Husband can't cook

[hashbrownsandwich]

Husband lived alone for 15 years. He is successful in his job and is highly skilled, so he's by no means unintelligent.
I am a trained chef. I don't work in the industry anymore but obviously that's my background.

Sometimes, I get fed up of being chief meal planner, shopper and cook, on top of working 4 shifts a week in my day job.

We have a reoccurring argument because whenever he cooks, I can guarantee it will either be undercooked/overcooked or cold by the time he's dicked about trying to plate up (aka splat it on a plate).

He says I'm being an ungrateful cow when he serves up undercooked food to the family. For example, this morning as I'm not feeling great he said he would cook some hash browns, beans and toast.

He literally follows the packet instructions to the dot. I can clearly see the hash browns are raw, he serves them up and he's taken so long doing the toast that the beans are cold.

I tell him we can't eat raw potatoes and they need longer. He hits the roof saying I'm ungrateful and they're edible.

Am I being an ungrateful snob?

His line is always that he needs more practice to cook properly, yet he won't accept when he's wrong so he's never going to learn.

When he lived alone he would eat some very strange combinations and I've tried to explain to him that while he might enjoy something like pork chops and pasta, it's not something I would serve to the family.

Sorry I think I'm just ranting now!

Same situation here. I am a trained chef but I'm not on the industry anymore and Dh can't cook. After the first few years of being polite I got sick of not eating much when he made a meal and had to tell him what he was doing it wrong. since then I've taught him a few basic meals but he was willing to learn how to make it better. He does all the one pot stuff and I'll do the more time management type meals.

He sounds like my dp actually

Dp would think things like 'potatos take 20 mins' because he'd read a recipe where the potatos take 20 minutes. And he just couldnt understabd or adapt because he really had no cooking skills, he can get a bit stuck on certain rules anyway which is great when your fixing a car, but cooking isnt always like that

Or hed read a recipe that said 'saute the onions for 5 minutes' but it doesnt say what temperature, what pan etc. And had no idea that hes supposed to heat tbe pan first, or supposed to be softening the onions.

Most of the time when you read a recipe you apply your own basic knowledge, but if you really have no basic knoweldge then its quite hard

@babbi but if everytime you fuck up someone is critical, to the point your scared to cook for them its not exactly the best environment to learn.

@HyaluronicHippo

When you had the raw hash browns, did they get eaten? Is it that he actually enjoys foods that you don’t? Such as undercooked/overcooked things.

I put them back in the oven for 10 minutes. He said he knew they needed longer so I was like why would you not just wait originally then?!

@StrawberrySquash

Does he follow cooking instructions to the letter? I had a perfectly intelligent, wanted to cook, housemate who would take stuff out after 20 minutes because the book said that. I think it was genuinely a lack of confidence in the kitchen that sort of affected her ability to think logically about it. But she did want to learn and she was prepared to listen and she did learn.

Not trying to say it was all down to me, but I think I did teach her stuff. Probably helped that we weren't a couple and there wasn't any of the resentment that builds up when you think he's shit at cooking and he's scared you'll criticise his cooking. It's a real issue. If you can sit down, talk about it and both agree to reset the resentment, he could learn.

Yes, I think he lacks confidence (I wonder why) and he doesn't trust his cooking instinct, what little he has

The ironic thing is we literally watch cooking programmes every evening

When I went back to work DH took over food shopping and cooking.

Took a couple of years to be really good at it. Your DH needs to starts cooking most days tbh.

Let the DC score him???

We got served undercooked pizza once, undercooked crispy chicken another time 🤮 I also had to insist on veg with every meal else he didn't bother...

@BaronessBomburst

I'm sceptical that an intelligent man can genuinely be such a shit cook. My feeling is that he doesn't care, doesn't want to, and just can't be bothered to give the meal attention and headspace. His attitude is the problem and the OP is right to be pissed off.

bollocks

I have lovely FEMALE friends who can't cook. They actually think they do, which makes it even worst. Their food is shit. They are still lovely and well meaning.

Raw or undercooked food is not a good idea. However, if you complain that your toast is cold, do it yourself?

If you keep banging on being a professional chef and criticise everything he does, it must be exhausting. I am female, and if DH was doing that, I wouldn't make him even a cup of tea. There's gentle advice and help, and there's rude and unhelpful moaning.

I guess the thing is, I don't mind cooking and I enjoy it but it would be nice to know if I don't/can't cook on occasion, it won't be a stressful experience.

I think you are right in that I have to relinquish a bit of control and try and teach him subtly.

Buy him a course of cookery lessons for Christmas.

I am making Mexican tonight, I'm tempted to just make the bits I want (veggie) and not make his chilli brisket, however I know he would be grateful for whatever I serve so I'll just feel guilty.

@potter5

Buy him a course of cookery lessons for Christmas.

I did that one year, bought the voucher so he could choose which one and he never bothered to book it. That was laziness I completely admit.

OMG SCRAP MY LAST REPLY, THAT WAS MY PREVIOUS HUSBAND

That's me in our house. My compromise is to get him to buy a decent Turkish kebab. We have an amazing kebab house that is proper Turkish and healthy! They do a Greek type salad and grilled marinated meats.

This is my fall back for when I'm too tired to cook. The only thing my husband does well is scrambled eggs on toast, and that's ok too.

My husband takes on different roles in the house, cooking is not something he enjoys, whereas I love it usually.

I can’t cook. I have tried for years but it always turns out burnt or looking like something a dog had thrown up

I am sick of being told that things are simple but then despite following a recipe to the letter it comes out shit.

I am good at heating up ready meals and chopping veg but that is as far as it goes

Complete waste of money buying ingredients that just end up in the bin.

Dp cooks occasionally. Dd and Ds cook other times.

Left to myself I would probably eat a cheese sandwich or if I am being adventurous heat up a veggie burger or ready meal with some salad or veg

Did once try to make bread.
It was so hard I think it could have been classed as a lethal weapon.

I stopped cooking after 30 years of trying

Teach him a couple of basic meals.... for emergencies. My dh managed undercooked fish fingers and burnt frozen chips so I covered off frozen food cooking and left it at that!

@Lockheart

Some people would burn a salad.

If he's a shit cook, then he can do other chores.

I think that's somewhat reasonable, but with something as constant as meal prep, both parties need to be at least capable of something like beans on toast because inevitably sometimes the cook will be indisposed. It is pretty bad if he can't tell when packet hash browns are cooked. That doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation. Play to your strengths, yes. But with things that are needed to keep a household functioning, there's a floor no adult should go below.

Buy him a probe then he can see stuff isnt cooked

My DH can't cook but i can. He can build/fix/make anything, so as a couple we play to our strengths. I cook, love cleaning , organise our lives,holidays and everything else. He is great at growing veg and i am better and gardening. He does the banking admin. It is a partnership. Try to remember his strengths

I am a shit cook. I can do things like risotto, ragu, chilli, casseroles, roast chicken etc

DH is a shit cook. All of those would be entirely beyond him.

Our moment of revelation was roast vegetables. All he needed to do was chop things badly, stick them in the oven and take them out again. Time not especially crucial.

So very rarely I make him do a traybake.

@hashbrownsandwich

OMG SCRAP MY LAST REPLY, THAT WAS MY PREVIOUS HUSBAND

😂😂

OP you deserve to go in Classics

If you're not happy with his cooking, how about you take care of that, and he does other things. That's what me and DP do. We all have our own strengths, and by the sounds of things he is willing to cook, you're just not happy with the results. That's more your problem to be honest.

Lots of nuance to comment on here, but I think if you are trained or have had lots of thorough experience at building skills it’s really difficult to appreciate how daunting it can be to cook when you don’t actually understand or haven’t internalised all the basic knowledge one needs to have.

It’s going to sound silly but if I were in your situation I think I’d get him a set of Delia’s ‘how to cook’ books (I think that’s what they’re called). He needs to be taught, or teach himself, everything, from scratch, without it being more work for you.

For your own sake I would suggest you get in a routine of cooking double some days and then freeze the extra so there is a always a choice of meals in the freezer for those days where you really don’t want to cook.

For now I would sit down with him, choose 3 or 4 very easy meals that he’s happy to cook and you’re happy to eat, then write out recipes for them with literally everything explained clearly. Keep them in a binder that he can refer to. He should cook from that repertoire over and over, twice a week maybe, until he’s comfortable and has learnt how to do it properly.

On a side note I love pork shops and pasta. Op have the conversation away from the kitchen. Not directly during/after him having cooked. So it doesn't feel like a critism when he feels he has tried. He might well be open for learning about stuff then.