I'm going to say about 97% of people can't cook.

[ShrikeAttack]

I read threads on here about food all the time & even people who claim 'to 'cook', as in 'make stuff hot and eat it', have no idea about food. How to make delicious things, how to treat ingredients, what goes together.

It honestly makes me a bit sad.

The majority of people probably eat really rubbish food.

I really want people to understand food and eat better, not because I'm a dick, but because it would make their lives more pleasurable.

I find your post very offensive.
Like many other previous posters most of my friends are good cooks. I'm ok. I can cook. I know most of my friends can cook because I've eaten their food!

We often have parties, bbqs etc where everyone brings one thing. I've had delicious food, salads, at such events.

My 2 closest friends often have a vegan come-dine-with-me (joke) evening where we take it in turns to make a starter main and pudding.

My mum is a fabulous cook. Her beef Wellington or catering for 8 at a dinner party in the 80's was well known. She cooks all sorts of things I've never even heard of, but her basics, everyday meals, soups etc are also fab.

I have no idea where you get your ideas from. But I think your view of his most people on mn eat is very distorted.

As long as people are feeding themselves and their families on the budget, time and resources they have, I see no issue or reason to be snobby.

It's 2021, aren't we done looking down on each other for not doing "enough" for our families? I say well done to everyone who sticks smash and frozen sausage on the table when they're having a bad day and are fed up. Well done, mamas.

Nah, most people can cook just fine.

They may not forage in the woods for the perfect mushroom, grow their tomatoes in a greenhouse blessed by the pope and have their haddock hand delivered by Jesus but they're still cooking perfectly good meals. The problem is you and your ideas about what cooking is and what's good enough. It's ok to have a meal that doesn't make angels weep with joy.

Yabu op. I'm a bloody good cook, so is my mum and so is my mil. Friends have cooked for me occasionally and are good cooks to. I see friends posting their homemade meals on insta and they look like good cooks to

I have a few jars in as sometimes I dont gave time to cook from scratch but that's maybe once a fortnight and once a fortnight we'll have fish fingers or other freezer food. Doesn't make me a shit cook

My husband shoots so I've loads of pheasant and partridge and the like in my freezer, I make good meals with those but I certainly dont think I'm a better cook then anyone else for using game.

You just sound like such a dickhead

Almost everyone I know cooks good food on a regular basis. I’d say the worst cooks are the ones who have to follow a recipe by the letter, even for simple midweek meals they’ve made before. They don’t have the skills to improvise and throw something together but they have a method and they still get a tasty meal out of it.
Two of my friends have husbands who don’t cook but I think that it through choice.

If by cook, you mean follow a recipe and it turns out fine and tastes nice (and then eventually you've done it so many times you don't need a recipe), then I can cook. My triumphs over the Christmas period included finally mastering seafood risotto (and getting the rice perfect), learning how to make a pasta alfredo sauce (very simply) and managing a salt-based fish dish that didn't end up giving us sodium poisoning. So I've no doubt I could cook (not well, but decently) if I tried.

My problem is this...

• Who is responsible for preparing 19/20 meals of the 21 meals in the week? Muggins here.
• Who does all the laundry? Muggins here.
• Who does 90% of the washing-up and taking out the bins? Muggins here.
• Who had to have a stern chat with her DH over the Christmas period because he seemed to have forgotten where the hoover was kept? Muggins here.
• Who is in charge of household and childcare organisation and management, wrangling DC in the morning, packing nursery bags, making doctors'/dentists/eye appointments, getting things fixed around the house etc....? In short, who carries around 85% of the household "mental load" (DH does do cars, plumbing issues and tops up toilet rolls, washing powder and dishwasher tablets)? Muggins here.
• Who also looks after DC 2 days a week and works a minimum of 35+ hours? Muggins here.

When it comes to dinner time, and I've cleaned the house, played with the toddler all day, still have 2 hours work to catch up on and bath and bedtime to get through, and DH messages to let me know he's once again not going to be back from work until late, I'm afraid the motivation to do anything but reach for a box of fish fingers goes totally out the window.

@VettiyaIruken

Nah, most people can cook just fine.

They may not forage in the woods for the perfect mushroom, grow their tomatoes in a greenhouse blessed by the pope and have their haddock hand delivered by Jesus but they're still cooking perfectly good meals. The problem is you and your ideas about what cooking is and what's good enough. It's ok to have a meal that doesn't make angels weep with joy.

@ShrikeAttack

Haha. The YABU is 89%.

That's very close to my 97% supposition.

I rest my case.

Your interpretation of stats is way off!

I'm a good cook, however I voted that YABU, mostly for not understanding that people are different. Food just isn't a priority or the key to happiness for everyone!

I also maintain that it's easy to make nice food if you have good (expensive) ingredients. What is harder is producing tasty food when you are strapped for cash. That's real cooking. Forget the pheasant and duck eggs. Making the most of limited ingredients is where the real skill is at.

I 100% agree with this sentiment.

We make lots of meals from scratch including curries (inc buying, toasting and grinding the spices)/chill/italian dishes/chinese dishes. We never just throw random veg in and our 4 year old loves all our dishes.
Other times we can't be arsed and use a jar of sauce.
Who gives a shit how others cook?! No one is forcing it on you.

OP is obviously enjoying pissing people off I think most people are missing the point of her post though. If I'm getting it right it's not about making specific complex meals or OP thinks you're shit. It's about how a lot of people prepare food.

So something like spaghetti bolognese - loads of people make it. But some people will quickly fry some onions and mince, add a jar of sauce and bash it all together with spaghetti, with a little salt if you're lucky. Other will slowly cook the onions down on olive oil, add seasoning and fresh garlic, brown mince, add tomatoes and fresh herbs etc, maybe red wine. Then they'll simmer it for a good while so it reduces to something rich and delicious. They may also make their own pasta. OP is arguing that the first way is basically barely real cooking and is missing how good it could be. Obviously not everyone has time for the latter but there is a spectrum in between too.

I'm not sure it's 97% but I agree most people eat not that nice food. The main thing I've experienced is food that's so bland, no seasoning OR a recipe followed to the letter with no tasting so it's still underseasoned. Many people seem terrified of salt and think a pinch in a huge pan of sauce is enough. Also, jar sauces are just rank. It's seen as so prissy to say this but it's true.

Listing how busy you are as a defence doesn't really do anything other than prove OPs point.

I can't cook very well. Like a lot of posters have said, it's not something that I would enjoy. Maybe when cooking up a storm with a lover or something
Pheasant stinks to the high heavens - my mother cooked one once after my father going shooting. God bless her, but that was one godawful stench. None of us would eat it, but my father did - MAN BRING FOOD!
My aunt is a good cook in general. She would have done a lot of cookery classes over the years. Great at desserts too. I think it takes effort and you're more inclined maybe if you have a husband to prep veg etc. while you 'supervise'.

My mother can cook - just not pheasant lol.
I'm hit and miss. I try to make things healthy, go for that rather than flavour.
It's on my To-Do list for whenever this godawful covid hell is over - perhaps an Italian cookery course or maybe Indian.

The best flavoursome food is generally high fat and high in salt. Lovely for a treat, but not ideal for a daily diet.

@ShrikeAttack I agree with you, especially on the weaning board, first foods given are highly processed food such as melty puffs and then 2 years later, the same parents are complaining their child is a "fussy eater" a description that exists only in the English language

I have just done a count of my immediate family and my statistics are that:
30% are good cooks: know what tastes good with what, good basic techniques, can improvise well
20% are fine if they follow a recipe
20% are chuck-it-all-in cooks without any sense of flavour and texture. Sometimes works out, more often not.
30% are rubbish cooks or non-cooks: don’t want to, not interested.

I have no idea how typical this is, but it certainly doesn’t break down into 97% to 3%.

Yes, very amusing. I'm not talking about making complicated meals every night. More an understanding of what actually tastes great

You do realise that people don't all like the same food, just because something tastes nice to you doesn't mean it'll taste nice to another person.
A 'horrible' mix of food to you might be someone else's favourite mix of vegetables.

It's so weird that you don't seem to realise that different people enjoy different foods. Do you lack this basic awareness in other areas or just with regards to food and cooking?

[quote Cormoran]@ShrikeAttack I agree with you, especially on the weaning board, first foods given are highly processed food such as melty puffs and then 2 years later, the same parents are complaining their child is a "fussy eater" a description that exists only in the English language[/quote]
First food my dd got aged 4 months to the precise second (long time ago - different advice then) was banana and kiwi mashed - that's what the book told me to do!!!! Would she fuck eat it. I persisted for 4 days until my aunt kindly suggested to 'try her with baby rice until she gets used to food and then you can try the fruit'. Sunshine Orange was her breakfast for a good few months, followed by porridge in the later years.

You remind me of Eleanor Oliphant’s mother.

I think a lot of people can't cook healthy food. That's a technique the Mediterranean countries have down to a fine art. Their mealtimes are spread out and are on the button every day. Breakfast would be a fresh croissant from the cafe across the road. Lunch, pasta, then a fillet of chicken breast perhaps lightly fried, served with side salad. Dinner, same except maybe steak cooked on a sort of open fire thing. Nothing I've ever seen the likes of here. Once a week, pizza from local pizzeria for dinner. Sunday, tortelloni perhaps with a different sauce or ragu. Nothing like the portions of pasta we typically cook. Small portions of everything. Fresh fruit for dessert. Small glass of wine with lunch and dinner. That would be it. No such thing as snacks.

Apologies - gelato was maybe a once a week treat/snack. They also have a 'merinda' (not sure if I'm spelling it right), usually for when children come home from school - usually a chocalatey sponge snack.

@Hatstrategicallydipped you just proved my point, Sunshine orange is the perfect example of ultra processed Ingredients
Milk Powder (54%): [Demineralised Whey Powder (from Milk), Skimmed Milk Powder], Cereal Flours (31%): [Corn (18%), Rice (13%)], Vegetable Fat: [Palm Oil, Rapeseed Oil, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Stabiliser (contains Soy Lecithin)], Orange (3%), Maltodextrin, Minerals: [Calcium, Iron, Potassium], Vitamins: [Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, Biotin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B1]

40 gr of sugar (that's 40% sugar)

Kiwi is very acid and not recommended as a first fruit. Cooked apple or poached would have been easier.

There is cook to live and live to cook, which are not the same. The 97% are the cook to live.

@ShrikeAttack

I pulled that percentage from;

A) Stuff I have been fed.

B) Things I read.

C) Shit I have eaten in restaurants.

Ah. It's good you got all the facts.

[quote Cormoran]@Hatstrategicallydipped you just proved my point, Sunshine orange is the perfect example of ultra processed Ingredients
Milk Powder (54%): [Demineralised Whey Powder (from Milk), Skimmed Milk Powder], Cereal Flours (31%): [Corn (18%), Rice (13%)], Vegetable Fat: [Palm Oil, Rapeseed Oil, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Stabiliser (contains Soy Lecithin)], Orange (3%), Maltodextrin, Minerals: [Calcium, Iron, Potassium], Vitamins: [Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Vitamin A, Vitamin D3, Biotin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B1]

40 gr of sugar (that's 40% sugar)

Kiwi is very acid and not recommended as a first fruit. Cooked apple or poached would have been easier.[/quote]
I was just glad she bloody ate sunshine orange!

Hm. I've read all your posts and haven't figured out what makes you qualified to judge. Did you know that 85% of statistics are made up on the spot. Your menus don't sound very healthy to me because - too much red meat.

@FamilyOfAliens

I can cook you one of these?

I suppose that's why the 'recipe' suggested mashing the kiwi into a banana. I was determined that she would eat healthily. But hell no! She actually has a very balanced diet now and is getting to be quite a good little chef herself. She's more adventurous than I would be though.