To feel that sad that basic cooking skills are dying out

[SingleDoubleWhippedClotted]

Me and my brother were taught to cook by my gran and mum. Dad used to cook too but worked away a lot so wasn't around as much.

So many people now seem to be incapable of basic food prep and spend a fortune on food. Cooking seems to be an undervalued life skill, I think its so important to have the skills to be able to prepare simple cheap healthy meals.

I have taught my teen to cook and she could fend for herself if she left home tomorrow. She can cook healthy cheap meals.

I see so many threads on here where people can't boil rice, boil an egg etc

One of the things I dislike about cooking is the time it takes for what, if you're not that interested in food, isn't much return.

Absolutely. And even if you do like food, it feels like a lot of effort for something that's generally eaten in 10 minutes.

We don't have a dishwasher either so any dishes have to be done by hand in our tiny galley kitchen - it's so unappealing and frankly most days I can't be arsed, lol.

I'm much happier paying more for convenience foods like frozen veg that can be microwaved.

One of the things I dislike about cooking is the time it takes for what, if you're not that interested in food, isn't much return.

It's actually worse if you are interested in food, but can't cook well. All the time, effort and expense for a meal that looked really nice in the recipe book but in my hands is sad and borderline inedible. It's very demotivating.

Actually I think my ability to cook has massively contributed to me being overweight. I'm a foodie. I'm obsessed with cooking and different ingredients. It's done me no favours 😂

Not bollox.
I kept the op general and then gave some specific examples of my own experience.

I have just been asked to run a course in my church by some of the mums who are looking for ways to cut their food costs and make more food from scratch.
I sat down with a few of them last week, one a teacher with 2 under 4 and the other a nurse with primary age kids. One specifically wants to learn to make soups as her kids love soup and she is sick of buying it. The other wants me to show her how to make a chicken casserole I made for a church lunch recently along with a tomato sauce for pasta.

Microwave rice is far more expensive per portion and not as nice. You only have to watch shows like Eat Well For Less to see them switching to more home cooking. Cutting up fresh carrots instead of buying ready prepared etc

Then start your own thread😁

A teacher with two children who needs to be taught how to make soup? I would suggest she’s humouring you or wants a social outlet because that’s not likely at all.

@TeenLifeMum , I’ve often seen threads where people say they ‘can’t’ cook rice, and TBH you’ve only got to look at supermarket shelves with 4 or 5 times the amount of microwave rice compared to CIY (cook it yourself).
Of course it’s quick, but I can’t think that’s the only reason people buy it - especially given the CoL crisis, when it’s so much more expensive.

IMO some people seem to think there’s some great mystique to it.

As for people who just ‘can’t cook’, IMO it’s more usually a case of CBA.

I'm not incapable, i just hate it, so i don't do it. I prefer spending as little time as possible in the kitchen.

I honestly think a lot of people can't be bothered to cook and don't really care all that much about it.

I read a lot of MN threads about what people eat and how they host people for big meals and dinner parties but it's genuinely not what I come across in real life.

MN is generally a very middle class subsection of the internet and I don't think it really reflects the reality of many people's lives.

I have ordered my young adult son Hello Fresh and Gousto boxes to help him learn to cook. The recipes are excellent and easy to follow. He has really enjoyed it.

My lodger can't cook.
She was bought up on a diet of chicken nuggets and freezer chips and mcdonalds and now in her mid 20s that is the only thing she can cook. Oh and a oven pizza.
I've tried to teach her recipes but she's not interested. She spends a lot of money on takeaways or buying cold food like sausage rolls to eat.
I don't think she would know how to cut up a onion.

That's why the garlic goes in when the onions are almost done!

I will forever use diced frozen onion and frozen chopped garlic ❤️

I don't think its a lack of skill, i think its:

• lack of time
• laziness/wanting delicious food ready instantly
• lack of organisation: cooking is easier when you have planned ahead and have what you need ready
• taste - i think a lot of younger people have got used to things like simply cook or ultraprocessed sauces and garnishes that are very concentrated, hyper seasoned & tasty, it takes time & effort to home cook food to achieve that. So they try to make something & it doesn't taste like restaurant/takeaway food & they are unimpressed and don't want to bother again

I used to be like that and then i watched a you tube video ,I can cook a fairly good omelette now ,a good non stick pan really helps too.

She might just not be interested?
I never was when I was single and lived alone ,but when I got married and had kids I had to learn to cook aa i couldn't afford takeaways every night
I don't particularly enjoy cooking but I can cook.

@SingleDoubleWhippedClotted OP, I wonder if what you're sad about is actually the nostalgia of spending time in the kitchen with your mum and your gran, and you replicating that with your own child? My mum never actively taught me how to cook but when I was little I'd hang around in the kitchen with her and watch what she was doing and we'd chat and I must have just taken into my brain things that I'd seen her do. I didn't use the knowledge until much older - when I left home at 18 I was cooking potato waffles, sweetcorn and fish burgers! But as I've progressed through my years I have crafted my ability so I'm as a PP said, a competent but not especially adventurous cook. Now that my mum has gone, I feel nostalgic looking back on the time I spent with her in the kitchen. It's something that I've done with my own teen, right from when she was tiny, and she would be able to fend for herself too. Not that she'd want to, mind! She really loves baking, especially with her friends.

I agree with what another PP said, in that cooking requires an element of knowing how to fix things when they go wrong. That's something that takes experience as well as the will to investigate and learn. It's not something that can necessarily be done quickly and cheaply, so I see why convenience foods are so useful to many families.

Only a couple of generations ago the vast majority of married men couldn't (or wouldn't because they had a wife to do that) cook.

When my grandfather was widowed in the 1960s he couldn't boil an egg. He got cookery books, picked my mum's brain and learned to cook really well.

When my mum died my dad had NEVER cooked a meal in his life. He lived on biscuits, cheese sandwiches and other people's generosity until he died. When we cleared out his house the cupboards were exactly as they had been when my mum died - full of out of date stuff.

It's clear that people in temporary accommodation are unable to cook as they don't have the resources. That's why food banks want tinned stuff, things that only require a microwave or kettle and milk and juice that can be kept out of a fridge. That's a sad situation.

I was raised on crispy pancakes, and meals of butcher meat + potatoes, and was taught to cook, as far as preparing those sort of 3 ingredient meals goes.

That's not the sort of food I or my family want to eat though, but have never mastered a fantastic risotto, curry, etc, without using prepared elements.

I can do a few pasta sauces, chilli, and a stir fry sauce. But there is always a sense of failure in the meals I cook - either it tastes bland, or I worry there is too much salt/fat/too carb heavy/not enough veg/too much processed meat/should we even be eating meat/but then UPF/etc.

Everything is "wrong", and if you can't do right anyway, then why not just shove a frozen pizza in the oven.

I think teaching your children to cook has become something of a luxury, a quite middle class thing.

I live on a council estate and we have a community shop that also runs cooking lessons and holiday activities.

If you are poor you cannot afford to throw food away if your child makes a disaster.

To cook you need a cooker or at least a microwave, the energy to power it and a few utensils / pans / dishes. Then you need to know what to do whether that is from a book or youtube.

Unless you are going to live on tins and packets you really need a fridge too.

One of the schemes the community shop runs is family cooking. So parents and children learn to cook together and then take home and eat what they have cooked.

Yes, the time is a huge thing for me too. I was laughing at 'Jamie's 20 minutes meal' because for me that is way too long to be spending cooking something I will eat in 5 minutes.

I have a table top dishwasher. I highly recommend it.