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.

Is this an age thing, I wonder? Early 40s - I don't think I know anyone who can't put a functional, home cooked meal on the table!

OP I’ve read all your posts, what was your point? Why post this? You sound so very sneery and condescending.

I can cook from scratch, do so most days. So what?

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!)

I'm instantly put off a recipe if the list of ingredients doesnt fit on one page! I made potato dauphinoise this week , I think there were 5 ingredients, so far more chance of me having them all! My DH has always been better at cooking than me because he has more patience and doesnt mind recipes with 56 ingredients and probably because he doesnt clear up or wash up afterwards I'm better at baking though and more organised in the kitchen.

If you can read a recipe, then you can cook.

I've tried a number or recipes & some are ok, a few are great & some are awful. Generally I find the likes of bbc good food where you can read comments better than say a Jamie O book.

I think lots of people can cook, but don't always have the time and energy to cook from scratch. If you've been working all day, you don't always want to stand in the kitchen chopping ingredients and standing over the stove making a sauce, even though you know it would be nicer than one from a jar.

OP Your weekly menu is pretty old fashioned and a bit bland for my tastes.

Your cooking has no discernable influences from South America, Asia or Africa? Do you not know how to cook ‘foreign foods’?

For some of us, canned pasta sauce with added mince and sautéed mushrooms over boiled macaroni is good enough. I’m not a great cook, but can make an economical and tasty meal.

Eating tinned spaghetti hoops on toast is my idea of grim.

I'm sure in my childhood I've vastly enjoyed tinned spaghetti hoops on toast. Probably in the freezing cold of a scout camp. But just to prove we can all find someone to look down on, I disapprove of the Norwegian youtuber I follow whose dinner consisted of eating spaghetti hoops cold out of the can. Just because you're on a tiny sailboat crashing over giant waves in sub-zero temperatures in the middle of the North Sea is no reason to let standards slip. You have a gas cooker, use it to heat your tins!

@midnightstar66

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!

Everyone I know who spends some time in Spain complains about them eating too much fried food.

Here in Portugal nobody eats pasta and then a chicken breast. If anything we eat them together.
That sounds more like Italy. One country.

That's ridiculous. Most people can cook to a competent level. My guess is 50% of people don't like cooking so cut corners wherever they can.

I'm just having a cuppa and reading these responses. I don't want everyone to eat what I eat, I'm not a crazed food fascist. Eat what you like. Just eat the best version. That's all I'm saying.

97% was arbitrary, I agree. I'm adjusting it to 90.

It's not even about having an energy or something. There is no need to be justifying use of jarred sauces if someone wants to use them🤷🏻 They were developed for a convenience, so people are absolutely ok to use them if they like them. Doesn't make them a lesser person.

Same with tinned tomatoes, pulses, frozen items etc. I get industrial size tins of tomatoes for batch cooking. Let's not be naive. Most restaurants use them (and more) and all the "foodies" get excited over the dishes. So why couldn't we use them😁

[quote ShrikeAttack]@Userzzz, I don't judge or care really. I'm an utter twat in real life.

I just want people to eat decent food. Because it's a pleasure.[/quote]
As @Scbchl said - it's a pleasure FOR YOU. That doesn't mean it's a pleasure for other people. Some people, honestly, just are not that bothered about food. They would be just as happy with a sandwich or jacket potato as home cooked soup and roast pheasant, so why bother wasting hours and money on the second if it gives them no additional benefit?

Other people do enjoy food but have different tastes to yours. So what you sneered as a 'watery ragu' would be a healthy meal that they enjoyed, but your roast pheasant and port jus would turn their stomach.

Wouldn't you think a poster was wanky if they rocked up sighing that '97% of people don't exercise properly, they must be so lazy, and I'm not being a dick but their lives would be so much happier and healthier if they went for a 10km run every night.'
or
'I've come to the realisation that most people read utter shite, and must be so uneducated, I'm not being mean, just feel bad for them, they don't understand how much more enriched they would be if they just read an hour of Flaubert or Hugo every night (in the original French, obvs)."
or
'sounds like 97% of people are having really terrible sex. Wish they would read tantric orgasm for women, put in 2 hours of reflective mediation, yoga for flexibility, and masturbation per day like me and see how much their lives improve.'

Is this written by a bloke by any chance

Nope.

Is that you Gordon? What a huge generalisation you’ve made.

97% was arbitrary, I agree. I'm adjusting it to 90.

Arbitrarily?

@ShrikeAttack I'm waiting for your answer on where you can get half a dozen free range duck eggs for less than 80p as I'll be racing there!

I've come to the realisation that most people read utter shite, and must be so uneducated, I'm not being mean, just feel bad for them, they don't understand how much more enriched they would be if they just read an hour of Flaubert or Hugo every night (in the original French, obvs).

Most people do read utter shite. However, reading is optional.

@Carysmatthews

Is that you Gordon? What a huge generalisation you’ve made.

Gordon isn't such a dick. He often says for example about puff pastry to just buy it. Nothing wrong with not wasting hours on something you can readily aquire

Yea you're right, you do sound like an utter twat. You have too much time on your hands if you can cook like that everyday. In the real world people work full time as well as feeding their family. We manage just fine. Have some fucking cheesy beans on toast you pretentious arse!

It's spelt Chilli by the way, not chillie.

"I'm not about to tell you all what to eat. It's really subjective."

Exactly. So stop telling people what the "best versions" are. That is your opinion alone. Duck eggs are not superior to hens eggs. They are simply different.

Your menu sounds ridiculously bland compared to what I like to eat. Also, it could be terribly badly cooked. Pheasant is unpleasant if not cooked perfectly and the fact you are simply roasting all of the sides suggests there's not much going on in the way of culinary skill here.

Maybe you could add us some unfiltered photos of the pheasant and this bizarre concoction of brisket and sides.

Please share a typical weeks menu that you would cook OP?

"reading is optional" apparently so in the household that can't spell Chilli

Well, it isn't optional in mine. It's as essential a life skill as culinary skills are!

I'm not among those who don't get pleasure from food, I absolutely love food, a huge range of cuisines, and can cook well albeit as a single working parent with dc with time consuming hobbies it can be a challenge. Your menu to me sounds heavy, greasy and bland and i'd not enjoy it in the slightest. All that meat in one day with the processed meat heavy brunch then pheasant would probably make me feel sick.

I actually quite like the sound of your menu OP - we’d eat everything on that list, and do. We do eat a greater variety of cuisines than that though, but I suppose you only posted a few days’ worth. We also eat a whole lot of vegetables.

And I don’t mean the shit menu up thread where you basically just reeled off what meat and veg your going to eat.

Because any can can roast a beetroot my darling.

I mean; seasonings, method of cooking, time it’s cooked for, what you pair it with, condiments, whether you grow your own potatoes?

All these factor into taste and whether your cooking is good.

Just because your roasting a beetroot with a smoked mackerel (did you catch and smoke it yourself or is it a Lidl vacuum sealed special?) doesn’t mean you can cook.

Get off your high horse 😂