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.

I’m not good at baking but like a pp says re her cooking, I’m not really interested in baking so I don’t really do it.

Yeah, I think this plays a big part.

I know people (my mum included) who love to cook and treat it as a hobby as well as an essential. But for many people, it's just another daily chore and they do as little as they can get away with.

I would enjoy cooking a lot more if I had a bigger kitchen, more storage space, a better oven and a dishwasher

Well if you follow any media we are all going to starve to death anyway, not because we can’t cook but because no one has any money at all.
So if you can’t cook now, don’t waste time learning.

You are an idiot if you can't cook. Everyone starts out knowing nothing. Then you learn. Cooking is just one of those things that gets easier the more you do it. It's craft, not art.

Such a myopic and narrow minded view. We don’t eat much French or traditional British foods, we find them too heavy, fattening. (I can make a perfectly good roux, though, because it’s hardly difficult).

We eat a lot of Asian food, from Indian to Japanese, via Korea, Thailand, Vietnam. I obviously don’t make my own miso paste, but I will reach for mirin and rice vinegar and fish sauce and soy sauce many multiples of times before I reach for sherry vinegar or balsamic vinegar.

Also, yikes change. There was a time when being handy with a needle and thread meant the difference between being clothed or not. Not the case any more. Knowing how to cook over a fire, build a fire, prune rose bushes, trim your lawn etc etc. In a world where families mostly need two incomes, people live in tiny home or flats with no gardens, central heating etc etc these things aren’t necessary to learn.

I don’t particularly enjoy cooking but can get by day to day. What I do enjoy is looking at recipe books and the photographs of delicious food. I have a good selection of books I have bought from charity shops. Anything related to a travel programme and I’m well happy for hours dreaming about Italy for example.

I cook from scratch often, probably the majority of the time. I’m perfectly capable of making a roux but I can’t remember the last time I did. My meals just don’t call for one that often.

You sound very judgemental OP, and quite honestly pretty narrow minded. Not sure why you think a roux is so important in life. Plenty of cultures cope quite nicely without roux in their life.

I was using that as an example of "something simple"
Change it for rice/lentils/fish/whatever they like to eat

I was brought up helping my nan bake and cook and my mum taught me how to make roast, bolognese etc so I was fortunately able to get through the college/ uni days able to cook when many of my friend could just about manage beans on toast.
I really depends on if you were taught how to do these things growing up or have the confidence to tech yourself if not.
I think it's a bit judgey pants of you to think this TBH.

The roux is just the flour and butter part. When you add milk you turn it into bechamel, or white sauce, traditionally flavoured with nutmeg.

I learned a lot from my mum, who in turn learned a lot at home and in boarding school. I did home economics in school too. If I had been depending on my one year of school home economics at age 13 for my cooking knowledge, my family would have eaten a lot of frozen pizza and nuggets and oven chips.

My DCs never had any home ec in school so they depended on me for basic know how. Whether they got it or not depended on their own individual interest. DD1 wasn't interested until she sublet a room one summer when she was in university in order to keep her part time job. I had a phone call from her asking for a crash course in grocery shopping and basic cooking. We spent a nice day at a supermarket and making a few basics in the stifling kitchen (midwest US, late May). DD4 got hooked on baking at an early age thanks to the Great British Baking Show and has never looked back. She has branched into cooking dinners.

I consider myself pretty privileged to have been brought up with solid cooking skills as the wallpaper of my life. My DS often remarked to me that the parents of his friends couldn't cook a meal from scratch, wouldn't attempt to make a fully homemade spaghetti bolognese, etc. Though many of the fathers were keen on BBQing.

And you’re a cunt if you judge people like that 🤷🏻‍♀️

There are always ways to eat if you're not great at cooking. I cook predominantly Asian food and have no need of a roux, so using that as a means to measure ability seems bizarre. A lot of people will be making a roux without labelling it as such too.

There are lots of things I can do that could be deemed essential life skills that others may not be able to do. I can mend my own car, wire a house, repair my own appliances but wouldn't dream of being sneery towards those who can't because perhaps they've never had the opportunity to learn how, or perhaps they just don't want to.

As others have also rightly pointed out, cooking from scratch is only affordable if you've got the money to pay out for ingredients. Building up a store of basics costs money, let alone things like spices and seasonings. If you're on a tight budget you might be more inclined to buy a jar of white sauce than buy the flour, milk and butter to make one.

Same. I'm not the least bit interested in cooking, I can do a variety of basic meals but we aren't big foodies so it's no big deal.

I'd much rather spend my time and effort gardening.

And as for people saying it's a 'middle class' thing to be able to cook. I grew up very working class and the was the first in my family to attend university so far from middle class.

I taught myself to cook at university. Because we came up with a system that the person who cooked was excused from all other cleaning.

Still love it to this day and cook everything from scratch - because after an initial outlay it is much cheaper and better - and here's the catch - I really enjoy it.

I enjoy it because I'm confident and don't need recipes. I taught myself to bake in lockdown having previously deemed it impossible because recipes and measurements matter and that's not how I cook. So now I enjoy that too.

The theme is I taught myself BECAUSE I ENJOY IT. I could quite happily exist and thrive having never made a roux - it's a useful skill but I'd suggest a more useful one is the ability to not make sweeping judgements about people.

I believe they do teach that in schools nowadays.

You could apply that to lots of things?

Can you sew?
Can you change a plug?
Can you change a tyre?
Can you diy?

I was given the skills to do all these things including cook. I just can't be bothered a lot of the time to do them and pay a premium to save myself having to cook because I am time poor.

I'd rather be an idiot than so horribly judgemental and snidey.

I wasn't taught to cook but I had to learn pretty sharpish when my mother got a job as a school cleaner.
She told me she wouldn't be home when I got in from school so it was going to be up to me to prepare dinner for my father and younger sister.

I'd rather throw a garment out than sew a button onto it.

Well I think most people can cook on a basic level. Not everybody is going to have the inclination or means to bother making everything from scratch, and thats fine.

I think there's a difference between can and do
Like I can cook and do it regularly but get a takeaway if I CBA
I can knit, but don't do it often

So if you can do it and choose not to, that's different. My dad likes sewing so I thread the needles and he does the sewing. Suits me

I can make a roux, it's hardly a mark of a developed intellect is it? Don't think I've made one in the last 30 years, would have been far more useful had I been taught basic household maintenance.

@MintJulia
I suspect I think the same way you do on this topic, and I too have saved a lot over the years thanks to being able to sew, repair, and alter clothes I've bought - more thanks to my mum than school, but that wasn't because the home economics teacher didn't try her hardest.

This is true.
Learning these skills has served me far better than being able to cook. Even when I was in private rented houses I could get odd jobs done without having to wait on the letting agent sorting it.