess'. Then once I was at uni, I was far too busy partying to teach myself. I finally started to learn from a friend in my final year. But to be honest, I had a rule that if it took longer to cook than it did to eat then it was a waste of time.

I can cook fine now, but the Internet helped. Like pp's pointed out, learning was made harder by not understanding half the terms used. Thank God for Google. Now I'm cooking for 4 of us there is more point to it and I take more pride in producing a nice meal. DH had never cooked when I met him but he's taught himself too so now we share the cooking.

"The very first line of the OP's post exempted cases where there's a known medical issue that makes cooking more difficult."
Like having a penis......