to think that people should be able to cook?

[bobbytorq]

I've been lsitening to radio 2 this morning and Joanna Scanlan is on ans she said she made a roux for the first time recently and found it hard work. I make a roux often and it's really easy and my kids have been making them since they were 10/11 too. It made me think that there musrt be loads of people who just don't have the cooking basics.

Parents didn't teach me.
School home economics was basic.
I've learnt quite a bit as an adult, but would consider making a roux to be very advanced cooking. It's hardly required to feed yourself healthy food, is it so why everyone need to know how to do it?

"The cost per portion might be low because you only use a tiny amount but can you afford the initial outlay for all the ingredients, knowing that if everyone hates it or it goes wrong, you won't make it again?"

Yes, trial and error is very expensive.
I made a soup just this week that didn't work - flavours didn't go together. I managed to finish it just about, but it was a waste of time really.
Other things I try to drown them in pepper and cheese, but sometimes the food is so horrible I just have to throw it away.

If you can read you can cook. In fact, forget reading — if you can follow a simple YouTube tutorial, you can cook.

See I think there is a big difference between being able to cook and being able to follow a recipe. I can cook a few meals without thinking but everything else I need to follow a recipe.

My mum however only follows a recipe when baking and even then not always. I'd say she is a great cook and I'm an average cook.

I guess it's just how you were bought up.

MN is so judgemental about other people's cooking skills.

Not everyone enjoys cooking or even cares about it. You also don't need to be able to cook well in order to feed yourself and your family - there are loads of very basic, cheap and healthy ways to feed people that don't involve knowing how to make a roux.

I can cook - but I don't enjoy it and I have a tiny kitchen with very little space, so generally I don't bother. I still manage to eat a healthy diet.

"People should be able to cook something simple like chicken, potatoes and veg or pasta"

People should be able to cook whatever is useful for them to cook and not what you decide they should cook.

Ditto 😂

I just bought recipe books and followed the instructions. You learn how to adjust things to your taste but there isn't really any skill to it. A bad result is usually just a bad recipe or a mistake in following instructions. Once I realised, cooking wasn't intimidating.

But you CAN cook. I don’t enjoy cooking either, though I can — DH does 95% of it because he loves cooking and is good at it — but being able to feed yourself on something other than takeaways, readymeals or sandwiches is a considerably more crucial life skill than swimming.

Home cooking will presumably always be less of a skill for someone with a successful acting career that sees her on location for months on end. No roux making when you're in a hotel for a month or two.

It's. It always a parents fault.

My mum is a terrible terrible cook and she never cooked when I was young other than waffles and dipper and ready meals. She is highly intelligent and had a high level job in education. But she cannot cook. I've watched her and taught her and she can't. She can't even help in the kitchen she is useless.

But I'm a really good cook and learnt to make a roux at aged 11 ish and learned to be really proficient in the kitchen. I love cooking and food.

**It's not always the parent fault - we do need the edit function!

I can cook, yes, but 99% of the time - I don't. And I'm alive, well and healthy so it's clearly not as essential as you're trying to make it out to be 😉

Toast, porridge or cereal and fruit for breakfast, a sandwich and raw veggies with houmous for lunch, and something simple like pasta with tinned tomatoes or a baked potato (microwaved from frozen) with various toppings for dinner.

The only "cooking" involved is boiling water and pressing a few buttons on a microwave.

People who can't cook give me the ick. Helpless people generally turn me right off.

I don’t bother with a roux made in the traditional way.
I use Delia’s all in one white sauce recipe - just chuck butter, flour, milk all together in a pan. Heat it up and whisk vigorously- game changer!

My partner's mother can't cook,she's lucky she married a man who was happy to live on bread and bramble seedless jam.

I can't make a roux for shit. I make a tasty stir fry. I can cook most things from scratch, bake, wire a plug, plumb a sink in, kick the edge of a tyre without crying. We can all do stuff other people struggle with. We should be more tolerant of other people's struggles.

What I can't abide is people who say "I can't cook so I expect to be served" everyone can make some kind of food. And no one is beyond learning.

I grew up in an impoverished single parent family without a stable living situation, no functioning kitchen, money for food… and I can make a roux, and cook most things (not meat, lifelong veggie!) to a decent standard, some might say excellent. Could hold my own with chef exDP. It’s not that hard!

Oh and my mum’s cooking is reheating ready meals so I didn’t get it from her! And I have ADHD! I did bloody well now I think about it…

I agree. I was never taught to cook, barely allowed in the kitchen. My mum did everything. When I went to uni I lived on sandwiches and cup a soup.

I can cook now but never do as my husband does it all. I am really good at puddings though, but we only have them when hosting .
My sons were helping with cooking from when they were tiny. They are both excellent cooks now (thanks to their dad) and make everything from scratch.

I think peoples cooking skills are on a need to know basis

You have to be interested though as well ,I can cook well.enough to feed my family ,but I wouldn't say I enjoy cooking ,my. Sister really enjoyed it and makes her own sauces etc,her 20 year old son, also really enjoys cooking and experimenting I do it because I have too.

I agree with you in general. But I am a perfectly competent cook and don’t enjoy making a roux. So for using that as a benchmark YABU.

I got a set of knives as a wedding present which my best friend laughed would be great for making different sized holes in ready made film.

I can cook pretty well, thank you Delia you utter goddess, although I don't especially enjoy it.

I have very little tolerance for anyone that won't at least give something a go. There's pretty much nothing you can't find instructions on You Tube. I fixed my tumble dryer last week.