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!

I think cooking someone a good meal - good in terms of well prepared as opposed to a blowout - can be an act of love. It takes effort just the same. So
perhaps not bothering is the opposite?

Perfectly put.

I'm a good cook, but I cannot sew to save my life. I can ride a horse and maintain a clean and tidy home, but I cannot sing and my ability to learn languages is extremely poor.

We all have things we are naturally better off and whilst most of us can improve from where we are, some people will never be more than 'sufficient' at something.

My friend is rubbish at cooking. She just doesn't seem to acquire knowledge through experience that way, and always follows the recipe. Her casseroles turn out watery, her roasties come out uncrisp - she basically never learns to adapt her recipe or timings based on the equipment she has.

She freaked out at me licking a spoon to taste it during my own cooking for myself at uni, which kind of explains things - she never tastes and checks as she goes along!

It can be an act of love. But it doesn’t have to be. I’ve cooked about 6000-7000 dinners for my family at this point. I can assure you that a significant proportion of those were simply a necessity to keep everyone alive rather than opportunities to demonstrate my love for them- I find plenty of other ways to do that.

Your implication that those of us who are not making Michelin efforts for every meal we cook are demonstrating that we don’t love our families enough is offensive and hurtful.

This! I hate when my husband follows the recipe, I tell him, nope, on our steamer than needs 6m, not 4m - but he'll follow the packet, and run the cooking time up to the plating time. Then he'll find that the steamed stuff isn't ready and leave the oven stuff to overcook a bit whilst he steams a bit longer... Etc etc.

Hilarious!

How gloriously Victorian. Next you'll be telling us a woman's worth is determined by the quality of her gravy and the silence with which she serves it 🤭

It’s performative incompetence. With so much info everywhere, there’s no excuse. 🙄

I watch a lot of cookery shows and cooking videos. I still learn something new.

I like that in the current Jamie Oliver series he explains why he is doing something and how it works - something that Delia used to do.

I'm like that. I can't cook to save my life. HOWEVER, I am very appreciative whenever someone cooks for me. Your mom could definitely work on that!

It is a joke amongst the family that my mother didn't get the cookery gene (she got the ironing one instead, as the rest of us can't/despise ironing). She has very little interest in it, used to try doing half a dozen things at once, and is legendary for her cooking disasters (welding a pan to the hob while boiling an egg, getting a pan lid stuck when there was still water over the potatoes, burning pretty much everything at least once). We ate a lot of basic meals growing up, like meat and veg, cottage pie, corned beef hash, etc.

She has said that perhaps the natural result of this is that both of her children are good at cooking!

Some people are better than others at some things, and if you have more patience and interest in something, you're likely to enjoy and be better at it.

My act of love for DH is not making him eat anything I've attempted to cook

But you obviously CAN cook, and do, even if it’s not invariably as good as you’d like.

My pp was referring more to the sort of people who say they ‘can’t’ cook - and don’t, but who are not actually incapable, just unwilling to bother.

Nope. You are completely incorrect and very rigid in your thinking.

I mean, I’m really good at weightlifting and yoga and I’m very good at exercising to music. I’m physically fit, very coordinated and very musical so I can easily match movements to music, so I teach fitness classes. Sometimes in my classes I see people doing all sorts of weird movements, and some people are off the beat of the music. I give excellent instruction about how and where to move their bodies and I give good demonstrations. Some of my participants have been coming for years and still can’t do a decent squat or lunge or down dog and sometimes I think ‘How are you still not getting this? It’s easy!’ And then I remember that people are good at different things, because our brains are all different, and that’s what makes the world so interesting. What I appreciate is that those people still keep showing up to my classes, even if they’re a bit shit at it. They still come anyway and do their best and obviously get something out of it. That’s all that matters. They’re not harming anyone.

I can also sing great harmonies without having to practice or prepare, and I wonder why other people can’t sing in tune or pick out four-part harmonies easily. Or why they can’t sit at a piano and play a popular song by ear. And it’s because they aren’t musical; or perhaps they have the potential to be but they aren’t interested enough to try. Which is completely fair enough.

And so it really doesn’t matter if strangers on Mumsnet think other people are lazy cooks or can’t be bothered or aren’t showing enough love for their families or whatever other bullshit we’ve seen on this thread.

Calm down. Do you really think I made an ‘act of love’ out of every meal I’ve prepared over the past decades? But at times, it CAN BE.
I was ill for four months, and my DH did all the household jobs. He definitely went over and beyond throughout…. Because he loved me.

Don’t patronise me.
However, maybe I should pity you for not yet having had a relationship that revolves around mutual ‘giving’.

Oh I posted earlier in the thread that DH does all the cooking and I do all the cleaning so we both "give" thanks!

I just dont think cooking all the time means you love your partner more is all, because thats silly isnt it?

YABU - most people don’t have time to spend an hour faffing about on 1 meal. I am a pretty competent cook but I work full time and have an 11 year old. I don’t have time to be in the kitchen for an hour I do most of the cooking as I hate washing up, so that is DH’s job!

Yiu seem very harsh

I am calm, but thank you for your concern.

No, I don’t ’really think’ every meal you’ve prepared is an act of love, because I haven’t thought about it all. I don’t know you and I don’t care what you cook or how you feel about it. I’ve given it 0 seconds of thought.

You suggested that when people don’t make huge efforts with cooking that this is ‘the opposite’ of showing love by cooking a nice meal, ie, they are demonstrating how little they care about the person. That is what I responded to- because it’s absolute bollocks.

I’ve no idea what point you are trying to make about your DH’s work during your illness. My OH did the same for me when I was busy looking after elderly dying family members and then collapsing under grief for nearly a year. He stepped up and did the housework and childcare and cooking, because he loves me. But none of that has anything to do with people being good or bad cooks.

Most of us who admit to being bad at cooking still cook for our families anyway. That is an act of ‘giving’, whether the end result is delicious or not. There are also very many ways that partners make each other feel loved without ever cooking them an impressive meal.

Yes, and I drive any such teacher bonkers because I'm dyspraxic and my body does not do the moving properly thing.

I'm a good cook though. And you know what I'm brilliant at? Presentations. I can create content that really engages the audience with the themes, surprises them, makes them laugh. I can create pithy, memorable slogans that people repeat to me months later about really dull subjects. I can do a presentation to a group of senior leaders and confidently pick out what matters to them and get them onside.

But I couldn't dance if you paid me.

I don't understand why people think cooking is special, just because we have to eat several times a day, it doesn't mean we starve if it's tasteless mush.

Absolutely @TheNinkyNonkyIsATardis , and I want you to know that I value the uncoordinated folks in my classes just as much as the coordinated super fitties!

You sound excellent at presentations. I wouldn’t be any good at that at all and luckily never have to do them!

You never once thought to say "Let me cook dinner mum, because I really enjoy it?" You'd rather watch your poor mum get flustered and then post condescending threads on mumsnet wow

You sound ungrateful and critical.