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.

Did they have guacamole and tacos with brisket in Henry VIII's time?

I think this sounds nice, how many cuisines are you seeing here as I'm just seeing Mexican?! And where's the chicken? grin pico de gallo is salsa! Is brisket with rice and three sauces and tacos a typical Mexican dish?

Most people I know can cook. There are people who can't and who live on take aways and toast. I think these are in the minority though. I don't see how anyone can give a % though without doing a random survey with a definition of "can cook". Even then there will be huge regional variation.

Is this written by a bloke by any chance?!

Or is it basically beef tacos she was cooking? She may have confused me.

@jinglinghellsbells They are when the budget is £3 a day.

[quote wonderup]@Hatstrategicallydipped How is it so different from Irish food? Potatoes, stew, bacon & cabbage, soda bread, irish breakfast, etc. One of my parents is Irish. [/quote]
Well, clearly one of your parents being Irish has allowed you to time travel to an era before avocados and coriander.

@dottiedodah

Is this written by a bloke by any chance?!

Hmmmmm. You may be onto something there!!!

said this so many times the last few days but only problems/people who can't cook, not sure what to do with an ingredient etc will post. None of the millions of others who are not having a problem will post. So it may look like no one can cook but it's because no ones posting 'hey I cooked this amazing thing' every 5 minutes

this applies to the relationships board too - it appears that all men are terrible, when really only the ones with problems with men are posting.

There’s not much skill involved in cooking a fry up, a lot of calories though.

I work long hours

I have four kids

I am usually skint

If my kids will eat a spaghetti bolognaise made by lobbing a tin of tomatoes and a few veg in a pan, then that's a win.

I don't cook for other people. I cook for my family.

@FamilyOfAliens

I can cook you one of these?

Brilliant answer! OP YABU and a snob.

[quote Mintjulia]@jinglinghellsbells They are when the budget is £3 a day.[/quote]
£21 a week is your food budget? Is that for one person or a family?

How come?

I stick to what I know in the main. I do not venture into other cuisines as I think you learn at your mother's apron. Nowadays, possibly Dad's apron, with Mum giving directions lol. I've never had a husband/boyfriend who could cook. They claimed to be able to, but they just used stuff out of a packet/pre-prepared bung-in-oven type stuff. Male chefs seem so bloody awful too. Not a good look.

Just finished a night shift so going to finish off the sausage baked I made last night.

OP, are you by any chance one of those partners who swoops in once in a while to produce a "masterpiece" for the family at Christmas or for Sunday lunch? Then witters on about how it would be nice to have more home-cooked meals on a regular basis.

My DH is a bit like this. He cooked our Christmas Eve meal, moaned at me to remove DS from the kitchen since he couldn't "concentrate" with a small child around, used every pot and pan in the house (we don't have many, admittedly - small kitchen) and left them all piled up in the sink since the dishwasher was full and he was too "stressed" cooking to unload it.

The result was an average to good meal and a bombsite of a kitchen. Guess who did all the setting the table, serving, clearing and washing-up since the great Chef who had heroically fed the family couldn't be expected to help in his exhausted state? I wished we had got a takeaway. DH suggested that we/I should do more cooking on a regular basis.

I said absolutely... so long as we can hire a babysitter, pot washer, waitress and cleaner for while I'm cooking. Even with all this help, DH still managed to stress himself out hugely over timings and the potatoes were underdone .

I realise that I'm married to a well-meaning if sightly incompetent member of the species... but my experience is that those of us who have to cook/provide food three times a day essentially find it a bothersome chore. For weekend cooks/cooks at will, it's probably much more enjoyable.

I don’t know anyone who can’t cook. Even my 17 yr old DS can buy some food and follow a recipe. We don’t all make healthy choices all the time, and some of us don’t particularly like to cook, but definitely know how. Not sure where you’re getting a figure like 97%

I cook.

I nearly died recently when I saw you could buy frozen mashed potatoes.

I pop them in the micro-whay-vhey and serve them up with a Frey bentos tinned pie.

Actually I lie, I don't cook because I work full time in the NHS and this sodding virus has meant that quite often I don't know what time I will leave at night, so I can't be fucking arsed to sous vide a pork chop infused with saffron for eight hours because it's considered proper cooking.

Jog on OP

The nicest meal I've had out was Gaucho's steak. Absolutely gorgeous. Argentinian chain restaurant I think?
At restaurants, I tend to go for fish - always thinking of my health. Had a gorgeous tuna steak in Ireland somewhere posh with a nice sauvignon blanc. That was a stand-out meal too.
But 'twas far from steak I was reared!

I made the most fantastic turkey noodle soup recently. Stock from the carcass, left to turn to jelly and skimmed for fat., fresh vegetables, extra chicken poached separately. Had no noodles so broke spaghetti up into tiny pieces.
It was fabulous. Family almost broke into applause.
I have lots of time right now. It took about 2 1/2 hours beginning to end to produce a meal for 3 with one bowl left for next day.

If I were working, maybe 2 jobs, to keep any kind of food on the table and a roof over my family’s heads in this unprecedentedly awful time, would I be spending 2 1/2 hours making one meal? Hell no.

This has made me laugh. I can cook but I cook what tastes good to me and my family and sometimes that can be something basic and that's fine. We also eat convenience food sometimes cos I work full time, doing a degree, and now home schooling 2 kids so there's not enough time in the day. OP your meals honestly turned my stomach. Food isn't just about taste anyway, veg and good nutrition is also important and your meals aren't very balanced at all.

@Royalbloo

Sounds like Henry the eighths meal planner.

YABU it's not fucking hard to cook if you have fire, a pan, you can read and you have a recipe book/internet access. Some people don't want to...not hard to understand is it?

Haha! Yes, Henry’s meal planner. That’s it exactly. I just don’t eat food like this at all. I don’t think you’re a terrible cook, though, OP. We just have very different tastes.

My loose meal plan this week:

Today - Jamaican food, cooked by my DH. Bet you can’t match his ‘Saturday soup’ with spinners (dumplings) or brown stew chicken & rice & peas . Does your husband cook?

Monday & Tue - roasted veg lasagne & salad. We try not to eat meat every day. We’ll eat the same thing across two days because we don’t want to cook from scratch every night.

Wed & Thu - something quick, from scratch but simple. Probably stir-fry of some sort or a Thai soup. We both work full time so every day can’t be a pheasant day .

Friday - Fish of some sort. Probably just some white fish done simply in the oven with lemon & olive oil & some roasted veg.

I also have teens, including one with autism. We like our family’s food. It’s a big, wide world out there, OP.

Looking at one supermarket website chicken fillets are £9 per kg and pheasant fillets were £28 per kg

Duck eggs were 43p each, chicken eggs 30p (free range), cheapest 16p each.

I am assuming OP is not cooking on a budget.

So not only are they talking out of their arse, they are talking out of their rich arse.

@TheUnexpectedPickle

"Not because I'm a dick"

Well. At least you're self aware.

Now excuse me, I must get back to my Pot Noodle.

Did you go all fancy and put the sauce sachet in??

It goes in raw and comes out cooked, everybody eats it all up, it has vitimens and minerals and proteins and fats and carbs in it

All of us in my house can cook well