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

Not everybody wants or needs to have expert cooking skills. I don't know anyone who can't prepare food, for example, make a sandwich, pasta, baked potato and salad. No, its not sophisticated but a lot of people are happy eating like that.

Done that, I doesn’t work. We have hens and I think the eggs are just too fresh. Can normally get shells off when they are about two weeks old!
But who wants to eat two week old eggs! Yuck

I don’t think it’s about being taught to cook as such, it’s more you tend to replicate what you were brought up with. Both my parents cooked and have the attitude that it’s cheaper and more nutritious than ready meals, which has rubbed off on me - I know this isn’t always the case.

I imagine that because a lot of families are probably very busy these days, they rely more on convenience food, so that will become the norm for a lot of kids growing up and they won’t see the value in cooking themselves.

I don’t think this is the case at all. I think people are cooking more adventurous stuff than ever. You only have to look at Instagram and the insane amount of cooking reels aimed at young people. My teens are all amazing cooks, always hosting and trying out new nutritious recipes. They astound me in fact!
Then we have all the madly ambitious cookery programmes on tv, masterchef, junior masterchef, is it cake, bake off….
People are using global ingredients and doing it well, cooking for health , cooking for economy, it’s everywhere.

You seem to be getting a lot of stick OP. If you work with people who are struggling with cooking then why is that? Why don't they have the confidence or ability? Seems like you have an interesting insight based on your experience that is being lost here. Can you tell us more?

Another thing I'd add is that buying a jar of pasta sauce isn't necessarily so much more money. Lidl sell pasta sauces for about 80p. I don't think I could make it for scratch for that by the time I'd bought onion, tomatoes, garlic, oil and paid for the gas. Sometimes good basic ready food is the bargain.

I don't think I know a single person who can't cook.
And why does it have to be cheap?

YANBU
When DDs went to Uni, lots of students in the halls couldn't cook. At all. I bet their parents wouldnt admit that tho.
Cooking is a life skill

DNeice and Nephew (15 and 17) are all over cooking (especially ‘meal prep’), thanks to TikTok. Much more than I was at their age.

I don't think this is true. My gran (born in 1900) couldn't/wouldn't cook. My mum (born 1926) taught herself to cook and taught me. I became a home economics teacher in 1980 - most students not interested in cooking. I think it is much better now - my son is at uni and lots of students cook - I didn't teach him because he didn't want to know but hungry at uni he started learning and taught himself the basics and now he tries lots of different recipes. Really it's just a case of following a set of instructions.

It's not everywhere!!!
People living hand to mouth and relying on food banks aren't trying to replicate masterchef. They are trying to survive .....and the ones I'm helping learn to cook really don't have the skills needed to survive...... never peeled a potato, chopped an onion, cut up a carrot......it does make me sad.
Bur seeing people learn the skills to make a soup, a sauce, boil rice, make a basic curry is very rewarding.

Yes. If you can read, you can cook. In fact, I’m not sure you even need to be able to read, now there’s a YouTube video for everything.

@SingleDoubleWhippedClotted - sorry but I don't agree with this idea that people who 'live hand to mouth' cannot peel a potato and look in amazement at being able to make soup.

It’s nothing to do with being incapable, it is laziness.

If you can read then you can follow a recipe. It is not hard to boil pasta and cook a sauce from scratch but it is quicker and easier to throw a ready meal in a microwave.

These are real people I am working with right now. Shocking isn't it?

I didn't say all people living hand to mouth. I was referencing those I am working with

@SingleDoubleWhippedClotted - totally agree and I think you sound a bit patronising - perhaps it didn't come across very well in my post

People who are desperately broke don't have the resources to make soup and curry. You need the basic components plus store cupboard ingredients plus adequate gas or electricity to cook it, as well as usable kitchen equipment and facilities.

They wouldn't be 'amazed' at the sight of home made soup, but when you can microwave a cheap tin of it in about a minute at very little cost, they won't be cooking any either.

Chopping an onion is my kryptonite!

Obviously I can hack it into big chunks but "thinly slicing" the bloody things eludes me. I don't know how people learn those knife skills.

I think most people can put together a meal, it's more household management like how to not waste food, balanced nutrition and a variety of meals, reading labels carefully not just being taken in by marketing, and especially food safety like proper storage and handling of meat and cooked food that people need to learn. Speaking from experience living in various flatshares!

A big pot of soup is very cheap to make.

The ingredients are provided and they take the meal home Many come in the following week telling us that they have made something at home.

The issue is that people don't necessarily have to learn to cook these days.. we have cheap ready meals, convenience foods and takeaways in a way that was not available years ago. Back then you could only buy basic foods, you HAD to Learn to cook. You had no other choice.

I can cook. DH can cook. My kids can cook.

Taught by me and scouts and DS also does practical cookery Nat 5 at school.

Lots of people can cook.

And with so many cookery shows on tv and foodie shops and products etc we are not alone.

we can cook, my teen DC can cook. YABU

Virtually no recipe needs that. You can google ways to make it easier, but lumps will do in almost any recipe.

My Ds can cook and cook well . He doesn’t though he is in that teenage stage of biege food been the rightful food .

He will be able to once again when he morphs out to recognise the importance of food .

This is just about the people you work with then. A small part of society

Not a mumsnet issue at all