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!

I know you may not like this but I am going to suggest a compromise of sorts. How many meals could you batch cook and freeze that could easily be his "turn" in the week?

That way, he is still responsible for the meal but it will at least be delicious.

But these meals have to be made together if possible as I don't know the age of your children so how much supervision they require. I am a food processor user for chopping batches of onions, carrot grating etc. That way he is at least involved in the making of the food but with you in charge of the whole thing. Just a suggestion.

It's probably a lack of confidence.

Agree with posters above, my DH can mend engines, rod drains etc., but cooking has always scared him. He's good with peeling and chopping, always does the dishes etc., so it's not laziness. He needs precise instruction, and doesn't have a feel for when things are done, or what a portion looks like. E.g. he thinks 3 tiny potatoes are equivalent to 3 medium potatoes. To him it's the number that's important. If I told him he needs to cook x weight of potatoes he would carefully weigh them, but assessing portion sizes by eye is just beyond him.

I have been ill recently and DH has taken over cooking. It was awful at first but he now has 3 or 4 meals he can reliably cook, and we have bought a few ready meals too. He can cook rice, using the steamer or an an electronic rice cooker. He can do potatoes, fish, boiled eggs and veg in the steamer so no boiling over - he hates using the hob. He can cook chops etc in the oven in foil. Basic cooking is so easy but he used to think I was some sort of genius for doing it!

I have always been the cook before, but it has struck me how important it is for both partners to have the skill. DH is 70 btw, and if he can do it, anyone can do it!

He's making scones this afternoon

I do majority of the cooking for me, my DH and stepchildren - I don’t really mind looking after them all and making sure they are fed decent.

If I cook DH will wash up (we have recently invested in a dishwasher that he has to load and de load) and that’s enough for me tbh cause I hate that, I just get him to do all the jobs I don’t like 😂😂😂😂

I get one night off every few weeks when we get takeaway 😁

I am howling at your last post OP, that wins Mumsnet for the day

@hashbrownsandwich

OMG SCRAP MY LAST REPLY, THAT WAS MY PREVIOUS HUSBAND

Haha they all run into one after a while No criticism, DD on her third try!

@hashbrownsandwich

OMG SCRAP MY LAST REPLY, THAT WAS MY PREVIOUS HUSBAND

Hahaha brilliant. Everything blends into one with the passing of time I find!

What about cooking together? He can do the prep and stuff and then you can do the actually cooking bit and slowly teach him? 😁 feels like he probably needs foundations of cooking which are normally taught in childhood, if you do it that way he will slowly start to gain confidence

@hashbrownsandwich

The ironic thing is we literally watch cooking programmes every evening

Since when have cookery programmes been about actually teaching people to cook, rather than flogging the latest book/lifestyle/shit quality pan range?

There's nothing in them about how to know when something is cooked, how to clean up as you go, how to actually do anything.

They look pretty, but they are almost all 'oh, look what a lovely life I lead as a rich person' or in the case of the cheffy ones 'oh, look how clever we are' with a side order of rich white men telling WoC that they're doing their own food wrong/now the charming locals have made him food, here's the white male improvement 'my take'.

I’m quite a decent cook but detest it so I don’t do it. The bloke’s the chef in this house. It works because we play to our strengths - MN would hate me because I remember all his family’s birthdays and buy their cards and presents, in return he feeds me. Works for us.

@RosieCrumpet

My DH worked as a chef when we were students so can cook well in a commercial kitchen. However, because of his batshit mother, his domestic cooking skills were dire. We cooked together and benefitted from his professional experience and my domestic experience and the food is much better than it would've been if either of us cooked alone - but there were a few tedious years to get there.

Not chefs here but the above worked with DH. We've been together since late teens and it wasn't until after our first was born I realized he couldn't cook. He could boil rice, plain pasta, but stews, soups, meal planning combining carbs and proteins nope. He'll eat a triple carb combination and not realize that's abnormal and excessive. In our thirties now and he's slowly learned. But it has been a tough 15 years, he's not perfect but is great and he even gives us veggie options sometimes 🙄

My DH can't cook but he will turn his hand to any DIY, garden work or car maintenance that comes up. I love cooking and on the rare occasion I cba we get takeout. We do occasionally attempt to cook together on a weekend but there's a reason I didn't become a food teacher 😬
If your DH is purposefully undercooking food and being pa about it then he is being unreasonable - why cook something that others won't enjoy??

My DP can’t cook. I have tried to teach him but tbh he just frustrates me and if I’m honest I can be a bit of a backseat cook anyway so I find it better just to do it myself. Besides which I actually like doing it.

He will clear up the kitchen though and change the duvet which is a job I hate.

Unfortunately as we don’t live together I now have to do both......

@Sexnotgender

How did he feed himself when he lived alone?

I’m trying to teach my teenage daughter to cook before she goes to university next year. We struggle through her frankly inedible cooking once a week while she learns.

Ah bless, she'll get there. My cousin used to subject us to excessive spices or excessive salt, absolute nightmare 🤣

I have had similar rows conversations with my husband. I am really into my food, he really appreciates my cooking, but he doesn't innately care about the quality to the same extent as me, so I have in the past been over critical about stuff like not chopping veg uniformly or small enough for bolognese etc , which has affected his confidence. His food is OK and perfectly edible, just not as nice as it would be if I had made it. For me, the effort I put in = my love, he shows his love in other ways.

Now, I plan the menu with something quicker and simpler for the couple of nights that he cooks. He's happy to do the washing up/clearing up when I cook (and often does it on his nights too). There's plenty of other stuff he's better at than me

@hashbrownsandwich

OMG SCRAP MY LAST REPLY, THAT WAS MY PREVIOUS HUSBAND

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

There's a YouTube channel titled 'Sorted' which is a friendship group of 5 men, two of which are chefs who issue a video 2x per week plus there's a website and Sorted club. I'm wondering if something like this may help especially if you start at the beginning of the series where their we're some spectacular blunders!
There's a lot of humour involved in the programmes so maybe your DH'd be able to relate to this format?

Don’t try to make him cook if he’s a shit cook. Make an agreement that he washes up/loads dishwasher and cleans the kitchen every night instead. That’s his share of the dinner.

If he insists on cooking, let him eat cold and raw, you go out for a ‘Spoons breakfast.

Do you do every job around the house? I’m sure there’s something DH does better than you and you’re happy to let him manage. I’m more than happy to let my DH mow the lawn, trim the hedges, book the cars in for MOT’s and deal with insurances etc. Our moto seems to be, ‘do what you do best’
You seem to be undermining his attempts, ungrateful and impatient. You want him to be better? Help him, train him, try cooking together.

I do the majority of the cooking here. I used to really enjoy it but since having DD it has become more of a chore.

DP isn't as good as coming as me but is never, ever complain or comment. I appreciate the fact he's gone out of his comfort zone even if the food is burnt, or an odd combo.

Similar situation here; DH fended for himself for years before I came along. He cooked because he needed to eat to survive, he wasn’t terribly bothered about the quality as long as he had some fresh fruit and veg regularly.

When I met him, he proudly cooked for me and I thought it was shite. He appreciates me cooking for him, I’m reasonably good at it, and for the most part, I enjoy it. Occasionally, he will sort dinner if I can’t be bothered. It’s usually pasta and sauce, a baked potato or if he is really trying, he’ll cook a simple recipe (which turns into an epic that irritates me more than just doing it myself).

I don’t see the need to ‘train’ him because he is happy to eat his efforts. It’s me that is the picky one.

Some people are just shit at cooking, and I can imagine having a professionally trained chef being constantly critical of their attempts would be off-putting.

I do all of the cooking here, sometimes my partner does the Sunday pancakes but it takes him ages and as he needs help it would just be easier for me to do it anyway.

I would much rather just cook myself, its easier, quicker and stress free.

Could you write a time plan for him? It sounds like he has no idea about the order he needs to do things. I mean the sort of thing I was taught at school. So you work out what time you want to dish up, how long things take. So if the bolognese will take 60 minutes, including prep, and the spaghetti 10 minutes, Then he needs to start preparing the bolognese at 5pm for 6pm dinner, and put the kettle on to boil water for the pasta at 5.45pm. Then cook the pasta, at which time the bolognese will be cooked.

It does sound like you're too critical and that has knocked his confidence, so now he's making even more silly mistakes as he's nervous. This is exactly how I am - I'm perfectly capable and can figure out just about anything on my own, but whenever I have someone behind me criticising what I'm doing, why I'm not doing it in a different way, giving me "tips" on how to do it better etc, then I end up messing up the entire thing. I'd say just leave him be and let him experiment, don't get angry/critical when he messes up, just actually try and help him with no judgement. Get him to pick 2-3 recipes that he can make any time its his turn to cook, he'll eventually master them and that will build his confidence and will allow him to try more recipes - win win.

I think you have high standards considering how good you are. I wouldn't complain if my husband presented me with undercooked/overcooked/cold food. And he wouldn't complain if I did. It's about appreciating the effort, and hes clearly trying. You could be far nicer in the way you say theres something wrong with it.
Hes not going to feel confident to practise if you criticize so harshly. Not everyone learnt to cook and you can easily survive in this day and age without it.

df use to cook for evening tea on Saturday
standing joke in family!
tinned tomatoes toast & burnt sausages
he use to cook breakfast after church on Sundays as well fried egg mushrooms beans sausages & bacon also regularly somewhat tanned
we got use to it!
nb for MCP husbands this was in the 50's/60's DD also believed in female higher education & that women should be able to be engineers etc - he also use to iron his own clothes & wash up & vacuum when needed
he would be horrified at some men's attitude on mumsnet