To ask how you learned to cook and

[ResponsibleMushroomForager]

Do you enjoy it or not?
If you have a DP do they cook?
If you have DC are you teaching them to cook?

I've just always cooked. I started off sitting on the kitchen worktop beside my DM as she cooked, then started being given little jobs here and there. I was given my first cookbook (Ladybird 'Cooking with Mother') when I was about 6. I've still got it. By the time I was 12 I cooked meals regularly for the family.

I am a total food geek, however. The cookbooks are a bit out of hand, I have thousands... 🤫

And yes, I consider it my responsibility to make sure that my two sons know their way around a kitchen.

DH does 90% of the cooking (I used to do 90% of the cooking).
I don't enjoy it any more & I often screw up (DH used to screw up when he only did 10%).

DC are learning too cook how I did, by making things they like. They want a cake, fine, they make it.

DS will make cakes for his DoE 'skill'. Bring them in for teachers to sample.

Self-defence - my mother couldn't cook, and she hated trying to do it. It wasn't until after she died (when I was 27) that I realised liver was actually edible and didn't have to resemble cardboard. 30 something years later, I love cooking, have a massive collection of recipe books, and enjoy having people round for dinner. I Google recipes a lot and am always looking for something new to try. About 20 years ago we moved to somewhere without a decent Indian restaurant so I learned to make British Indian Restaurant curries too - nothing is actually difficult if you can read recipes and follow them to the letter.

Both my parents can cook well and I mostly learned to cook just from being around them cooking. My mum did teach me how to bake but as an adult I don't ever bake, I have no sweet tooth and while I do intend to start making my own bread (I've been saying this for years) I much prefer cooking. I really improved my cooking skills in my early twenties. I was working and living in Japan and I really missed dishes like coq au vin and boeuf bourguignon so I bought a french recipe book and started to teach myself, on my tiny single burner hob stove in my tiny, tiny flat. It certainly taught me that if I could make a french meal in that tiny space then I could cook anywhere (I have a friend who never cooks and complains it's because her kitchen is too small and poky).

Totally off point but does anyone have an opinion on bread makers? I want one but I'm afraid it will just end up taking up counter space and won't be as useful as I'd like to imagine.

I learned primarily from the internet and self guessing. My parents both cook and had lots of cook books so it was easy to pick things up. I enjoy cooking but I have to want to do it. My mother often demands a lasagne when she comes to visit but if I'm not really in the mood to make it, I find you can tell that I didn't want to.

The pressure cooker and the Magimix are my best friends.

I learned from watching cooking shows on TV, reading cook books and trial/error. My parents were both terrible cooks but I'm pretty good. DS (8) can make macaroni cheese with some supervision and knows how to use the microwave. DH was not a great cook when I met him but has improved greatly over the years and makes the best pastry (better than mine, grr).

So jealous of people whose parents/grandparents taught them to cook! What precious memories....

I remember my father bellowing at me because I didn't know how to cook dinner when my mum was in hospital. I was eye level with the counter top That's the only meal he ever cooked as far as I know.

My mum taught me to bake and cook the 5 meals my father would eat.

DH can cook, and I've learnt from him. FIL cooks in their family. Else, trial and error I don't taste what I'm cooking as I wouldn't know what to change. Drives DH mad!

I do family food. I don't enjoy it. But enjoy the whining on hungry kids even less! DH is in charge if he wants an out of the ordinary meal or if we have guests. DC can do basics, but no unsupervised cooking (6&8).

From my parents and grandparents, largely stood on a kitchen chair so I could reach. Started very young (around 2yo) and could confidently cook for family before secondary school.

Yes and yes, so much so that I jacked in my a levels and went to culinary school to train as a chef instead. Best decision I ever made after having dc

Do you have a friend who would come round and teach you in your own kitchen? Learn from the bottom up, how to do really basic stuff like chop an onion.

If not you could advertise locally or look for someone advertising for someone to teach you on a paid basis.

Also look for recipe cards in supermarkets, they are generally pretty simple and quick.

@yokhgr - I would love to eat your cooking, I bet it's delicious

You have your dinner party. No-one will laugh: people really appreciate being cooked for!

@yokhgr that’s really sad. I have a friend whose mother was similar and she also never entertains despite wanting to.

Have you considered asking a few friends over and each bringing a course? It’s fun and makes entertaining much less stressful. You’d only need to do a main course and you keep it dead simple. We do it because we are lazy! Go on, give that table a treat.

I dis a lot of baking with mum and grandma and I did Home Ec at school but I never really learned to put economical, nhtrious and tasty family meals on the table until I discovered Delia Smith and her Complete Cookery course. Its a bit dated now but it's where all my basic cooking skills came from.

Yokhgr -You poor thing! I feel for you and even though I like cooking and feel pretty good about cooking for others, I still feel nervous about cooking and entertaining for large groups of people. Have you considered signing up for some cooking lessons in a group setting? I've done a few and they're really fun, you learn some new skills and make a new dish and everyone around you is also nervous so you're all in it together.

Some of my friends are self-described foodies and are very snobbish about food. They like to cook and will have friends over for meals but then wonder why no one reciprocates and I want to tell them that the rest of us are too intimidated to cook for them as they view themselves as the highest arbiters of good food! Eating at a restaurant with them is like eating with professional food critics. I like to cook for my easygoing friends though.

My mum hated cooking and wasn’t very good. However, I did learn some basics from her and school. A boyfriend taught me how to make a tomato sauce which is the base of many dishes.
Other than that, mostly self taught whilst working as a nanny/being at home with my kids.

DH is a good cook but we all tend to steer clear during the process as it can get loud and bang-y when he gets frustrated. Always does Christmas lunch!

DC - have to cook once a week for the family in Y13 to hone their skills of the basics - risotto, casserole, cheese/tomato sauce, etc. - ready for leaving home.
DS is great with all Asian food and does a great risotto.
DD1 is not a keen cook and will probably live off pasta 🙄
DD2 enjoys cooking and eating and often throws something together for herself at the weekend/holidays.

I learnt when I moved out and got my first home.

We were brassic when we grew up (90s) after my dad passed away. So meals were basic and stuff from the freezer and when we did have cooked stuff, there were packets/jars and for whatever reason my mum just didn't teach me.

Got my own house, had time on my hands and wanted to know how to make stuff as it works out cheaper and I do kind of enjoy it too.

DD is 6 and will help menu plan for the week. with supervision can make scrambled eggs, beans on toast. But as she gets older I'll definitely teach her how to cook simple healthy meals.

What would you like to learn to cook OP?

I don’t really like cooking. I mean—it’s fine. And I prefer to do it because my husband gets a bit flustered and I’m also one of those annoying people who needs to know exactly what is in the meal I’m eating I learned through trial and error. My mum never really taught me how to make anything remotely healthy or vegetarian so every half hearted lesson she gave me went straight out the window.

My mum taught me how to make shortcrust pastry and Victoria sponges, and how to prepare most veg, but not much else really. We had cookery lessons at school but most of what I do is a combination of self taught, following recipes, and experimenting. I'd say you need to know a few basic techniques even to follow most recipes, but despite knowing how to make a basic white sauce I can't actually remember the last time I did. It's still a joke that I can't boil an egg... there are too many variables to get it spot on every time. I do great scrambled eggs though.
I don't enjoy cooking but I do still bake occasionally.

A little with my gran, some with my mum in the early years and then watching the chefs at work but mainly it's has been good old necessity.
Only way I could eat was to make food myself, even as a teenager living with my mum who preferred to feed her animals, smoke cigarettes and snack on crap herself. If she wasn't hungry she didn't cook that day. DSis and I would have to search through almost empty cupboards and cobble together what we could or eat at work (both working in a local country pub restaurant from age 11/12)

I came to love cooking when I met DH and would love to make delicious meals for us both. Now we have 3 DC I love cooking even more and could happily spend all day in the kitchen.

I try to teach my children and they can easily follow a YouTube video even at 6yo. DH is unteachable because he won't learn. He's just convinced himself it's something he can't do instead of won't. Amazingly though he's able to complete complex tasks and train in new areas when he's at work though.

Basics learnt from watching and asking my mum,the rest I've worked out myself.I'm good at savoury things,not so much sweet.Dh can cook a great Sunday lunch.

When I was 17, I spent a week in Cornwall with 4 friends. The mother of one of them had given him a leg of lamb from the freezer, so we could cook a roast on the Sunday. Then we discovered that none of us had a clue what to do with it!

I had a vague idea that my mum used to parboil potatoes before roasting (although I didn't know that was what it was called). Between us, we figured that a leg of lamb would take a lot longer to cook than potatoes, on account of being bigger and not part-cooked.

We somehow muddled through and had a passable meal, despite having horribly overcooked cabbage.

I left home 18 months later and bought myself a Good Housekeeping cookery book. It taught me almost everything I know about cooking. I still have it, more than 40 years later and it's still my go-to book for any basic recipe, like meringue or choux pastry.

I think it's easier to learn to cook now than ever before: the internet and the huge amount of cookery programmes on tv mean that you can actually watch how to do things, over and over again if need be.

I have my favourite cooks whose recipes seem 100% foolproof (Nigel Slater, Mary Berry and Delia). And I tweak seasonings, and have developed a few tricks of my own, eg a teaspoon of black treacle and a shake of balsamic vinegar gives a lovely piquancy and richness to a gravy.

Having said all that, I think it's hard to learn to cook if you don't love food. All the poor-middling cooks I know are people who simply aren't very interested in food. DP and I both love to eat, and are both good cooks, but his mother and 2 of his siblings somehow manage to turn out meals of astonishing blandness.