To ask how you learned to cook?

[MotivationSuchAnAggrivation]

I really want to learn how to cook. Classes are not a realistic option at this point.

Anyone here taught themselves to be a really good cook? If so, how?

Learned to bake with my Mum, then had cookery lessons at high school. Loads of inspiration online, try BBC Good Food website. Mary Berry recipes always work out and not too many ingredients or faffing about.

My DM was a very good cook, I watched her. Did "domestic science" - basically just cookery - at school. Then lived for a long time with someone who really was a brilliant cook and learned so much from her. I was interested in making food and enjoyed doing it. However over maybe the last five years I've lost my enthusiasm for it and find it quite a chore!

I used cookbooks but my brother uses YouTube and he's now a great cook.

My first ever flatmate taught me. He was a 28 year old GP and I was a 21 year old drama student from a very working class background. I barely knew what garlic was!

Then my DH taught me how to cook Indian food.

Thank you for starting this thread!
I am 47 and have been cooking for decades, but have never been happy with my cooking. This thread has inspired me to watch YouTube clips and really refine my basics!

A little bit my mother, a little bit Home Economics class at school, a lot Delia Smith TV Programme and cookery books (showing my age there!😀) because she was very down to earth and explained WHY you needed to do or not do something.

I learned the basics through trial and error (and making some really horrible food), but I got much better by following really detailed instructions - lots of recipe books assume you know how to do certain things, or are badly written so you don't realise until too late in the process that you were supposed to have been doing two things at the same time.

I think that's where TV and YouTube, or very detailed recipes, ideally with pictures of different stages, are helpful - because you can see exactly what is happening and there's no 'hidden' assumed knowledge.

Whichever way you do it, you'll get better as you go. Also, I know you said classes aren't an option, but if you get a chance to do a knife skills lesson, I really recommend it. I did a single lesson a few years ago and it has saved me so much time when prepping ingredients.

And remember everyone screws up - just roll with it and try to cover it up - it doesn't make you a bad cook and don't let mistakes dent your confidence...again, it happens to everyone!

Cooking with my step mum. Love food. Come from a foody family. Have a foody family. Watched lots of cooking shows with night and evening feeds with the babies. Learnt new techniques. I've taught all the kids to cook.

My best advice is properly sharp knives take the drudgery out of cooking. Tidy as you go along too.

I once put red wine into a white sauce (not envy)

My grandmothers, mum, and then reading cookbooks and following the recipes closely. Now I just wing it.

I started to teach myself because I discovered in my pre teens/teenage years that there was a world of interesting real, fresh food out there and my parents couldn't cook very well at all, we used to eat things like Dalepak grills, oven chips and frozen peas with a Mr Kipling cake for dessert.

Home Ec at school and to an extent, Guides, gave me a few basics like spag bol, chili con carne. I experimented at home myself with stir fries after buying the frozen kind and looking at the ingredients. By the time I went to university I could certainly feed myself ok, with probably 5 meals I could make without looking at a recipe book.

When I shared a house with a fellow student who was vegetarian we decided to cook together, so I bought a veggie cookbook which was full of excellent basic meals.

Then when I started to go out with now DH we often went round to PILs for meals, and his mum is an excellent cook. I observed the sorts of things she cooked. When DH and I moved in together I did most of the cooking and learned to make roast dinners - I had no idea about cooking meat much before then as though I wasn't vegetarian, veggie cooking was just easier and cheaper.

The next milestone was having DD1 - I remember not being very confident with the blender to puree meals at first, and was much better by the time DD2 came along and I had been cooking family meals for a few years. BBC Good Food 101...books really helped, plus I got the magazine for a while.

I am a very confident cook now - a few years ago I got to the stage where I could look in the cupboard or fridge and work out how to make the best of leftovers and things that needed using first, and don't use recipes much other just for ideas.

So yes, while other people have inspired and helped me it is absolutely possible to teach yourself from books and online, and just treat it as something that will improve throughout your life if you keep trying new things.

My mother taught me and I think by the age of 13 or 14 I could make a family meal like cottage pie pretty well. She made me a little recipe book where she had typed out all the dishes we had cooked together. I lost it in a house move about twenty years ago and still feel rather sad about that.

a bit from my mum, bit from school, bit from foodie stuff on TV, lots of trial and error

My mother/ home ec. We had no choice but to cook as parents would be working! I have loads of cookbooks and Google recipes if there is something in particular I fancy.
I also keep a recipe box for ones that I like but won't necessarily remember. I like to think I can cook and bake pretty well!
If I am looking on BBC food, I tend to pick recipes that have the best reviews.

My mum taught me to bake because she is an excellent baker (and I like to think that I am not bad). She is a rubbish cook, though. Home economics at secondary taught me some e.g. the existence of veg peelers, what a chopping knife looked like etc (she owned neither ...). She doesn't use onions or garlic when cooking far less anything 'exotic'.

As such, when I moved into my first student flat I received Delia's Complete Cookery Course and went from there. I read every single page, learned many useful and interesting things and progressed from there to Nigel Slater's Real Fast Food. A summer job at an estate house included helping the chef which was just fantastic and given how much I like eating, learned all sorts about cooking. It's one of my favourite things to do, I find chopping and mixing and creating very relaxing - one of life's great pleasures. I am one of those who wonders why people live on convenience food or ready meals because it doesn't have to be complex or expensive to be tasty and nutritious. Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals might be a good place to start.

My mum started me off and then greed took over.

Another vote for Delia Smith’s Complete Illustrated Cookery Course book. I have seen in charity shops. Also, Good Housekeeping books. My mum was a good, basic cook and had many mouths to feed so she was always happy for me to cook anything and I learned a lot from her. Many years ago cookery lessons in school taught you all the basics so you had a good foundation.

I was a Home Economics and Food Technology teacher but still use those books but obviously now have the knowledge to just take a recipe from the internet and adapt as necessary. Once you have the basics under your belt you can experiment. I don’t really rate some of the modern chefs like Jamie Oliver who seems to just list shop bought pastry as an ingredient. It’s all about using the correct component ingredients to get success. Eg no good using soft spreads for pastry and hard fats for all-in-one cake mixes. Use the above books to gain knowledge and confidence and then experiment.

Incidentally, I find Nadia Hussein and Candice Brown recipes are always good, but then, they say they learned traditional methods which is why their recipes are always successful.

Keep practicing and you should soon have a few basic recipes under your belt which you can adapt and develop. Good luck. Demos on the internet can be very useful too.

I also rate some of the Good Food recipes and look at the reviews before choosing and making.

I signed up to HelloFresh and now my daughter at 16 can cook anything. Have no worries about her going off to university now.
It's also taught me to be a bit more adventurous.

I learned the basics and to be comfortable cooking from my mum - but I really recommend Jamie’s Ministry of Food as a good starter if you don’t know where to begin. And looking for easy recipes on BBC Good Food if you know what you’d like to cook - I did my first roast from there.

I love Good Food but don't rate Delia at all I'm afraid. I always found she overcomplicated matters with any recipe, and when I was a less confident cook, didn't find her explanations adequate at all.

And then she did that stupid book using tinned mince and other horrors. I really couldn't stand her on TV either, I just don't like her at all.

I think one of Jamie’s early books (the naked chef) can be a good one to start cooking from as it has lots of tray bake type stuff, not as many unusual ingredients as the modern ones and really shows you you often don’t need to be exact (a handful of this, a glug of that)

Sometimes your food will go wrong. Don’t worry about this. It happens.

I learned a fair bit from my mother, the rest from just doing it/cook books.

For anyone who really hasn't clue, I do think books such as Delia's basic one are very good. The trouble with a lot of cook books is that they tend to assume that you know how to do the basics.
Of course you can now google/YouTube how to do just about anything, but IMO a really good 'reference' cookbook will always be useful.