Why can't British people cook, despite all the bloodty cookery programmes, magazines and cookbooks?

[moondog]

Yes, I know one or two MNers will come on all huffy about how fabulous they are at cooking but generally speaking we don't have a bloody clue do we?

I know hundreds of people from all different kinds of backgrounds and could count on one hand those who can put a decent meal together.
Why???

ok.

in urbanised parts of France yes they may, but MUCH of France, and Italy, and Spain,a nd Greece aren't so affected. Stuff grows willy-nilly - was in the Greek Pelopense mountians recently - covered in herbs and fruit just asking to be picked!

Also, we are more "Americanised" so we are invited to eat batter stuff out of a 'bucket' FGs.

I agree with moondog (with the caveat that I know many good British cooks, more in an older generation though).

And I agree with Pan that it's largely about the shopping.

I was at the market the other day and heard an American chap asking the cheese stall person 'This goat's cheese, what's it like?'

She answered 'Oh, it's very popular, we sell a lot of it'.

Erm, any idea how it tastes at all???

The young French I saw in the (rural) supermarkets recently were definitely buying into Americanised/convenience food. Big Time. The French (and otehr Europeans?) are only about 2 generations behind us, I'd say.

probably yes. A wonderful thought.

Stupid generalisation in OP.

(haven't read rest so sorry if you've already come back to apologise for the ridiculous generalisation/stereotyping)

I can cook, DH does most and he can definitely cook. DCs can cook (with supervision). I guess that means that the rest of my town lives on takeaways.

The allotment has been a revelation as we have bought few vegetables this year.

Perhaps this is the problem. Prior to getting the allotment we were eating a lot of processed vegetables. Now they are processed but we do the processing. DCs know to comment how tasty the vegetables are (or face the wrath of a mother with gardeners hands).

Yes, we have an allotment as well. It does help.

I've just thought about my MIL, who loves to give me recipes from old Stork adverts. It's all based on how high the cakes rise, how reliable they are, how good they look. The taste is never mentioned. It's about cooking as a keeping-up-with-the-Joneses display thing driven by commercial food interests, not a skill or a pleasure.

When I was last in Italy (some years ago now) and ended up watching TV rather a lot, it struck me that the adverts were solidly for stuff looking remarkably like Findus Crispy Pancakes. They need to watch out.

Everyone I know can cook.

It must be the circles you move in Moondog. My friends all cook well, without exception! Also agree with the poster who wrote "Italian restaurants in Italy tend to be... well kinda boring and predictable" - having just returned from a week in Italy where the food just wasn't a highlight!

That article was spot on TeamEdwards imo

everyone i know cooks, and tbh moony i find it hard to believe that your friends and family don't cook as well.

I learnt to cook when I was 30.

I realised that if it didn't come in a packet with instructions, then with the exception of a jacket potato / boiling rice / pasta - I had no clue.

I was never taught to cook at home. As a child I rarely ever saw a vegetable or a piece of fruit, in my teens I just ate rubbish, in my twenties I lived with a half decent chef, my now dh has erm ishoos with food (very bland palate, dislikes almost everything most of us would consider 'normal') so I had to, finally, learn.

I do a nice pasta sauce, nicer than anything you could buy in a jar, nice risottos of varying sorts (although I admit I prefer them overcooked!) and I can do fish and savoury rice, fish pasta bake (much nicer than it sounds!) and I am getting to grips with vegetable couscous (can't get the herbs right) and veggie omelette (curse you, omelette, why must you turn into vegetable scarmbled egg?)

I can do recipes. If I'd realised it was so easy I'd have done it years ago.

I can't cook.
Its just not something I have a feel for. Would like to be someone who enjoyed food preparation, but I just don't.
Don't have those instincts for flavours, cooking times etc.
I get no enjoyment out of it. Anything complicated - or even uncomplicated meals that just dont feel familiar to me - is stressful.
Lots of other things I'm very good at and enjoy though
Having said all that I love food and eat well. The things I do cook come out mostly fine and sometimes brilliant (roast dinners, steak, lasgne, salads, pasta, curry) and I cook veg well you know, not overcooking, buying fresh etc. But I'm best with simple things - Fish/chicken cooking in the oven and veg steaming. No real art in that but still tastes nice.

yes it is a generalisation from moomie, but essentially true from experience. A few posters on here may be pretty dexterous in the kitchen, as it were, but with the media investment we suffer, and the options we have, we just don't do it as a nation. S. Euros may be being seduced slowly by the convenience industry, but the lack of respect we have for food here is just another manifestation of our national chavistic tendencies! ( judgey-pants fitting v. well this evening!).

But it's true!

"while we are busy watching Nigella on our screens, the French are actually busy in the kitchen, cooking2

Yes they are - the same 10 meals on rotation that they always cook (see TeamEdward's post)

Aitch,my fami;ly are superb cooks. It's more non family i refer to here.

IMHO it is more a generation thing than a geographic one. My mum learn to cook in school and with her parents so did I but I am pretty sure that my own DCs cooking lessons will not be as "intense" as ours were.We had a full morning a week in high school doing cooking AND nutrition (girls only though I feel really old when typing that!). I think I will be lucky if DD1 who stats high school tomorrow comes with a couple of biscuits every now and then.

Forgot to add, and my niecees and nephews who still lives in the country do far less cooking in school than we did, according to my sister.. I think it is a shame as it really did give me a taste for cooking and was definitely good in terms of learning to be organised in a kitchen.