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

Exactly 😂 Of course it's a bloody faff.

No matter how much I mash my mash 😂it still ends up lumpy. I have heard a ricer is the best option for lump free mash but that seems like a faff too

I use a ricer as it's hard to mash properly the sheer amount of potatoes we have.

Yes, a little fiddly but it's sooo satisfying, extruding tubes of potato! It's Play Doh Mop Top Hair Shop for adults. In case anyone is unfamiliar with that

And it means that it doesn't matter what kind of potatoes you use, the mash is always perfect.

I can't always be bothered though - was going to do mashed potatoes yesterday evening then saw the skin on fries in the freezer...we had chips. I'll make some on Sunday!

Totally agree.

Years ago, when convenience food wasn't the evil enemy it is now, and DH and I had more money (and no kids), whenever I saw a thread on here saying, "how do I make my mash nice" I used to post, "go to Tesco. Buy a tub of Finest Mash potatoes. Microwave. Enjoy."

We don't have a Tesco near us any more. I wonder if their Finest mash is still as good as it used to be... I should buy some if I go past one any time soon.

I think what constitutes faffing depends on the person. I don't mind chopping a big pile of veg but I can totally understand that for a lot of people that's the definition of faff. for me, it's fine as I can do it in sequence, there's no to'ing and fro'ing, no checking, no trying to manage multiple things at once etc. So I'm fine doing it. Often I'm sauteing the onion while I'm chopping the other veg so it feels like an easy multi-task. But cooking in three pots at once, having to intervene at regular intervals... argh, no thanks, that's not for me.

i dont think all cooking skills are dying out - but i guess some of the old school stuff is. But I think cooking always evolves, for example how many of us have ever plucked a chicken or skinned a rabbit? go back to our great grandparents era and earlier and it was much more common for people to do this.

My teens aged 13, 15 and 17 all cook dinner 1 night a week for the whole family which includes making a veggie alternative for DD and they are all capable of making themselves a hot breakfast or lunch if they want. DD age 15 is also really good at baking.

With all the cookery programs and recipe books, the only "excuse" is being cash rich/poor and time poor.

Many working people just don't have the time and mental energy to scratch cook.

That is because two parents are required to work outside the home.

It is a failed system..

Tell that to my MIL who had had several goes at me for scratch cooking when I could "let the professionals" put a jar of sauce together.

She thinks that the only reason I scratch cook, is because we are poor and therefore can't afford "luxury food"

That's how I am (FT work, health issues)

Weekends I batch cook as I do enjoy it but weekdays I can manage either cereal or microwaving what I have in the freezer
I try and make sure I have easy stuff in but sometimes it's beyond tiredness and I just go to bed without eating

It is awful isn't it. I feel for you

Interesting. I wonder if in the past, convenience food were for the well off and poorer people had to cook from scratch. Whereas now, it's probably the other way round

Some time ago my dog was unwell and I asked my neighbour (who also dog sits for me) to boil her some rice as she was being made sick by her usual food.

He didn't know how to do it, and wasn't understanding the instructions. I suggested pasta instead and he didn't know how to do that either.

I think that's true to some extent.
We weren't what I would call poor when I was growing up but there wasn't a lot of money to spare and when I went to University and met people from different social backgrounds for the first time I realised that we were indeed poor by many people's standards.
My Mum cooked cheap cuts of meat beautifully, because she had the time to do it slowly. She made things like pies and puddings from scratch and as we didn't have a fridge or freezer til I was about 10 most food was bought and cooked on the same day. But I confess I didn't really appreciate that until I was an adult. As a child I got excited about crispy pancakes and a Vespa Curry was a real treat - my family would look at me as if I had lost my mind if I served that now! I saw bought baked goods as luxury too whereas in fact Mum's were much better.
I don't think the well off people I met at University ate that kind of convenience food either though, but they did eat stuff I'd never seen like steak and salmon. And chicken was a luxury food then too, for special occasions only in our house. Funny how times change.

Yes, I could make a sandwich probably when I was about 7. It was ridiculous.

Definitely and you can see this playing out on a global level now too, with richer people in developing countries eating junk food and developing the 'western' diseases of obesity, high blood-pressure etc. and rich people in western countries imitating traditional peasant foods to be healthier.

"Potatoes take 1 minutes to peel with a speed peeler, then boil, drain, season, large knob of butter and a hand mixer to mash. Otherwise, spin a knife around the equator of a couple of large potatoes, pop in a roasting dish and drizzle with oil, season and stick in oven. When done, scoop out the filling.

Sausages, in roasting dish, drizzle of oil, oven for 30 mins. Job done."

I would find this a HUGE faff, but then it was seeing my parents peeling potatoes all the time as a child that put me off both cooking AND having children. The very definition of drudgery.

The person on YouTube is not using YOUR pan and your stove the timings will never be perfect. It's very difficult to get the egg just how I like it.

Anyway, as I've said before, I prefer my eggs microwaved. Even then the timing is iffy. Sometimes 30 seconds is good, sometimes 35. My micro can't really do anything in between.

You just reminded me of a time where I boiled eggs and after opening the first I decided I wanted them a little more done, so popped the rest in the microwave for a few seconds.

They seemed fine...until I lightly tapped the first to open it and it exploded like a bomb - cats scattered in opposite directions and one had bits of egg on his tail that the other ate off him😂I'm half-tempted to repeat my experiment as a prank next time my brother's over...

I feel I need to shout something.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO PEEL POTATOES FOR MASH.

When you mash them the skins just mash into the potato and you don't notice them.

If you use a ricer, the potato will go through the ricer and the skins are left behind.

Interesting. I wonder if in the past, convenience food were for the well off and poorer people had to cook from scratch. Whereas now, it's probably the other way round

I think it goes in waves. I watched a thing years ago, they took 'celebrities' to the black county museum and had them live like victorians.

I was surprised that they bought pies for lunch because people working in factories didn't have time to go home for a meal and if they owned an oven then they might not be able to afford the fuel.

But on a global level, paying others for their labour in order to make your food - aka convenience food,is a privilege of sorts. Families in poorer countries have to make their own bread, and sometimes grow the grain to make that bread. Then if their harvest fails, they go hungry. There is no food bank to pick up the pieces.

DNiece (22) has no idea how to cook any veg that aren't frozen, or how to prep anything apart from a potato. The idea that you could peel a potato, cut it into long sections and deep fry it to make chips was an absolute revelation to her a couple of years ago.

She also has no idea how veg grow, thought broccoli grew on trees, and that Brussels sprouts were just baby cabbages.

I don’t know many people who don’t cook. However one of the mums at toddler group years ago was raving about a free parent and child cookery course that she was going to at her Surestart centre. The things they were cooking seemed pretty basic, but she was amazed at how easy it was to cook the basics rather than buy them (although that didn’t extend to pastry as they apparently showed her how to use ready made - no judgement from me, pastry is a faff). This was in an area in the countryside where the vast majority of playgroup attendees were from farming families where literally everything was cooked from scratch (and were horrified at the shop-bought pastry). But if there is a demand in that sort of area, there must be even more of a demand in cities.

I cook because my dm always cooked. My kids cook because they like to trash my kitchen because I now cook. If it’s not passed down through families I can easily see how people don’t place any importance on it.

@SchoolQuestionnaire

I read something a while ago about asylum seekers. It was a help centre of some sort. They had to re-educate people about the foods they were buying.

One example was orange squash, people thought it was healthy because of the colour.

I did a short term teaching IT skills to ESOL students. I try to make things practical so I gave them a shopping list to check prices at different supermarkets.

What stumped people was I put, 1 pint of milk. Because if you look at a supermarket app it says 568ml.

These were not stupid people, they had for whatever reason had to start a new life in a new country where the food is different and what was cheap where they have come from is expensive here.

If it’s not passed down through families I can easily see how people don’t place any importance on it.

Being passed down through families is still no guarantee that it'll be considered, important.

I see the hours my mum spends standing over the or faffing in the kitchen and think it looks like a total waste of time and effort 😂

I can cook and was taught to cook (and bake) quite well but I find it incredibly dull and soul-destroying so I pretty much never bother.

Oh dear.

I don't boil eggs in the microwave. I sort of poach them so I crack open into a mug and then make many holes with a fork. Without the holes, the egg could burst.

I had a chickpea explosion in the microwave once.

"But on a global level, paying others for their labour in order to make your food - aka convenience food,is a privilege of sorts. "

Yep. A privilege that gives you heart attacks and diabetes type 2. It's a bit of a scam really.