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.

But you eat shit food. That sounds absolutely vile.
I'd rather have a carbonara.
Or a roast dinner.
And yes, I can cook. I'm very good at it.

You know what Shrike I think you are right ( although your % is too high). Most times I eat at someone’s house I find myself thinking it could have been made better by the addition/leaving out of xyz. When we used to go out to restaurants I would be disappointed over half of the time, and that’s going to decent well thought of places. I really don’t enjoy takeaways, I look at reviews or see people recommending places on FB so I try them and they are invariably shite.Just the smell of McDonalds or Subway makes me feel queasy. Most of the time when people post food ideas on here I think “yuk”
However, I have come to the conclusion it’s largely me. I like food a certain way. I really do prefer my own cooking. I know what level of spices or seasoning etc I like and what combinations work FOR ME.
If other people are happy eating food I wouldn’t and it tastes nice to them and they enjoy it then that’s great.
I do think that we should teach better nutrition in schools though and/or how to cook basic dishes.Back when I was a youngster I learned how to make a cheese sauce, skin a fish fillet, make a ragu etc but I don’t think that’s taught now (I could be wrong). You can eat well and cheaply, especially if you dont eat a lot of meat but as evidenced by a lot of threads on here many people don’t know how to. Buying your tinned beans from Aldi rather than Sainsburys is NOT the pinnacle of eating on a budget.

I can cook - maybe not cordon bleu standard, but can have a go at most things successfully, and I'm reasonably competent at butting things together without using a recipe, or using a recipe & being confident with substitutes if I don't have all the ingredients.
So - sometimes I cook, sometimes I choose not to, and use convenience food.
I would guess most people are the same to a greater or lesser degree - I'd estimate "can't cook" is probably closer to 5% than 97%

My Dh is a chef, in a fine dining restaurant so he can cook. I reckon probably 97% better than you op, and I feel a bit sad for you.

If it was 97%, the shops wouldn't be full of such a massive range of ingredients.

In my circle of friends, a couple don't cook and rely on ready meals and takeaways. Another couple aren't great cooks but do cook. The rest are regular cooks and produce really tasty food.

I'd say your research is a tad flawed

Duck eggs are the same price as hen's eggs.

What? You can get 6 free range duck eggs for 75p? Where?

I don't like pheasant but I can cook that meal perfectly well with a chicken. Your menu isn't any better than anyone else's it just uses slightly different ingredients. You describing the items in detail doesn't make you a good cook. I make home made soup, bread and cheese too.

Some things aren't worth making at home or cooking from scratch. I CBA to mash potatoes or buy fresh veg when ready made mash is delicious and a lot of frozen veg is as good as fresh and cheaper. I'm not going to take the time to peel tomatoes when tinned ones are both delicious and convenient or grate cheese when a bag of ready grated extra mature cheddar is cheaper per kg than a block.

I don't do this because I can't cook. Far from it - I'm an excellent cook. The time and money I save on using these shortcuts I put into making things that aren't as good ready made, things like sourdough bread, bearnaise sauce, perfect roast potatoes and the worlds best macaroni cheese.

There is no inherent virtue in cooking 'from scratch'. You might as well argue than it is morally superior to wash clothes by hand when you have a washing machine available or use a broom instead of a vacuum cleaner.

@ShrikeAttack

Most of us wouldn't be able to work as chefs. Not the same as not being able to cook.
What an odd notion.

If you can read a recipe, then you can cook.
I don't see the issue with slow cookers, particularly when they mean a busy person can cook a proper meal, rather than rely on beige, oven cook food - that's better surely? The odd oven dinner, ready meal or takeaway won't hurt either. I do think it's important to involve children in the cooking (when time allows), so they get used to seeing what happens in a kitchen and how to cook. My daughter loves 'helping' as much as I loved 'helping' my mum as a child.

I am a bit of a tosser.
I always have been.
And there's fuck-all I can do about that.

There’s quite a lot you could do about it actually, but I think you like being a tosser, looking down on people for things that, for the majority, affect you in no way shape or form. But you derive pleasure from belittling people and being “right” about topics you think you are knowledgeable on (which you have even said yourself food is subjective as you knew you would get pulled apart for your “menu”). It allows you to place yourself on a pedestal as the 3% who can do x, and you use that to feel better about yourself. Something is missing from your life that a bit of Pico de gallo can’t fix.

How pompous.

Havent rtft but read all the ops posts.
The whole thing about food is that people have different tastes. What's delicious to one person is horrible to another. I cant stand artichokes, olives, horseradish or, mustard for example. They're not bad food , I just dont like them. I love dressed crab, shrimps etc, my Ddad used to hate them because they were too gritty.Neither of us are unreasonable, its valid to have different tastes.

I never use jars of sauce for pasta or casseroles but I do for indian food because I feel less confident about it.

FWIW I disliked a lot of the things on your menu but I think my self confessed food ponce DH would love it!

This thread has made me want cheese on toast and carbonara for breakfast
I do agree with the poster about white sauce - jars of white sauce taste synthetic to me so I much prefer to make a roux or use a pot of sour cream. It’s personal preference and time. I’ve no friends who live on chicken nuggets but I know people do. I know schools try to educate around food but 2 of my 3 dds always significantly reduce their food intake even they’ve had those lessons - they’re so slim their trousers have to be adjustable as ones for their age and height fall straight down and I sew their pj bottoms to make them fit so they do not need to diet!

And pheasant is the same price as chicken.

Not round here it isn’t. Gamekeepers can’t get rid of it - we never pay for our pheasants (or partridges). I think you need another veg with your pheasant - I like lots of choice with a roast.

I actually think your menus sound quite nice, although beetroot is one of the few things I’m really not keen on. Very traditional, but you’ve only gone up to Wednesday, so may add more spice later in the week - or you might not like it and that’s fine,

I think I’m a good home cook. I don’t bake often - not my thing. If the list of ingredients is too long - I’m not interested (Ottolenghi). I’ll only cook one proper meal a day - lunch involves raiding the fridge. I usually cook from scratch, but am not against a shop bought chicken Kiev. DH is an excellent cook - was crap when I met him, but has improved massively (I taught him everything he knows! ).

Less flippantly, as others have said, just because someone doesn’t cook from scratch every day doesn’t mean they can’t cook. Perhaps there are other things they would rather do - paint, sew, read, game, save the world. Many people’s time is limited. And some people are really not interested in food and that’s fine. My point is we’re all different and that’s a good thing.

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.

That's very specific 😆. Fwiw where I lived on the Mediterranean the diet looked absolutely nothing like that!

The OP's examples of good food on page 8 are certainly not good food to me.

I wouldn't eat artichoke soup if you paid me to, the rest of it is just basic food written to sound like an M&S advert.

Similarly, that menu would repulse all of the vegans and vegetarians I know.

Just because people don't eat the same foods as you doesn't mean they can't cook to a high standard.

JinglingHellsBells I agree with you about the cheap cuts of meat. I bought 5 pieces of scrag end of lamb for £2.19 - made a delicious stew yesterday for two of us with carrot, onion, swede, turnip and pearl barley (oh and a stock cube - dreadful). Followed by bread pudding. There's enough of the stew left for another meal, and a couple more servings of the bread pudding.

@Lougle - Pheasants are £3 each here (South Coast) and delicious!!

OP, I do think you are being rather pompous - I cannot believe 97% of people cannot cook. I do think that quite a large number can't be bothered to cook but that's a different story.

Do children not do Domestic Science at school any more? I still have the cookery book I had at school (70s) and regularly cook recipes from it.

Looking around my peers locally either I know all of the 3% or your talking bollocks OP.

I often wonder about people's tastebuds rather than their ability to cook - the chain restaurants near us are absolutely awful yet someone's eating in them.

Confession I am a foodie bore 😂have always been thus, I wouldn't eat my Mum's cooking because it was crap - veg and meat are cooked beyond recognition - at the time I thought I was a fussy eater.

One of the dcs fussiest friends comes around for dinner every week, we started with very plain food but then gradually we have introduced them to a huge number of new foods - to go from struggling to eat gravy on roast dinner to now joining us eating the stinkiest cheeses at the end of a meal, has been quite a revelation for them and a fun challenge for us all, as we all encourage them to be brave and try something new.

Mostly I love cooking but at (busy) times I lose my cooking mojo and in those times I understand how bloody hard it is to pull the enthusiasm together to cook interesting, tasty food - I bribe the kids and dh to cook, order takeaway and finally we eat processed food - my tastebuds will only put up with so much and a few processed meals is usually enough to kick start my mojo for fear of starving.

Cooking when you don't feel the love for it - is torturous so I completely get the posters who just want to get it over and done with.

Original poster very negative self declared statistics! Possibly I am within that 3 per cent range as through necessity (unlike your overwhelming 97%) I can and have self taught to cook tasty meals without eating rubbish. Many good chefs are self taught and perfected through imagination and perseverance! It is a crime to not be able to carry out simple life necessities and especially as to fitness for purpose as a responsible parent in the middle of a worsening pandemic war where we are minded to stay in the safe home bubble and be a part of the solution not cause.

The menu is hilarious:

Fry up with processed meats and bubble minus the squeak, roast dinner with poultry as the protein, soup, salad, tacos - ground breaking stuff there, OP. This must be a wind up?

Delia, you're probably correct 🤷‍♀️

Perhaps only 3% of the population can cook to masterchef standard.

Many others can cook perfectly interesting, tasty meals from raw ingredients.

Many others just heat up food.

Some can't even boil and mash a potato.

I don't see why it matters that there aren't more people who fall in to the masterchef category. That kind of cooking has to be something you are both skilled at and see as your hobby.