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.

@ShrikeAttack Horrible smug thread.

And I am really pleased to see that 9 out of 10 posters out of 1200 disagree with you.

Many women (under 60) can't cook/won't cook/don't wanna cook. Because these are the women (particularly women between 40 and 60,) who were born in a time when they were expected (as young women,) to go out to work, forge a career, to 'break through the glass ceiling,' and be high achievers. Along with being a great housekeeper, a wonderful mother, and an amazing wife.

At the same time came convenience food/takeaways/ready meals/microwave meals, and many women (already frazzled from having to work AND be a wife and mother,) didn't acquire the ability to to cook-from-scratch very well. And they found ready meals/convenience foods/frozen food made life easier anyway.

Much of this type of food is absolutely fine, and it's the most ignorant people, and smug food-snobs, who think cooking-from-scratch is the ONLY way you should be feeding yourself and your family.

If women who are already frazzled and stressed find an easier way to feed their family, (via ready meals/frozen food/takeaways/shop bought salads etc,) then why the F shouldn't they? What's more, there is nothing to stop the MEN from cooking.

I'm fine with admitting that I can't cook - mixing things up and heating things up is the most I'm happy to do. I hate being in the kitchen longer than needed, and I often don't remember to if there aren't others around.

I know fuck all about ingredients, I grew up with family that largely cooked from boxes and tins. That was the height of luxury for the generation that came off of subsistence farms and never wanted anything close to that again. I wasn't raised with cooking skills or much appreciation for food other than the process of getting food from the field to the table is hard, often unpleasant work and the appreciation of options. When I was little, I had family members discussing their first memories being their mother wringing a chicken's neck as a normal part of discussing the benefits of chicken broth for an illness. I happily get my favourite chicken noodle soup from a Chinese takeaway (and my Christmas dinner came from 'Best Pizza and Kebab').

The thing is while you might think what other people are eating is shite, I spent a good chunk of my teen years living on shite like powder butter sandwiches because my parents are addicts - they put their pleasure first, so there sometimes wasn't much food and butter powder lasts ages, is easy to transport, and makes pretty much any bread more edible. Most things taste pretty good when you learn through experience how your body won't feel hungry after a while whether you eat or not. So if it makes people sad that my preferred lunch is salad stuff in a tortilla with citrus and spicy dressing or that I think most jarred salsa, tinned ratatouille, and packet frikadellen with cupboard gravy is fine, tough shit. They ain't paying for my groceries or eating with my experience.

What people find pleasurable differs both individualistically and culturally. Tasting well enough and meeting my nutritional goals gives me enough. Not everything needs to be hedonic - and the menu given is pretty much the opposite of hedonic to me. I can't think of anything less pleasurable than eating blood - it seems like a hard up food to me - but to some it's fine cultural cuisine. That differences doesn't make me sad, it's just not something I really care to have in my life with other options available, including skipping a meal.

My taste in oatmeal with frozen veg, salsa, and eggs topped with seeds and nutritional yeast and popped in the microwave til firm isn't everyone else's cup of tea either, that doesn't make me sad and I only tend to recommend it if people want ways to have veg for breakfast or something with nutritional variety but doesn't take much stomach space for those with low appetites, the latter being something I've long dealt with.

97% is stupid. Does that include the worlds best chefs aswell?

I think maybe 10% are great cooks, 20% are good cooks, 20% are reheat/pierce film/takeaway and the other half are somewhere in between.

And it changes for people depending on circumstances. I was a piece film lass when I had 3 small children and building work going on, I was an “everything organic and from scratch” with PFB.

OP comes across as sneering at people in different circumstances and with different priorities.

What are you going to do about the problem? Posting here won’t help fix it. Have you thought about writing a cookbook?

Will you share your potatoe recipe?

littlepattilou

ShrikeAttack Horrible smug thread.

And I am really pleased to see that 9 out of 10 posters out of 1200 disagree with you.

Thing is, the OP seems to think the the % voting YABU correlates with the % who can't cook.

(I think I know my way around a kitchen and which end of a mezzaluna to stick in my ear and I voted YABU.)

I think people are very sceptical when you claim that you 'cook from scratch'

It's not cooking from scratch itself. People are sceptical when it's ALWAYS cooking from scratch with nothing ever pre made.

Have you tried hibiscus? It helps lower blood pressure. And makes tasty drink. 2 birds...

@HaveeeeYouMetTed

I make homemade, edible meals that the whole family enjoy therefore I say I can cook which I think most the population can do.

Could I make a fancy meal using ingredients that aren't the standard? No, probably not. But that's because I can cook, but am not a chef.

Exactly this 🙂

I agree with you OP. The number of people claiming they make a “homemade birthday cake” and it’s not. It’s a box cake and a bought tub of pre-made frosting. All my DCs have commented to when they went to university that they were considered oddities because they could actually cook full meals and baked goods from basic ingredients. Your % is probably more correct than people think.

I didn’t want to be smug and superior but I’m going to be.
I can cook, I’m really good at it and always have been. I went to a catering college for fun while at university, I also worked as a chef when I didn’t need the money. I live alone now and through lockdown have been spending over £300 a week on food to prepare and cook for friends. While at university I studied statistics I feel this puts me in a good place to say to you OP you are so terribly wrong. Some people are better than others at cooking some people can cobble a lasagna (lasagne is also correct) together with pre bought ingredients some will make everything themselves and some will buy the product already made.
They are all absolutely fine.

I was taught from a young age that there are no rules when it comes to cooking. Cooking is just playing around with flavours and ingredients. I don’t really use recipes or weigh stuff. Some of the nicest dishes I’ve done are just experimental ones which i’ve then tweaked to alter the flavour. I think baking is another matter - obviously you need to have a technique and have to weigh correctly for cakes and buns, and I must admit I’m pretty rubbish with baking a cake.

Some of the food they prepare and cook on master chef looks horrible with too many different things all put together.
Recipe books have long list of ingredients some of which is impossible to find in a normal store and the time it all takes also puts people off trying new things as well.
I hate cooking : I do it because I have to for the family , buy if I lived alone i wouldn't bother that much and live on cereal and toast and maybe some veggies probably!
I think I just gave up trying new things years ago because I've realized I hate it so much! Rather read a good book.
My son isn't a bad cook , but then he actually enjoys the process.

Also to add, you don’t need to go to a catering college to cook like Gordon Ramsey, we can just watch many many videos of Gordon Ramsey showing you exactly how to cook like him. Most people are capable of following a video recipe.

SchrodingersImmigrant

I think people are very sceptical when you claim that you 'cook from scratch'

It's not cooking from scratch itself. People are sceptical when it's ALWAYS cooking from scratch with nothing ever pre made.

My SiL is always bragging that they "never have processed food in the house".

I'm too weedy to point out the sausages, bacon, cheese, readymade bread, marmalade etc

I think she believes that only things like ready meals and oven chips are "processed".

(Weirdly, her husband - a good cook, imo - does all the cooking apart from a particular pudding on Christmas Day, which she makes a huge fuss about and has to be admired more than any other dish in the whole year)

OP - the sample menu you shared is seriously lacking in fresh fruit and veg. Your meat and carb heavy diet will be shortening your and your families lives. That is what is sad. That you do not know how to eat healthily and well and have a blinkered dependence on daily meat based meals. I think you need to expand your culinary horizons - your arteries will thank you for it.

I can cook but I hate it. I also don’t enjoy most food. Which I feel sad about but it’s the way I am.

[quote TerrifiedOfTrying4No2]@JerichosPenisInADeadChickHat best idea anyone has had yet. I bloody live a rate my plate 😂[/quote]
Yes please can we do this !

Also to add, you don’t need to go to a catering college to cook like Gordon Ramsey, we can just watch many many videos of Gordon Ramsey showing you exactly how to cook like him. Most people are capable of following a video recipe

That's not really the same. That's just following a recipe (and you don't know that your meal actually tastes anything like his). To cook like Gordon Ramsey you'd be making it up as you go along, either inventing the dish or putting a very unique spin on it or at the very least never following a recipe at all. Having chef training would help with that.

What's wrong with a slow cooker? How is that different to cooking something in the oven or on the hob? I'm making Scouse tonight completely from scratch. I'm even going to use fresh herbs from the garden. I'm going to do it in a casserole dish on the hob. Would you count this as cooking or just throwing stuff in a pan?

OP you'll get scurvy if you don't add some veg into that menu.

What are you on?

To be honest I'm on board with the slow cooker thing. I've never made a single thing that wasn't less bland and less pleasant texture than its oven or stove top counterpart despite using the exact same ingredients or seasoning. I use it purely for convenience when time is limited at the end of the day but it's never my go to for that reason. Mostly throw in a chicken or jacket litigators so they are ready when we get home

Is it just me or is anyone else reading OPs posts in Lady Colin Campbells voice?

@PlanDeRaccordement

I agree with you OP. The number of people claiming they make a “homemade birthday cake” and it’s not. It’s a box cake and a bought tub of pre-made frosting. All my DCs have commented to when they went to university that they were considered oddities because they could actually cook full meals and baked goods from basic ingredients. Your % is probably more correct than people think.

Another condescending, smug post.

Yeah it's lovely having lots of cook-from-scratch fun at uni, or when you're living with your mates/boyfriend/girlfriend. Not quite so much fun when you are a frazzled working mother trying to juggle half a dozen things...

Your job, looking after your older and sometimes elderly parents/ household admin/ housework/ looking after the children/ the school run/looking after sick children/ trying to find childcare in the holidays.

Step off your high horse!