Are some people rubbish cooks or is it just weaponised incompetence?

[Starling78]

PhD student currently living back at home (hopefully not for long). It’s just DM and I. I pay board, help out around the house etc and we generally get on well.

DM has never been a great cook. I grew up labelled as a fussy child but in reality this is more likely due to the fact I was raised on plain/beige meals that could be quickly shoved in the oven and ready meals.. I do most of the cooking/grocery shopping/meal planning etc for both of us as I genuinely enjoy it and find it useful as a way of de-stressing. DM will occasionally make dinner, usually just the simple meat & two veg, spaghetti bolognese, stir fry type stuff that I would count as fool proof. No matter how easy the recipe is she will carelessly burn something, overcook things, undercook it, forget key ingredients… I could go on. Invariably if I dare mention a thing she’ll then get flustered, refuse to eat and tell me I should’ve just done it myself. It’s been like this for as long as I can remember (only child).

Drives me absolutely insane as I will easily spend an hour carefully prepping a nice risotto or homemade pasta dish with 0 thanks and criticism on any minor details she deems wrong or is too fussy to eat!

Some people really are bad.

i once stayed with a friend who managed to burn boiled potatoes. His “cooking” skills were legendary

Are you always great at everything?
Some people are rubbish at cooking like I'm rubbish at football.

She lets you live in her house, maybe you could hold off the criticisms for a bit.

Most people can cook something but lack confidence to keep trying

So it's okay for you to criticise what she cooks but you expect unending thanks if you cook for her. Seems a bit unfair.

I think it’s more that some people just can’t multitask doing several things at once - eg mashing spuds whilst sorting the meat for a cottage pie. Some people like me can’t do long division despite being an SEO civil servant and being shown how to do it annually. I also can’t catch or throw a ball properly, or make Yorkshire puddings despite being a former trained chef.

We can’t all be great at everything.

Some people are just terrible cooks. She sounds touchy with it.

Do you have to eat together? I might be trying to swerve that more often!

My dm has always been a shite cook. We strongly suspect she has adhd.

’Unending thanks’ is a rather large reach from what it says in my post.

Often times we will eat separate meals. I’ll cook something proper meanwhile she’s often happier with a microwave meal. It makes no sense time wise or financially as it’s just the two of us and we get home at similar times but it at least avoids conflict

I would say im a rubbish cook. I can do a nice pot of soup and my late son loved my lasagne (i hate lasagne) but generally im not very good, even following a recipe.

I used to to think my macaroni cheese was ok, until said son came home drunk one night and told me "mum, your macaroni's fucking shite" 😅

Took him till he was 22ish and drunk to tell me that, and he never ate it again!

Now in the family its known as "fucking shite macaroni"

I'm genuinely awful at cooking. I've identified a few reasons why over the years. When I'm the kitchen I find myself getting distracted by other things that I think need doing 'ooh, I'll just sort those letters out' 'oh I'll just fold up the washing, or wipe the windowsill' so I end up burning things or forgetting to set timers. There is a LOT of burnt food.

I don't really know how to season things, DH (main cook) will taste things and think ooh that needs salt, or basil... I don't really know what to add, I know that sounds stupid but I don't.

I also am absolutely terrified of giving people food poisoning or getting a funny tummy so end up cooking meat a lot longer than you should do, just because I don't want to get ill. Makes meat pretty tough at times 🙈

I'm great at the slow cooker though I have a whole 3 meals I make in there 🙈

I love cooking and was taught from a young age by both grandmothers (one of whom was a cook for a large family house). I cook most meals from scratch and love baking. In comparison, my Mum is very much a convenience cook and if it goes in the microwave, all the better. We grew up with cast iron stomachs, let's just say. Most meals came from a jar/packet in some shape or form though to be fair she always cooked veg from fresh.

I'm not very good either and I worry about raw meat etc. Definitely wouldn't want to spend an hour cooking one meal.

All my slow cooker meals taste the same 🤣 I use it for convenience as often working late, but whatever I cook is called “slow cooker something”

I find cooking boring and just a ‘means to an end’ takes so long and it’s gone in 20 mins. So I tend to just cook chilli, soups, pasta. I also often read while I’m doing it so might forget stuff 😂 I can cook well if I try, just don’t really bother. I think that’s probably the same as people who are ‘bad at cooking’ they just aren’t interested so don’t put in much effort. It’s not hard to do, just boring.

I can make decent nutritious meals, but I cba to spend an hour on it. And I have no instinct for what goes with what.

No correlation as far as I know? I am naturally quite good at cooking, and love a cooking challenge, to make something complicated or that I've not tried to make before. I have ADHD. Don't get me wrong, I am crap at a lot of things too including geography and doing taxes (I've had my own business for over a decade and still have to 're-learn' every year, it just doesn't 'go in'). But cooking, I learned as a child and enjoy continuing to.

It's a shame really as I am a self-certified gym rat so my diet is very limited! It would be a more useful skill if I was more of a 'foodie'.

My mum was not a very good cook. Very plain meals eg pork chop with boiled potatoes and veg (although to be fair that kind of meal was fairly popular/common in the 80s). She wasn’t into food really at all; not an adventurous eater and had various gastric issues over the years. She also didn’t really have enough time to cook properly (FT job in a senior role, two kids, carer to elderly father, member of the PTA, Guide leader etc etc- she barely had time for a coffee let alone cook a meal for the family). I also strongly suspect she had ADHD.

Anyway, I’ve inherited her lack of cooking skill and her ADHD. I am a lot less busy than she was and unlike her, I’m really into food, so I should be able to be good at it but I’m not.

DD also has ADHD and is a rubbish cook.

So it appears to be genetic in my family. The good news is that my son is a good cook so at least there’s one in the family.

Maybe she doesn’t like your carefully tended risotto. We all have different tastes and enjoy eating different things. I also think cooking is something most people can learn to a functional level but not everyone can make truly delicious food. It’s as much art as science. In any event, if someone is kind enough to cook for me, I’m not going to criticise their efforts.

And in my case it isn’t weaponised because despite my lack of skill, I don’t seem to have been able to get out of cooking 99% of the meals over the last 20 years. Fucking hate it and can’t wait to quit.

I'm an indifferent cook. And 30 years of fecking cooking for an ungrateful family have absolutely lost any love i might have had for it.

I'm ADHD and find it soooooo boring. Hours of prepping, chopping, following recipes and then it's scarfed down in 10 mins.

I'd happily live on soup, cereal and fruit for the rest of my life.

I want to be a good cook, but I'm really not. We survive on those fool proof meals you mentioned.
If I had more time and more money, maybe I'd take more risks but I like a pp said, I've no idea what goes together well or what flavour is missing if something doesn't taste quite right.

My partner is more to the autistic side of things. He is a brilliant cook in that he's very organised about planning, shopping, food prep, enjoys the mundane chopping etc. Follows the recipe to the letter. Always turns out well. So happy to have met him late in life.

I’m not a good cook. I’m also not fussed one way or another about food.

For me, food is about as interesting to think about, plan and prepare as a long car journey on a crowded motorway to a destination I don’t particularly like.

When I’m in the company of foodies chatting animatedly about recipes and restaurants and menus and ingredients, it feels to me like a bunch of old men chuntering about roadworks on the A14 sliproad, or the new timetable for the Sunday rail replacement service.

Just devastatingly, painfully boring.

I acknowledge this probably makes me the weird one.

But I’d love it if someone else did the cooking, and I’d never criticise or nitpick.